Last year Dark Horse ran a boastful promotion talking about how we do vampires right, citing the many bloodthirsty maniacs running through our offices. Around that time, PC Cast called me up and said, Wanna do comics of House of Night, that uber-popular teen supernatural romance series me and my daughter Kristin write, which is heavily steeped in mythology and partly inspired by your pal Joss Whedon? To which we said, Yes.
This led Whedonspawn Editrix Sierra Hahn to line up an incredible roster of artists to bring PC and Kristin’s world of teen vampire witches to life, tracing the origins of vampirism through lush, mythic landscapes, in contrast to the small, personal, coming-of-age story of the House of Night’s top student, Zoey Redbird, a young vampire thrown out of her home by parents horrified to learn what their daughter really is ... We got some of that Joss Whedon-style social commentary happening here. Then Jonathan Case came to the party, fresh off his double hitter with graphic-novels-of-the-year Green River Killer and Dear Creature, and he was joined by Joëlle Jones, Jenny Frison, Eric Canete, Karl Kerschl, Daniel Krall, and newcomer Josh Covey in creating a positively gorgeous book (coming in July).
PC confessed to me that she has a thing for Spike, the bad-boy vampire from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so I was pretty excited to show her the first Spike: A Dark Place cover by Jenny Frison, the cover artist from House of Night. Her response was not suitable for this family-friendly venue. While House of Night does not replicate the Buffy/Angel/Spike triangle the way Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series does, I’d say the whole paranormal romance genre would not be what it is without the love triangle Joss created.
The same can be said for Dark Horse’s summer schedule, with Buffy and Angel & Faith hitting their teens (monthly ’til September 2013!) just as the Spike series debuts this August, and Willow coming up in the fall (November 7, 2012, to be precise). As Spike heads off into the darkness to explore what it really means to be a vampire with a soul, and Angel continues on a quest that may simply be a narcissistic disaster in the making, Buffy is left with neither of her vampires of choice by her side, as she fights a new breed of creeps: After setting the status quo for hunky vamps, Joss’s world is currently overrun by a grotesque crew of bloodthirsty, animalistic vamps. A recent writers summit was held on the topic of how these unintelligent vamps sire, i.e., spawn new vamps, and we came up with something pretty nasty. Not at all sexy. I don’t see our zompires spurring a new direction in young adult novels, although, you know, kids these days ...
That said, no one holds a candle to the horrifying vampires Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan came up with in their novel series The Strain Trilogy—and Dark Horse has really done them right, in the way that David Lapham and Mike Huddleston have visualized them in the comics adaptation of The Strain. As I write this, I just this morning got up to date on the comics. These guys pull no punches. We’ve all seen pallid skin on a vampire, strange things happening around their mouths and teeth, but I thought the hair loss and weird bloating was an interesting addition. It’s only the beginning. I’ll leave it to you to discover these significant horrors, because The Strain #5 (June 13) provides a great jumping-on point, with the concentration-camp backstory of the aged hero, and his early run-ins with the villain, of whom we’ve only caught glimpses ...
No look at Dark Horse’s horror comics would be complete without Mike Mignola. While his pal del Toro has taken classic vampires and given them a modern, technological spin in The Strain, Mignola and collaborators Chris Golden and Ben Stenbeck keep the traditional vampire where he fits most nicely, in the past. Baltimore explores an alternate-history version of Europe, where unprecedented bloodshed from the Great War has brought a plague of the undead, which could lead to the awakening of the mysterious Red King. Lord Henry Baltimore blames himself for the vermin that first wiped out his family in England, and have now spread over Europe. In the new hardcover graphic novel Baltimore: The Curse Bells (June 13), our hero takes on real-life occult high priestess Madame Blavatsky and a coven of vampire nuns, while in the new short series Dr. Leskovar’s Remedy (June 20), he faces off with a madman bent on curing vampirism, though his methods only bring out greater monstrosity, including his own ...
Whether you’re looking for pretty teen vamps coming to terms with their unlife, hunky corpse protagonists, mindless predators, or bloated albino eunuchs with prehensile tongues, boy have we got the vampires for you.
SCOTT ALLIE
Editor