In the 16 years since Buffy the Vampire Slayer first stalked the airwaves, the trope of the teenage girl falling for an ancient vampire has grown from clever inversion to cliché (see: Twilight, Vampire Diaries, et al.). First Nations author Drew Hayden Taylor stakes a claim on this overcrowded milieu, adding a twist by moving the story to a reservation. The Night Wanderer was commissioned as a play (titled A Contemporary Gothic Indian Vampire Story) by Toronto’s Young People’s Theatre in the 1990s, then adapted as a YA novel published by Annick Press in 2007. Reading this graphic novel version left me wondering why yet another adaptation was required.

A mysterious man named Pierre L’Errant arrives at the fictional Otter Lake reserve with an aversion to sunlight and a fondness for maple syrup. He takes up residence in a basement apartment and strikes up an odd friendship with his landlord’s tempestuous teenage daughter, Tiffany. L’Errant is really a 300-year-old Anishinaabe vampire from the region, now looking to find peace after decades of savaging Europe. Tiffany is hoping for some peace of her own as she encounters the typical obstacles of growing up, plus a racially motivated breakup. How these two characters come to help each other is the central knot of the tale.

While it’s refreshing to see First Nations people represented in a graphic novel, the culture has little impact on the plot other than the characters’ appearances and a few Obijwa phrases that pepper the dialogue. Even the intriguing lore – tales of two wolves battling for a human heart, the myth of the Wendigo – barely affects the story’s outcome. 

The digitally rendered art appears realistic yet oddly flat, giving even the most dramatic scenes a lifeless quality. So much more could have been done with the medium: playing the protagonist’s haunted monologue against the visuals; pushing the interiority of the characters; presenting some contrast or familiarity between the two leads. Without these elements, the results are underwhelming.