(cover to issue 1 of Innovation’s adaptation of Rice’s Interview with the Vampire from the early 90s)

This new adaptation by artist Ashley Marie Witter will take a slightly different tack though – rather than a straight, traditional comics adaptation of the existing text it will instead rework it somewhat, following the same events but this time from the perspective of the vampire child Claudia rather than original narrator Louis. I must confess I have mixed feelings about this – Interview has been one of the classic Gothic horror novels since it first appeared back in the mid 70s and is, along with Stoker’s Dracula in the 19th century, one of the few books to pretty much set the standard for a whole genre. While I was put off by her later Vampire Chronicles (to me they became too large, cumbersome and really self indulgent and I reluctantly stopped following them), the original novels in the series, especially Interview and The Vampire Lestat, remain wonderful, lush, romantic, Gothic vampire novels. And I can’t help but wonder, is this new adaptation just a chance to try and milk more money from manga readers following the runaway success of the Twilight graphic novel and the whole teen girl vampire fascination?

(a sketch for the vampire child Claudia from Interview with the Vampire  by Ashley Marie Witter)

Well, while I am sure Yen will have one eye on the hopefully large sales (it is a business, after all), I’m prepared to put away my cynical hat for the moment until I have a chance to judge it for myself (probably in 2012). And I think the fact that they are reworking the perspective in the book is actually a good sign, that they have thought about this and how they can make a 35 year old book fresh and relevant to today’s readers, especially the younger and often female audience this is most likely to attract, which may in turn lead them to the original novel. Given that Claudia is the most achingly tragic of Rice’s characters in the series, a child brought over into vampirism, growing older as the decades pass, into a bitter woman on the inside but eternally trapped in a child’s body  on the outside (and with the knowledge that can never change, she is locked into this state for eternity), and that her character has seeds in Rice’s own family tragedy, I imagine this may be rather more than a slap a cute manga girl in to lure in the readers approach, given the complex and tragic nature of the new narrator. Certainly gives me the impression they are seriously thinking about how to bring the tale to a new audience rather than a lazy, straight adaptation, which is a good sign. It’s going to be very interesting for those of us who love the original work to see how this manga adaptation works out. Meantime Yen Press has the eagerly anticipated second volume of Young Kim’s manga adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series coming this October.

(cover for Young Kim’s adaptation of the second volume of Twilight, coming from Yen Press this autumn)

Publisher’s Weekly has a short interview with Ashley about adapting the iconic novel for comics:

“PWCW: What was the most difficult part of working on an adaptation like this?

AMW: So far the hardest thing is getting over that apprehensive feeling of, “Can I do this book justice?” Years ago I had the opportunity of touring New Orleans during a choir solo and ensemble competition. We actually got to visit some of the places where Interview with the Vampire took place. Having actually been to several of those locations, you get a real sense of them in Anne’s work. So when I work on this adaptation I really hope to capture the essence and feeling of an 18th century New Orleans .”

(a panel from the comics review of Romero’s Martin, by and (c) Adam Cadwell, published on the Electric Sheep site)

(art from the TCAF preview issue of Blood Blokes by and (c) Adam Cadwell)

Who was to blame for the mass hysteria which had swept through hundreds of local children? Could it be the bogeyman character their parents threatened them with if they misbehaved – the Iron Man who would creep out from the nearby steelworks? Frightening imagery from the Bible they were made to read in Sunday School (drowning most of humanity, wiping out entire cities, raising a dead man, throwing people to lions)? No, it must, of course, be the fault of the media – in this case those clearly evil horror comics like Tales From the Crypt which those godless Americans were clearly forcing on our children to corrupt them. Two of the childhood participants speaking to the BBC as adults pointed out they had never even seen any of these imported comics in Glasgow in the 50s much less read many of them and academics here (as in other cases in other countries) pointed out that it was all nonsense with no evidence comics provoked any sort of problem whatsoever, but as in those other countries (including the US – remember “The Seduction of the Innocent”?) media, public and political numpties went mad with it and demanded ‘something be done’. Won’t someone please think of the children, as Reverend Loveljoy’s insufferable wife would squeal in the Simpsons. Common sense, proper research, who needs them?

(cover to Gemstone’s lovely deluxe hardback reprinting of Tales From the Crypt Volume 1, part of their EC classics archives – once the scourge of parents, now highly collectable)

It may seem funny and quaint to us in 2010 – how silly and naive children were then, back in a different era, not like the kids of today who if anything know too much before their time from multiple media. And how silly the public reaction. Except it had a serious effect – as the article points out the government responded with the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act 1955. And today we still have hysterical groups of ‘concerned parents’, teachers, or religious groups continually demanding some sort of media be banned, which has huge potential implications for the freedom of expression and freedom of speech in a culture. We only have to think of religious groups who demand Harry Potter be removed from schools and libraries lest it lead innocent children into dark magics and Satanism or even attacking books like Catcher in the Rye (yes, even after all these decades).Naturally none of those crying for this book or comic or game or album or even play to be banned have ever read or listened to them first…

And of course today the hysteria – aided in no small fashion by the dreadful gutter press of red-top tabloid hack journalism which so delights in a public outrage to shout about – has bigger targets than kid’s comics, being more worried about ‘the web’ and video games. At least until time passes and they find something else to have what Dick Hebdige called Folk Devils and Moral Panics over (meantime the Moral Panics of my youth, the ‘video nasties’ which would apparently melt our brains, even though most of us kids had sneakily seen them and found them funny, are almost all now available uncut on DVD years after being banned, half of them not even rating an 18 certificate these days and seen as cheesy fun, not incitement to murderous rampages).

As I said, it would all be amusing – and in fact is is somewhat amusing – except for the fact that the media/public hysteria which feeds into this sort of story leads politicians to jump on the bandwagon and pass legislation which affects freedoms. Newsflash, moral guardians, there are worse things by far in the Classics – god only knows what the body count is in the Iliad as another hero feels his skin pierced by ‘whetted bronze’, his spirit dragged off to Hades bemoaning his lost life.  And as for the comics themselves, well, personally I read a ton of reprints of old Creepy and Uncanny Tales and other horror comics as a boy, along with delightfully violent comic strips in British publications penned by the likes of Pat Mills and I grew up to hardly mass murder anyone at all and strangely enough most of my millions of fellow readers did likewise. And if that reading did warp my fragile little mind then I’m eternally grateful for that or, god forbid, I might have grown up to be a tabloid journalist or even worse, a politician ranting about evil media damaging our children…

by Joe Garden, Anita Serwacki, Janet Ginsburg, Chris Pauls, and Scott Sherman

Square Peg

A sure sign that Christmas is coming – novelty adult stocking filler books begin to dominate the shelves of your local book megastore. Which explains the existence of The New Vampire’s Handbook. It’s one of those books that come just in time for Christmas; mildly diverting, topical and marketed for whatever trend has been identified as hot this year.

This is just the sort of book that you’ll think about getting for that difficult to buy for uncle who you happen to know rather likes all that vampire stuff. Unwrapped on Christmas morning, it will lie on the coffee table for days alongside this years QI book and something by Ricky Gervais until, rooted to the sofa by too much turkey/alcohol/chocolate, they will pick it up, half-heartedly read it and then shelve it, never to be read again. Expect to see it populating charity shop shelves from January.

From the press blurb:

In today’s world of vampire-obsessed pop culture, misinformation abounds. A newly turned vampire who looks to movies and novels for answers to everlasting life’s questions will inevitably be reduced to a smoldering pile of dust. So whom can you, a neophyte immortal, trust to provide reliable information and proven strategies for leading your best and bloodiest existence? The Vampire Miles Proctor, editor of The New Vampire’s Handbook. In this definitive guide, the newly turned will find:

• a head-to-toe look at your vampiric body: how to harness your new powers to dispatch mortal enemies, maintain your fangs, and embrace your vampirosexuality
• methods for luring prey, faking your way through meals, approaching other vampires, and creating a four-hundred-year financial plan
• tips on acting your “age,” behaving appropriately if you see a human you knew decades ago, and dealing with epic vampire feuds
• essential advice for blending in with the masses, from finding a coven to avoiding the media (and mirrors) to staying on top of the latest fashion trends
• the joy of scrapbooking

Cheap, exploitative cash-in? Of course. But what else is Christmas about if it isn’t about spending ridiculous amounts of money of presents for people that they’ll never really bother with and certainly don’t need?

Anyway, The New Vampire’s Handbook is just the sort of book you expect it to be, seeing as it’s written by some of the folks behind the Onion and The Daily Show. A tongue in cheek look at what it is to be a vampire, the new day to day (or night to night even) problems you will face as one of the vampiric undead.

Except it’s perhaps not as funny as you may have expected. Which rather surprised me. I was hoping it would at least make me laugh and smile a fair few times but there were whole sections at the start where, if I didn’t know from the press release and the authors backgrounds, Id be struggling to think of this as anything more than a semi-serious Twilight cash-in. I know that they’re obviously trying to go for a deadpan sense of humour thing here, reflecting and satirising the super-seriousness of Vampire culture, but deadpan humour still needs some humour in there to make it work. And there didn’t seem too much of it in the early chapters.

It does get better as you get further into the book, perhaps the writers were settling into character, perhaps I was just a little less picky, perhaps both of us had consumed more alcohol by this point, who knows. There were smiles, there was even the occasional giggle. But it’s still no more than a moderately funny stocking filler for the Twilight / True Blood / (insert generic vampire based pop culture reference here) generation.

Richard Bruton nails up wild garlic to his front door every night before retiring (and Wolfsbane on full moons)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoXUY7XGVSU