My guests today are Jonathan Maberry and Janice Gable Bashman, authors of
Wanted Undead or Alive: Vampire Hunters and Other Kick-Ass Enemies of Evil
. The book deals with the struggle of good vs evil in film, comics, pop culture, world myth, literature, and the real world—everything from vampire slayers to paranormal investigators to FBI serial-killer profilers. It includes interviews with folks like Stan Lee, Mike Mignola, Jason Aaron, Fred Van Lente, Peter Straub, and Charlaine Harris and contains illustrations by top horror, comics & fantasy artists.
Here's what
Publishers Weekly had to say about
Wanted Undead or Alive:
"With its presentation of the story of evil through straight history, factual tidbits, and pop culture, this book is the horror genre fan’s best friend. No stone is left unturned in Maberry and Bashman’s fantastic and inventive approach to the world’s oldest war." —
PW
Suburban Vampire: Welcome Jonathan and Janice. You two came together in 2006 for the Bucks Magazine article “Local Master of Horror.” Is that when the two of you first hatched the idea for Wanted Undead or Alive? What led to the book’s inception?
JONATHAN MABERRY: That’s actually a tricky question. I’ve been researching this topic in one way or another for many years. My grandmother introduced me to a great deal of folklore, and almost all of folklore is tied to some aspect of the struggle of good vs evil. Over the last ten years I’ve written several books on the subject of the supernatural and paranormal, including
Vampire Universe
,
The Cryptopedia
, and
They Bite
. For this specific book, however, I started doing research and interviews a couple of years ago.
SV: How long did research take for a book that covers everything from ancient evil to modern-day FBI serial-killer profilers?
JANICE GABLE BASHMAN: The actual research process was quite intensive and took a lot of time.
Wanted Undead or Alive is full of facts, yet they’re presented in a fun way that makes for an easy read. In addition to the research, we interviewed tons of people, including Stan Lee, John Carpenter, Charlaine Harris, Peter Straub, Rachel Caine, Amber Benson, Lucienne Diver, and Christopher Golden. Between the two of us, it took us about a year to research, conduct interviews, and write the book.
SV: How did you conduct your research?
MABERRY: Luckily we live in the age of emails, Facebook, and Skype, all of which make the process of interviewing extremely easy and efficient. These days you can find virtually anyone through social media, websites, blogs, or emails, and reaching out is a snap. Most of our interviews were conducted via email, which allowed us to reach experts all over the world.
SV: In the early days of vampire legends, the vampire hunters were considered the good guys. However, in modern fiction the good guys are oftentimes the vampires themselves, and no Twilight fan would dare think of taking a stake to Edward Cullen. Why do you think we’ve turned horrific bloodsuckers into modern-day heroes?
BASHMAN: I think as a society we want to believe that all people have the potential to be good, including bloodsucking vampires. By twisting our notions of who is good and who is evil, we remove that line between good and bad, black and white, and allow for those grey areas to shine through. What that means, ultimately, is that guys like
Twilight’s Edward Cullen capture our hearts. The bloodsucker as the modern day hero is a great concept—who wouldn’t want a hero who lives forever and can fight the bad guys for as long as they threaten our existence.
 |
| Don Maitz's illustration from the book. |
MABERRY: We all want to believe in some form of redemption. Even nonreligious people want to believe that if they truly change their ways or make amends that they can be forgiven past actions, words or deeds. Vampires are our stand-ins for morality plays in which someone has done something dreadful but has truly and completely recanted and repented. If a vampire can be forgiven, than how can we not?
In folklore there’s even some precedent for this. The Stregoni Benefici are vampires who were captured by monks (during the Inquisition, etc.) and "encouraged" to repent of their sins. This encouragement generally included all manner of torture, but hey, we're talking "inquisition" here. Not exactly a tolerant and passive bunch. The bottom line is that the vampire would eventually turn away from Satan and embrace forgiveness from God, after which he or she would become a good guy vampire working for the church, often as killers of evil creatures. Edward Cullen is hardly the first Stregoni Benefici in folklore. Angel and Spike from the Buffy show are examples, as was Nick Knight from
Forever Knight; Barnabas Collins (most of the time) in
Dark Shadows; St. Gemain in Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s novels; Lestat (occasionally) in Anne Rice’s books; Mitch in
Being Human; and Hannibal King in Marvel Comics’ superb
Tomb of Dracula comic from the 1970s.
SV: Which vampire hunter character would you most want by your side if you came face-to-face with a traditional vampire of yore?
MABERRY: Van Helsing, as played by Peter Cushing (a nice mix of brains and physicality), Buffy, or Blade.
BASHMAN: Rayne from the video game BloodRayne. She’s half human, half vampire, and possesses the strengths of both without many of the weaknesses. Her supernatural abilities, quick moves, and weapon skills give her an apparent advantage when facing a traditional vampire. Add in her ability to kill her enemy by sucking dry their blood and you have one powerful vampire hunter.
SV: Many writers from both the past and the present reject vampire lore in favor of their own, original vampire traits, Bram Stoker included. Do you have any opinions about the tendency of writers to ignore the wealth of diverse vampire legends from around the world?
BASHMAN: I don’t think it’s that writers want to reject vampire lore in favor of their own vampire traits but that they would rather make the vampire story their own by putting a new twist onto an old story to build mystery and suspense and to amp up the danger; often that involves rejecting traditional vampire lore, either partially or in full. There’s so many vampire legends to draw material from, and I think it’s important for the vampire writer to be aware of them even if he chooses to create his own. The ancient vampire lore paved the way for the creation of Bram Stoker’s
Dracula and all that came after it. Without that lore, it’s impossible to imagine that we’d have book series like Stephanie Myers’ Twilight Saga, Rachel Caine’s Morganville Vampires, Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse, L.A. Banks’ Vampire Huntress, or Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter. And, if we did, they would most likely look a lot different.
MABERRY: Most of the writers I know don’t actually know much about folklore. Many of them recycle the modern pop-culture versions of vampires that we’ve had since they first did
Dracula on stage. That was when the urbane, sexy, and sophisticated vampire became commonplace…and that really isn’t how Stoker wrote the character in his novel. The novel version was charismatic but not sexy and not at all nice.
A few writers–Sherrilyn Kenyon, Laurell Hamilton, and L A Banks come to mind—have been dipping into folklore to strengthen their characters and add dimension to their vampires.
But until recently not much has been published about the folkloric vampires. What few books there were in print were often dry, scholarly works or recycled 19th-century stuff that was itself influenced by the fiction of the era. The works of Montague Summers, for example, were often used as reference material by writers, but scholars decry much of Summers’ research and most of his findings as claptrap. They’re probably right about that, too.
Then we started to get some really good research books on the subject by more reputable sources such as
The Vampire Lectures
by Laurence A. Rickels;
The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead
by J. Gordon Melton;
In Search of Dracula: The History of Dracula and Vampires
by Radu Florescu, Raymond T. McNally;
The Complete Vampire Companion
by Rosemary Ellen Guiley; and
Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality
by Paul Barber. My first nonfiction book on vampires was intended to add to that body of work and was published as
The Vampire Slayers’ Field Guide to the Undead
, published under the pen name of Shane MacDougall.
I would like to see more authors dig into folklore because there is so much there. So many different kinds of vampires, so many different legends.
SV: You also touch on ghosts in your book, a subject which has been a lifelong interest of mine. Did you come across a particularly chilling account of ghost hunting that sent shivers down your spines?
MABERRY: At one of our book signings, paranormal investigator Scott Morrow shared with us an audio file made during an investigation of a haunting. You can clearly hear a shrill voice almost scream in response to the investigator’s question. He said that he couldn’t hear it during the actual investigation but the scream was there on the tape when they reviewed it later. That’s creepy.
BASHMAN: We heard some great stories of ghost encounters, but what’s also fascinating is the large number of places reported to be haunted throughout the world. Did you know that employees at Disney’s Haunted Mansion have reported ghost sightings or that the White House is said to be the home of the ghosts of Abraham Lincoln, Dolly Madison, and Abigail Adams? How about Elvis Presley’s ghost? There are reported sightings throughout the world, and at Graceland. We cover famous hauntings, types of hauntings, tools of the ghost hunting trade, and more in
Wanted Undead or Alive.
SV: Is there anything you’d like readers to know about this book that you haven’t yet gotten to discuss in an interview?
MABERRY: We also take the topic and dig deep into how it plays into pop culture. We discuss good vs evil in the development of the Pulp Fiction era, in comic books, in TV and movies, and in fiction. Writers of all kinds have been using fiction as a means to explore good and evil, as well as the subtle shadings of gray that exist between those two poles. For those sections we interviewed Stan Lee, John Carpenter, Mike Mignola (creator of
Hellboy), Amber Benson (‘Tara’ from
Buffy), and many others.
SV: Where can readers learn more about you and Wanted Undead or Alive: Vampire Hunters and Other Kick-Ass Enemies of Evil?
BASHMAN: The book is available in stores everywhere, and is available as an e-book for Kindle and Nook.
To learn more about the book go to
http://jonathanmaberry.com/wanted-undead-or-alive.
To read the Publisher’s Weekly review go to
http://janicegablebashman.com/?p=260.
CONTEST RULES:
Jonathan Maberry and Janice Gable Bashman have graciously offered a free copy of Wanted Undead or Alive to a Suburban Vampire Visitor. To enter, head to the comments section and let us know your favorite evil character from film, literature, or TV. I'll pull a winning name on Thursday, November 4, 2010. U.S. and Canadian entries only, please.
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Jonathan Maberry is a
NY Times bestseller, multiple Bram Stoker Award winner, and a writer for Marvel Comics. He has written a number of award-winning nonfiction books and novels on the paranormal and supernatural, including
The Cryptopedia, Vampire Universe, They Bite, Zombie CSU, and
Patient Zero. Visit Jonathan’s website at
http://www.jonathanmaberry.com.
Janice Gable Bashman has written for
The Big Thrill, Novel & Short Story Writer's Market, The Writer, Wild River Review, and many others. Her website and blog is found at
http://www.janicegablebashman.com.
by Stephen M. Irwin is SandyG265. Congratulations! Please send your snail mail address to suburbanvamp AT gmail.com.
are Carrie and Hoenikker. Congratulations! Please send your snail mail address to suburbanvamp AT gmail.com.
For today's Music Monday, I'm chatting with Gothic Hip Hop artist Kung Fu Vampire, who's giving away ten autographed CDs to Suburban Vampire visitors. Details about the contest, as well as a video for his song "iCount
," follow the interview.
KUNG FU VAMPIRE: It's a very small scene with a really closed mind, lots of talented groups with nowhere to go or "work" persay. There is some rock clubs and 90% booty-shaking steroid-infested Silicon Valley wannabes and hipsters...which all contribute to why Kung Fu Vampire took until 2009 to be heard throughout the globe.
SV: What are your live shows like?
SV: What's up next for you album-wise?
is YzhaBella (aka Kate). Congratulations! Please send your snail mail address to suburbanvamp AT gmail.com. Thanks so much to Hal Leonard Performing Arts Publishing Group for offering the contest. An excerpt from the book appears at the original post.
"THE DEAD PATH is a truly creepy thrill-ride. You may never want to go into the woods again."
.
over the past two years, and the third installment, The Book of Maps
, just made its debut on October 16. . . and it involves the Lilith vampire legend. 
SUBURBAN VAMPIRE: I read a reader review that called the Sacred Books "The Da Vinci Code for kids." How do you feel about that particular assessment of Daphna and Dexter's adventures?
, I cringed a lot at the quality of writing. And there's certainly no "agenda" in the series, as I've heard is the case for Dan Brown. I'm not revealing any hidden "truths," but rather just writing the most exciting, thought-provoking books I can. Of course, that doesn't mean some folks won't call me, "satanically mentally graduated from Potter" (yep), or a dangerous kabbalist (yep again), or will try to keep me and the books out of schools (yep yet again).
SV: The Book of Maps includes the ancient character Lilith, who's often considered both the first wife of Adam and a vampire. Tell us a little about the Lilith legends.
