In the Quad Cities, The Dispatch/Argus entertained their subscribers with interviews of three authors. With their permission, we’ve posted it below:
Q-C Authors Sink Teeth into Vampire Trend
By Jonathan Turner, jturner@qconline.com
What is the bloody big deal with vampires today?
From the “Twilight” series of books and films (including the highly anticipated “New Moon” flick, due Nov. 20) to HBO’s “True Blood” to the new CW series “Vampire Diaries,” 21st-century Dracula wannabes are hot, and hunky.
The trend is nothing new for three prolific Quad-Cities horror writers. They have had their teeth sunk into the alluring neck of this timeless genre for about 20 years.
And all three — Mike McCarty of Rock Island, Mark McLaughlin of Davenport, and Mike Romkey of Bettendorf — are seeing renewed interest in their work because of the current boom in vampire popularity.
Photo by Paul Colletti
Mike Romkey
“Vampires are really hot right now,” said Mr. Romkey, 54, whose 1989 book, “I, Vampire,” recently was optioned by New York producers for a movie screenplay. “I’ve got a series of seven books on that subject. It could really finance the rest of my life.
“I don’t even care if it’s good. I just want to get it made,” he said of a possible film. “The book they bought is the first in a loosely connected series, so if anything at all happens — even if it’s fairly modest for sci-fi efforts — there’s a chance for more. This is the time for it to happen.”
Mr. Romkey, associate managing editor of The Dispatch and The Rock Island Argus, produced his last vampire novel (“American Gothic”) in 2004.
Mike McCarty
Mr. McCarty, 46, was so inspired by “I, Vampire” that he started his first solo novel, “Liquid Diet,” in 1989. It was released this past spring by KHP Publishers. Protagonist Andrew Bloodsworth, who writes about vampires, is a vampire himself. The character is based on Mr. Romkey, who wrote an introduction to the book. And Mr. McCarty’s Goth radio host, Bella Donna, was created years before Stephenie Meyer made Bella the star of the “Twilight” series.
“I wasn’t planning on doing a sequel, but days after the book came out, my publisher was begging me to do a sequel,” he said of vampire fever. “With any luck, my sequel should be out next year.”
Mr. McCarty’s newest book, “A Little Help From My Fiends,” is a short-story collection of collaborations, including one with Mr. McLaughlin, a frequent writing partner. The 20 stories star not only vampires, but also zombies, werewolves and invisible professors.
Mark McLaughlin
Mr. McLaughlin, 47, is a Bram Stoker Award winner, but vampires do not make as much of a dominant appearance in his stories. His latest collection of stories — “Raising Demons for Fun and Profit” — features some vampiric qualities, but they mainly are tales written by him and others of demons, zombies, and mutants.
He won the Stoker in 2002 for “The Gossamer Eye,” a poetry collection written with Rain Graves and David Niall Wilson, and he has been a finalist for the award six other times. The awards — bestowed by the national Horror Writers Association — are given for superior achievement in 12 categories. They’re named for the author of the 1897 Gothic novel that started it all, “Dracula.”
Mr. McCarty, who works in shipping and receiving at Augustana College in Rock Island; and Mr. McLaughlin, a public-relations specialist at Nehlsen Communications in Moline; were finalists this year for their novel “Monster Behind the Wheel” and a poetry collection, “Attack of the Two-Headed Poetry Monster.”
Even the Stoker family is cashing in on vampire mania. A new book, “Dracula the Un-Dead,” by great-grand-nephew Dacre Stoker, is being billed as “the first Stoker family-endorsed sequel to one of the most influential novels of all time.” It takes place 25 years after the conclusion of the original.
Why vampires? Why now?
Like many pop-culture crazes, attraction to vampires is nothing new. “Vampires are always popular,” said Mr. Romkey, who is working on a new vampire tale set in Telluride, Colo. “There are just people who will always read books about vampires. They can be good or bad; they don’t care.
“There’s something about the vampire myth that resonates with us on a subconscious basis, and I don’t begin to understand what that is,” he said. “Vampires are sensual creatures; they don’t attack their victims so much as seduce them. The whole matter of drinking blood on a subconscious level is very powerful.”
Plus, there’s “sort of a poverty in the cultural imagination now. There aren’t competing, alternate popular mythologies that interest people,” said Mr. Romkey. “We’re sort of recycling things that really work.
“Some of the popular series right now are really directed at adolescents,” he said. “When it comes to making any kind of decision in the art market, that segment of the audience is so powerful financially.”
“Since ‘Dracula,’ I don’t think it’s ever gone away,” Mr. McCarty said of vampire mania. “There are periods of time it gets more popular.”
“Usually what accentuates it is when one celebrity comes along,” Mr. McLaughlin said. “Now we have ‘Twilight,’ with this handsome guy (Robert Pattinson) all the teeny-boppers are squealing about, who becomes kind of like the face of the movement.”
He agrees that tapping into the imagination of teens with disposable income — as the “Harry Potter” books and movies did — has helped lift the vampire genre.
“The current trend is very romantic,” Mr. McLaughlin said. “Vampires have always been romantic, even back to Bela Lugosi.
“There’s a strange sort of wish fulfillment — the ultimate party person, forever young, forever good-looking, forever well-dressed,” he added, with characteristic humor. “They never have to work; they party all night, sleep during the day. They don’t even have to do laundry. Somehow they have the vampire quality to dry-clean themselves.”
Another reason vampires are popular, Mr. McCarty said, is that “sexual element, this draw to the taboo, the dark side. The forbidden fruit is the most tempting,” he said. “It’s also because it’s a mortality tale, somebody who can live forever. In the books and movies, when a vampire gets killed, it reminds us of our own mortality.”
Power, escape, fear
During difficult times — like today’s twin terrors of war and recession — the dark genre strikes its minor chord in a major way, the authors said.
“In general, a lot of people tend to feel powerless, and a vampire is a powerful character,” Mr. Romkey said. “Whether we’re reading the ‘Odyssey’ or ‘Interview With a Vampire,’ we tend to identify with the protagonist, and live through the protagonist. When they have all these powers, it says something about the culture.
“I’ve always been interested in the question of good and evil,” he added. “Imagining a vampire, if you had all of this power, lived for eternity — would that corrupt you or bring out the good side of you?”
“Escapist cinema has always been the hallmark of a depressed economy,” Mr. McLaughlin said. “More horror movies were made during the Depression than any other period. It’s like the worse life is, people turn to forms of fear they can control, that the good guys will win.”
“I think it’s a coping mechanism,” he said of the siren song of scary stories. “When people are super worried, they like to have something to take their mind completely off their worries.”
“Fear is one of those involuntary responses. People think fear is really a bad word, but it’s one of the guiding things in our life that saves us,” Mr. McCarty said, citing looking both ways before crossing the street as an example.
Humor and horror
While “Liquid Diet” is one of Mr. McCarty’s more serious efforts, he and Mr. McLaughlin enjoy combining horror and humor.
“Laughter and screaming are both involuntary responses. We like to make people laugh and scream in the same book,” Mr. McCarty said.
“There is an odd link between humor and horror. They’re both about when your life gets a little off the path,” Mr. McLaughlin said. “They’re very much about straying from the path. Sometimes it’s funny, and sometimes it’ll kill you.”
