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Printheads: your preferred literary vampire
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@ Stranger Dan
Oh! My! God! I had completely forgotten about that series! I just had a total nostalgia trip about it coming out and me reading it as a kid!
I totally have to second that now. -
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CommentAuthororwellseyes
- CommentTimeDec 2nd 2008
@randomentity/@Johnjones:
Tzmisce were my favorite bit of playing vampire. My friends and I came up with a pack concept so disturbing that the Storyteller at the larp pulled us aside and asked us to change characters or leave. Funny thing was, we weren't going for the gross out or being gorehounds. Just playing up the androgyny. You see, we were angels. Pure, genderless angels. That and the fact I was walking my friend on a leash because he'd been "bad" was a bit much. The Tzmisce concept of transcending the flesh, a biological apotheosis, was just too much fun. -
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I liked stephen king's vampires....heh
but my absolute favorite is Dracula...I like the supernatural aspect of vampires...
but I also like a biological bend to em...um..i just like vampires all around...
soooo...when I started my fantasy world project i created a vampire race that combined alot of the pop culture aspects into a workable type of creature...we even through in some of the Nosgoth vampire characteristics...cause I love me some LoK... -
- CommentAuthorLazarus2009
- CommentTimeDec 3rd 2008
im too late for this one, as all the classics are covered
Gary oldman as Vlad - brought humanity to evil.
Christoper lee in the 60's ( and a shout out to "vampire circus" by hammer films as an honoury mention)sheer bad ass, unstoppable killer - like the terminator with charm.
Angelus and Spike for bringing it up to date. loved their put downs of drac too.
Sonja Blue from sunglasses after dark.
and of course tales from the crypt with bordello of blood. blade gets a vote too.
cassidy pops up for sheer long term value, and Kain/ Raziel too
down with Annie rice, and the necrocomnithingy. for being too dull
i take what i want from them all.
but have to put my final mention in for this. the single greatest vampire in current fiction:
DUCKULA.("count Duckula") and for the cousins- but the theme music of
"in the wilds of translyvania, from the vampire halls of fame
there lived a funky duck called
DUCKULA.
love it, love it love IT. -
@Stranger Dan & bschory
I still have my coppies of the Celery Stalks at Midnight and the sequel.
I'm planning on giving them to one of my nephews at some point. -
Count Chocula.
Damn that guy could make some fine breakfast for a five year-old. -
Seconding Bunnicula. I'm also fond of the highly bureaucratic vampires of the Night Watch series.
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I like pretty much any vampire that isn't invulnerable, and who doesn't whine all the time and refuse to drink blood.
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- CommentAuthorsacredchao
- CommentTimeDec 3rd 2008
@JohnJones
Anne Rice did a Vampires in Rome thing. It mostly involved the main vampire wishing he could get a hard on so he could fuck little boys. I got sick of it about half way through. -
When I was in my teens, I was really into the Anne Rice books and the vision of the romantic immortal being, blah, blah, blah.
In my 20's, I got sick of most of that and preferred a more brutal aspect, with all the weakness and viciousness us mortals possess, just in a functionally immortal package, such as Cassiday in Preacher.
Now, in my 30's, I find I prefer the utterly disgusting, bloodthirsty monsters that must be destroyed. Not interested in all that romantic, existential bullshit. All that, "Oh I'm trying so hard to be good, but I NEED the blood. Just a nip, I promise I won't kill you." "retch"
I prefer if my bloodsuckers barely even speak, such as in the cheesy but beautiful "John Carpenter's Vampires."
But I also like the monstrous leeches in "30 Days of Night" . Or the evil, aristocratic bloodsuckers in the "Blade" stories. Just give me lot's of completely amoral monsters that get destroyed in entertaining ways.
-Chris D. -
I've enjoyed a lot of vampire-related entertainment, but my favorite-ever depiction of one is "Shambleau" by C. L. Moore. just... eeeeeeuuuuuuccchhhh.
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I've never read Sunglasses After Dark -- any good?
I've read Dracula and the first 4 Anne Rice vampire books (I liked them at the time... less so, now, though I still like some aspects)... a few others, but generally prefer folklore versions of vampires -- the actual lore is much more varied and creepy.
I'm not a fan of "science vampires"(though some are in good stories), because to me a "science vampire" may be vampiric, but isn't a vampire. I'm also not fond of the whole repelled by crosses and religious symbols bit -- too much an implied endorsement of Christianity.
I'm a fan of Whedon and Buffy, so I make exceptions... though I read somewhere that crosses and the like work in Buffy because of a spell or some-such - -not their intrinsic power.
Favorite vampire...? The Count, from Sesame Street:) -
Those 'vicious, animalized' takes on vampires as inhuman killing machines are pretty interesting, though I'm a traditionalist in the end and really didn't like the 'vampire as Scrappy Doo' version in Let Me In/Let the Right One In. But David Wellington's Nosferatu-esque vampires are pretty crazy that way, he describes them well in their implacable brutality.
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- CommentAuthorLazarus2009
- CommentTimeDec 4th 2008
@ MI
singlasses is a slightly different take, and its a bit dated now. but it does give some glimpses into an integrated non human (good and bad) presence in and behind the scenes of the mortal world that could really be expanded on and taken forwards. some real glimpses of an interesting concept that i would be interested in.
not so much traditional vampires, but if you can imagine angelina jolie playing Blade as the punisher, then that seems to be the best description i can cobble together.
better than bloodrayne, anyways. -
There was the various Blood mangas/anime/live action stuff.
I'm not a giant fan of serious vampire stuff - it makes me giggle at the bad science. -
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CommentAuthoroutlawpoet
- CommentTimeDec 4th 2008
@stsparky:
did you ever see this one? amusing presentation of hypothetical genetic vampirism:
http://www.rifters.com/blindsight/vampires.htm -
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I plan to include vampires in CRESCENT CITY MAGICK and already have them making a cameo in issue/chapter 3, as a foreshadowing... but I want to make sure it's not too trite. I'm mostly sticking to the actual lore, but that tends more toward almost "revenant type" vampires - - basically life-force or blood eating machines, viscous, animal and barely capable of being confused with a human, closer almost to the fast moving zombies of recent films, crossed with Nosferatu - -clearly a reanimated corpse... but I don't want it quite so inhuman, because villains with no characterization are pretty boring 90% of the time, no matter how horrible.
Even Dracula, in Stoker's book, is fairly one-dimensional -- though maybe the Coppola film took the romantic angle a bit far... still, that was a valid choice and gave the villain some personality. Lugosi gave Dracula personality through his acting, his accent and the intensity of his gaze.
I actually like the morphing from human looking, to more animal and even Nosferatu-esque. I tend to think of the more monstrous appearance being real, with the normal human face being a glamor. -
@ mlpeters
Have one type as a subset of the other type. Assume that most vampires are the feral, animalistic type. They may have flashes of human memory that let them open doors, remember where "home" used to be. Maybe some can even gruntingly speak a name or two that used to be important to them. But they're still animalistic blood-addicts.
Then you have a subset of that group which manages to retain (or even surpass) human intelligence. They can commmunicate, perhaps even be charming and seductive. Still and all, their main goal will be to drink the blood of the uninfected.
In druggie terms, the first group would be a pack of homeless crank addicts who'd chase down and kill a person for the money they had so they could go get more crank. The subset would be those semi-functional addicts who will lie, cheat and still you blind to get their crank. And, of course, the first group could easily be controlled minions of the second group. -
@johnjones
Yeah, I was thinking of making newly made vampires essentially animalistic/near zombie blood-addicts and easy minions... with older vampires slowly recovering their memories and maybe even growing and adapting in unusual way -- gaining the telepathic and telekinetic powers vampires sometimes have as well as growing resistance to the damaging effects of sunlight...
Possibly above your "type two" example, would be vampires who do not seek out their kill, but have minions deliver them take-out, but they'd be extremely rare.
I wasn't going to spill this much, but, THANKS TO YOU... (kidding) I'm sure this take isn't all that fresh - - it'll be the characterization - -both the unrelenting predatory nature of the newer vamps and the personality of the older ones that'll make or break the portrayal.
I'm also going to use some of the idiosyncratic bits from folklore, suggesting that not all vampires are alike, since they're a supernatural creature, rather than a species (like I said -- not into "science vampires" ). I remember one folklore story where a vampire was thrown on a fire to kill him, but he transformed into a mass of snakes and bugs -- the vampire killers had to catch every little one of the the creatures. There are numerous others that don't fit the usual vampire stereotype. -
I wasn't going to spill this much, but, THANKS TO YOU... (kidding) I'm sure this take isn't all that fresh - - it'll be the characterization - -both the unrelenting predatory nature of the newer vamps and the personality of the older ones that'll make or break the portrayal.
Guilty. I've been reviewing some of my old AD&D stuff to see if I can translate some of the older modules into the new Fourth edition (looks like it'll be a massive pain the ass, but still doable) and I just read through the Vampire entry in the Monster Manual, which divide the creatures into Vampire Spawn (creatures who rise from being bitten and killed by a vampire) and Vampire Lords (the full versions of the creatures who come about by a specialized ritual covenant involving blood excahnge).