@’s by Joshua Hale Fialkov
On I, VAMPIRE, LAST OF THE GREATS, & DR. WHO!!!
AMBUSH BUG (BUG): Alright, so I’m here with Joshua Hale Fialkov. He is one of my favorite writers doing comics today and he has a book out from DC right now called I, VAMPIRE. Can you tell folks about the concept of I, VAMPIRE and what attracted you to that story?JOSHUA HALE FIALKOV (JHF): Sure. I, VAMPIRE is about two vampires, Andrew Bennet and Mary Stewart, also known as “Mary Queen of Blood.” Andrew turned Mary into a vampire five hundred years ago. When Andrew was turned into a vampire he remained as himself, a goodhearted, kind man. When a sweet, innocent and repressed Mary was turned into a vampire, she became Queen of the Vampires. She went totally evil. So fast forward; these two have been kind of locked in battle with each other for five hundred years. Andrew and Mary are still deeply, deeply in love with each other, but that being said Mary wants to kill all of the humans and Andrew is not a fan, so they are constantly at odds with each other. As I, VAMPIRE starts what we find out is that for the past few decades or so vampires have been living in hiding. Essentially, they realize if they can, the vampire hunters will leave them alone and everything will be fine. So they’ve been living these secret lives. Behind closed doors they eat, but they don’t “feed”, so to speak. Well then five years ago superheroes appeared, right? So then their first reaction is “Oh God, please don’t kill us. Please don’t kill us.” So then they start realizing “These freaks are walking around out there. All of these freaks with their powers and we are better than all of that. We are awesome! Why do we have to have the bulk of society on us?”
So essentially the book starts with Mary telling Andrew that the vampires have taken all they can take and won’t take it anymore, it’s time for vampires to fight back. So she starts a revolution…their entire political message is how much they want to eat people. So the book starts with a gigantic vampire terrorist attack that has thousands of bodies appear on the streets of Boston, except it turns out those bodies aren’t so dead after all; in fact they are vampires, and the book spirals madly out of control from there.BUG: Yeah, and I really liked the last issue that you did, I think it was #4, with Constantine and the vampire in the bar and how they had that interaction and how he sort of trusted him with this power and then he kind of ended up abusing it later on. It was a great kind of done in one story I think. Are the stories going to be more contained like that or is this going to be an ongoing struggle for them?
JHF: It’s both. So I want to see a mix of both. I think all the best books are a mix of both and the best kind of storytelling is when you constantly have these great little one off stories. The next four issues are…we’re doing two issues where Batman shows up, so #5 and #6 are Batman which leads directly into our first full on crossover with JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK in #7 and #8.
BUG: Oh, great.
JHF: So the next four issues are going to be one giant story that by the end the status quo of the book is totally upended…the book is going to be a radically different book while hopefully preserving everything that people like about the book so far. At least that’s the point, I mean who knows? (laughs)
BUG: One of the things I asked about at the beginning of this whole story was that it does seem like there are all of these massacres going on. All of these vampires are basically killing whole towns and things like that and the heroes haven’t really reacted to that yet. It looks like you’re going to be addressing that in the next couple of issues.JHF: Yeah and it’s also…by the end of issue #4 Andrew says to Constantine “What happened last night,” meaning those terrorist attacks…it’s all…the book is taking place over a very contained amount of time, so you have those first terrorist attacks, then we have Constantine and then Batman is literally that night, so it’s really like 24 hours after these terrorist attacks we have our first meeting of a superhero with vampires.BUG: Cool.
JF: That’s the funny thing about Sheila and Brooks, you get sort of trapped in a timeline of it all.
BUG: Yeah, and I guess once Batman is involved then all hell breaks loose.
JF: Yeah, things get messy really fast, because you know we can expect sort of the scientific side of what’s going on in the DC universe and even once you look at the Animal Man stuff and the Swamp Thing stuff, while it’s magic, it still has a natural and scientific base, but vampires? That idea to me that Batman is like this man of reason and man of science and then suddenly you’re like “Oh, also these magical things from fairytales are totally real.” “These things that everyone thinks are made up, yeah, they’re real.” It could be just a terrorist attack that you assume it’s a super villain. Why would you assume it’s vampires?
BUG: Sure. Well, it seems like to me reading it that you were heavily inspired by the kind of Francis Ford Coppola BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA with the vampires taking all of these different forms as they are more like shape shifters and things like that. Was that a strong influence for you? JF: Yeah, I mean DRACULA…the real actual Bram Stoker’s Dracula as opposed to Francis Ford Coppola’s BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA…the actual Bram Stoker’s Dracula they do everything that my vampires do. The one sort of imprint I focused on is they can walk in the sun. It’s implied in the book that he can walk in the sun. There’s like an extended sequence of him stalking Mina and while he’s stalking her, he’s sort of trapped in human form and so I extrapolate from that and I think that’s okay. I’m okay with that. It’s funny, between BUFFY and ANGEL and UNDERWORLD and all of that stuff, like what vampires can do…vampires are innately weak leading ultimately to the TWILIGHT version of vampires, which is like “Really?” They play baseball apparently.
BUG: Yeah, they’re weaker than humans!
JF: Yeah. I wanted to go back to this sort of gothic thing. Gothic horror is about monstrosity dressed up, right? It’s about this idea of monsters wearing people’s clothes and so the idea for me of having them able to control their form, especially the more advanced and developed vampires, like the idea that…it appears that Andrew and Mary do it effortlessly, because they are so old and they have been around for so long. Then we start seeing it from the other vampires, the other vampires are being taught these skills. I look at it almost like terrorist training camps, like they are being trained by other vampires. It’s the idea of “Look, you can do this. Look at this amazing thing you can do!” So if he could teach him to do it, that means Mary can teach people to do it, which means there’s going to be a lot of problems for everybody involved.
BUG: Let’s talk a little bit about the artist that you have on I, VAMPIRE. What’s her name? JF: It’s two artists actually. It’s Andrea Sorrentino and Marcelo Maidlo. The two of them are like one person. (laughs) They work together nonstop. We all email back and forth constantly. Andrea and Marcelo are doing work that is totally singular. Nothing looks like what they are doing and I don’t know of any books like from a writing standpoint that are like this book either, so all three of us are sort of jamming to the outside. We are like off in a corner doing this crazy wacked out jazz music that hopefully more people will catch up with. (laughs)
BUG: Yeah, I hope so, and with DC letting go a couple of the books in the First 52 and introducing some new ones, is there any danger of that happening to I, VAMPIRE? I hope not.
JF: There’s a danger…here’s the reality: comics, I don’t know if you know this Mr. Mark, a published comic book writer… (laughs) Comics do not sell very well. While there certainly are books that are doing great and this relaunch helped a lot, at the end of the day comics are extremely expensive to produce and the market is extremely small, so when there are books like…and it’s not just books like I, VAMPIRE, like when there’s a book of any stature it’s really important that they advocate for it, because at the end of the day no book is safe, no page is safe. What’s happening is we are working for companies who have to make money. They’re not doing this because they think the book is awesome, they are doing this to make a profit and the book has to be profitable. As far as I know, we are cool. I just finished my outline that takes me to through the end of the year with what I want to do with the book. I’ve been encouraged to think that way, so hopefully we are telling a long story and I get to tell all of it, but it really comes down to it being a matter of getting to the books you care about. So if you want to see more of VAMPIRE, you need to shout more about I, VAMPIRE.
BUG: Definitely, and I definitely will be doing that. So your past work has been pretty dark. Is there anything you feel like you’ve had to kind of reel back to do a more mainstream book like I, VAMPIRE? JF: I have not said “Fuck” yet.
[Both laugh]
JF: But that’s about it, though. The language is really the only drawback and I don’t really have a better vocabulary, so what I do is I use a thesaurus. I’ve actually run out of synonyms for “fuck.” I don’t know what’s going to happen next. But that’s really it. I’ve been encouraged to make the book darker than I probably would have, even. I’m like “It’s a superhero book, they should be fighting things.” They’ve really encouraged me to explore character and story moments. The erotic nature of the book and all of that stuff, like, that’s them. I want to give full credit where credit is due.
BUG: I really like it, because it really is not like any other book that DC is putting out right now. Between that and ANIMAL MAN and THE SWAMP THING, those are my three favorite books right now at DC.
JF: Thank you.
BUG: It’s just fantastic to read every month. So what’s going to be happening in the next couple of issues?
JF: So we’ve got Batman coming up in #5 and #6, like I said, which is very…so issue #5 picks up with that train that Mary was on at the end of #3 only into Gotham missing all of is passengers. All that’s let is signs of a struggle in an empty train and Batman starts to investigate and OR team shows up also looking for Mary and her army and immediately they get in each other’s way. So what I wanted to do is explore, like we were talking about, this idea of Batman having to come to terms with “Wait, there are vampires now? Son of a bitch…I’ve got to deal with this? Fuck! You’re kidding me.” Even pre-relaunch there’s no, other than the I, VAMPIRE stuff there’s actually no magical vampires in the DC universe. All of the vampires, like the vampires in FRANKENSTEIN is a science thing. They are always sort of manbats, like…BUG: Have you ever heard of the character called “Crucifer” that John Byrne came up with a couple of years ago to fight the JLA?
JF: Oh yeah…wasn’t he also a science vampire? Was he actually a “vampire” vampire?
BUG: I don’t know where he’s from, I just think that’s a hilarious name. I didn’t know if you were ever going to address that.
JF: I might bring him back now, I don’t know. I might.
BUG: That would be cool.
JF: Hey look, I’ll do what I need to do. If that’s going to get me the John Byrne fans coming after me, I am on board.
[Both laugh]
BUG: You also have another book out called LAST OF THE GREATS. Can you tell the folks about that? JF: Sure. LAST OF THE GREATS is a superhero alternate history book. 20 years ago a family of superheroes came to earth and gave us everything we could ever want and made it into a Garden of Eden and we fucking hated them for it. We burned them to ground. We literally murdered it all without even knowing where it would lead. Now we stand 20 years later and the alien invaders, who those superheroes were actually here to protect us from, they show up and try to destroy the earth. We have to go back and beg the last of the greats to save us, which he will do for a price, which is he wants to be God Emperor of Earth and we have no choice but to say “yes.” The book is sort of a dark satire of superhero books. It’s less deconstruction-y than I think a lot of alternate superhero books are. I really wanted to write just sort of a dark fun book and I think it’s funny to talk about I, VAMPIRE being dark. With GREATS…I get offended by what’s in that book…it is revoltingly dark, so yeah it’s a good time for all!
[Both laugh]
BUG: Well, it seems like it’s a very dark way of them reacting to that, but it seems very realistic. I could totally see that happening in this day and age of a savior who does come down from the heavens and then we just kind of shit all over it and destroy him instead of actually doing that…
JF: I get in trouble for talking about this, but the way the idea literally came from was it was during the Obamacare stuff and he…so Obama stood before us and said that every person in America should have health care, right?BUG: Right.
JF: And everyone screams “You’re a Nazi!” That’s the immediate reaction to “I believe all people should have affordable healthcare.” “You fascist prick!” But then ten years ago when 9/11 happens and then they passed the Patriot Act, which is literally a fascist bill. It’s literally a bill that allows wire-tapping and takes away basic human rights and freedom. When the Patriot Act was passed people were cheering on the streets…I’m not saying that Obamacare is good and the Patriot Act is bad. I guess I am technically saying that, but my point is that one thing is trying to help us in a very obvious way. Obama’s thing was “I want people to have access to healthcare” which despite everything around it, that should be something we could all be happy about, but we take that…we take compassion as something sinister and we take aggression as something pure. So I love that idea of how quickly we bend to fascism and how quickly we celebrate fascism. That’s really the root of the book. So he is the last…he literally becomes the most popular man on Earth despite the fact that he’s literally a monster and he is a fucking awful thing and is destroying us, but we know where we stand, I guess. (laughs)
BUG: Yeah, well it seems like this book is…it’s out from Image, right? So the fourth issue just came out. Is this a four-issue mini-series? JF: We’re going to end up doing five issues and we are going to see how the trade paperbacks sell and then we decide when we are going to come back. I’ve got a huge amount of stories, but you know again the same thing with I, VAMPIRES, the fact is books just aren’t selling right now, especially singles, and it’s really, really hard to launch an ongoing series, and you know, I think people don’t know…I could be wrong, maybe people do know, but creating comics is so massively time consuming and think about when you go to a convention and you see watch a guy sketch, that guy is doing a head sketch for you and that head sketch probably takes him like 20 or 30, so a page of comics is six of those plus backgrounds plus storytelling, you know?
BUG: Yeah.
JF: You know, just a page of comics and a page of pencil takes so long, like everybody here is working on this book…everybody is working their asses off on this book, but until the book actually makes money it’s hard. It’s got to keep you going. So we’re hoping…like I said, I’ve got a lot of stories I want to tell and here’s hoping we get to tell them.
BUG: That’d be great. So I, VAMPIRE is out monthly and THE LAST OF THE GREATS is out right now and up to issue #4. JF: And issue #5 will be out at the beginning of next month.
BUG: Cool, very cool.
JF: And there’s DR. WHO for IDW.
BUG: Oh? You’re doing DR. WHO? Okay, did you want to say anything about that?
JF: It’s awesome.
[Both laugh]
BUG: Okay.
JF: Writing DR. WHO is the most fun. I should say writing my own book that I own is the most fun, but no, DR. WHO is. DR. WHO is awesome.
BUG: So are you a big fan from way back?
JF: I’ve been stupid for DR. WHO since I was a little kid. Getting to write the book is like a dream come true.
BUG: And what is this story arc about that you are doing? JF: The Doctor, Amy, and Rory find themselves…they go for a seaside holiday off of Africa and wind up in Casablanca in 1941 instead and it does not go well. They find that there’s a conspiracy afoot that has less to do with Hitler and more to do with a certain underground following of an ancient earth species.
BUG: Very cool. I’ll have to check that one out. I didn’t know you were writing that. I’ll have to check that out.
JF: It’s a lot of fun. The character is great and the thing is that is cool about the comic is its like a blend of the new show and the old show. The new show has the character who’s well rounded and still fleshy, but it’s like the old school in that they are serial, like I’m telling like a good old four parter and literally stretches both issues simultaneously. It’s pretty great.
BUG: Awesome, well thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. I really appreciate it.
JF: No, thank you as always ,man. You’re the best.BUG: Thanks. Look for I, VAMPIRE #5 on sale tomorrow from DC Comics, LAST OF THE GREATS from Image Comics, and DR. WHO from IDW Publishing out this month as well!
Ambush Bug is Mark L. Miller, original @$$Hole / wordslinger / reviewer / co-editor of AICN Comics for over nine years. Mark has just announced his new comic book miniseries GRIMM FAIRY TALES PRESENTS THE JUNGLE BOOK from Zenescope Entertainment. He is also a regular writer for FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND and has just released FAMOUS MONSTERS first ever comic book miniseries LUNA (co-written by Martin Fisher with art by Tim Rees) You can order it here! Support a Bug by checking out his comics (click on the covers to purchase)!
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