Interviewing a Vampire
Plus: EXCLUSIVE REVEAL (maybe?) of BATMAN COVERS
If there’s anything Catwoman writer Tini Howard and I have in common, besides a lifetime of fetishes revolving around this image…
…is our deep and sickening love of Anne Rice’s VAMPIRE CHRONICLES. I’ve written about my Rice love in a previous newsletter, but I’ve put off watching the latest adaptation of her work as I’ve been burned before:
But Tini convinced me to give the new INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE show a shot and holy shit do I love it. It’s not for everyone! If you can’t handle displays of domestic violence then hoo boy stay away from this one, ‘cause Lestat and Louis are a painful thing to watch a lot of the time. But it’s all performed and shot so well, and such a strangely human story despite the whole immortal side of things, I can’t help but love it. It knows when to deviate from the original and what to enhance. A solid adaptation.
All this to say that it awoke a desire in me, a desire to write a short short story about a vampire interview. Which I will share with you now. Enjoy.
INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE
The vampire paused in front of the very nice window, gently pushing the sheer curtain aside so he could be bathed in moonlight from above and showered in streetlight from below. He was positively soaking wet with light.
“Ask me anything,” said the vampire, so pretty, so handsome. He picked me up at a line-dancing bar earlier that night and brought me back to his place once he found out I was a blogger with my very own Substack, “Mason’s Mind & Musings.”
“Okay. Well, first off, what’s your name? That’s an important question in an interview, I find.”
The alabaster hunk moved from the window toward an extremely comfy looking bean bag chair. Was it truly full of beans? Or something far more sinister?
“My name … is Rogier. Rogier De Riviere. I am French.”
“Yes, I noticed that when you said “Oui” earlier.” My reporter’s skills were on display. But I had to be careful though, unless I intimidated him. “How old are you?”
“Forty-five.”
He didn’t look a day over forty-two. The vampire—Rogier—relaxed further into the bean bag chair, becoming more comfortable, just the way I like my subjects. I pushed on.
“I noticed the crucifix on your wall when I walked in. Does that not affect you?”
“Not at all. I actually take great comfort in them.”
“So, what about things like garlic? Sunlight?”
“Garlic makes me burp. And I do not enjoy daylight, but, yes, I can survive in it.”
I was reeling. Without those kinds of weaknesses, vampires could very well be the greatest threat known to man. The apex predator. The perfect killing machine delivered unto us from Hell … or Heaven? I tried not to let my nervousness seem obvious.
“I—I s-see … c-c-c-can y-you be k-k-k-k-k-k-killed with a—a s-stake through th-the heart?”
“Of course,” he grinned devilishly, “same as you I’d imagine?”
Okay. He can be killed. Somehow that gave me relief even though he could probably drain me in the blink of an eye, sucking me completely. I could tell by the look in his eye that he knew what I was thinking. Could he read minds? I thought “can you read minds?” and he didn’t respond, so I guess not.
“All right. So, are you strong? Fast?”
“I work out.”
“And I don’t see your fangs. Do they retract?”
“I don’t have fangs.”
“Then how do you drink blood?”
“I don’t.”
“So—so what…” I compose the question, already knowing the answer and where the night will take me. “…what makes you a vampire?”
“Oh, I’m just an asshole. Are we going to fuck or what?”
In other news, Kieron Gillen defeated me for IGN’S BEST COMIC SERIES 2022 because he’s British and awards loooove Brits. Makes me sick but what are you going to do? Brexit them from comics?
In other BETTER news, here’s Jorge’s cover to BATMAN 134! Get in your grave, BRUCE!!! Or that guy will run you through! Arrr!!!
There’s also this amazing Joe Quesada variant! Still weird seeing him do DC stuff. Feels dirty … in a good way?? I don’t know. I’m processing my feelings.
Okay! Bye!
Oooh Chip! That sexy story reminded me of the night I was in bed next to my wife reading issue #15 of your Daredevil run - the issue where he and Elektra bust out of somewhere (too old to remember details) in a corvette and Daredevil kills the lights on the car and drives off down a dirt road into a majestic wood, navigating with his echolocation, which gives Elektra a lady boner and they do it on the hood.
I’ll tell you what - I put that comic down (neatly, bagged and boarded), rolled over onto my wife, and did the best impression of Daredevil I could muster, meaning I killed the lights and put on a blindfold.
She kept saying “I can’t feel it.”
And I was like, “do you feel it?”
And she was like, “no”
And I was like, “no, Elektra says ‘do you feel it?’”
And my wife said, “you need to stop reading comic books.”
I’m so glad you’ve watched it. A lot of my response to the show was “I’m so happy for Chip and Tini.”