Tuesday, November 10, 2009

A Coupla Follow-Ups

In "More Wishes", I openly wondered whether the April 20, 2010 release of Paul Barber's Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality was actually a new edition.

So, I decided to ask the author himself.

Barber confirmed that the book
isn't a second edition, but contains an updated introduction partly discussing the current Twilight craze. The index has also been re-jigged.

The book's publisher, Yale University Press, also apparently refers to the book as a "reissue".


If you've missed out on getting an original copy of Barber's 1988 work, then the reissue will do you a world of good. Plus, it's got this spiffy new cover!



Next up, we look at Brad Steiger's Real Vampires, Night Stalkers, and Other Creatures from the Darkside (2010). We'll be focusing on disputed page length, which was previously covered here.

As I mentioned, its Amazon listing credits it with 400 pages. As of this writing, it still does:


However, as I previously noted, I have a copy of this book and the pages only number up to 287.

So, I contacted the book's publisher, Visible Ink Press (VIP), about this discrepancy.

A representative confirmed that the book didn't have 400 pages, but 304 pages. Now, this makes sense, because the 287 figure I referred to was its page length in Arabic numerals. What I failed to take into account were the Roman numerals used for the intro, etc.

Nonetheless, this still takes it far below the 400 pages listed on its Amazon entry. The VIP's rep informed me he had contacted Amazon about the matter. But, as can be seen from the screencap, the page number's yet to be fixed.

Something else that bugged me about Steiger's book was the copyright date in its publication details. The book was quite clearly published in 2009. Amazon confirms this. Yet, the publication date is listed as 2010.

What's the deal there?

The VIP rep was able to give me the scoop on that, too: "in publishing, the copyright year generally starts in September, which is when Real Vampire [sic] was published."

That would also explain why Jay Stevenson's The Complete Idiot's Guide to Vampires was published - and available - in late 2001, but has a copyright date of 2002.

Mystery solved!

Saturday, November 7, 2009

For Twilight Fans with a Sense of Humour

Ben Relles of BarelyPolitical.com sent me a link to a music video featured in one of his site's segments, "Key of Awesome":



It's called "Emo Vampire" and features a Draculaesque vampire lamenting the state vampires haven fallen into ("I've got nothing in common with the vampires of today / They gaze at girls and pout and brood and then just run away") since the Twilight boom.

Can't say I blame him!

Feeling a Bit Peckish

Even though this image comes from SpiritHalloween - an online Halloween costumes store - it wouldn't be out of place in an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation:


You gotta dig the pinched skin between the bitemarks. Sure, it might not be as pretty as two little puncture wounds, but it's probably a helluva lot more accurate!

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Everything Old Is New Again

Andrew recently wrote a review for Weird Vampire Tales (1992) after I recommended it to him, a little while ago.

It seems he enjoyed the anthology of pulp fiction vampire stories as much as I did.

However, his description of the stories all being taken from Weird Tales is slightly inaccurate: most of them were. But not all. This site shows which story came from which magazine.

Andrew's review also notes a couple of (now) standard vampire tropes, which may originally have been published in the pulps. For example:
In a visual medium, as far as I know, it was Dan Curtis who brought the concept of the reincarnated love into the vampire genre as a main theme in Dark Shadows. I, the Vampire by Henry Kutner is a much earlier written example of the concept being used – dating back to 1937.
And "William Tenn uses science, and a blood substitute, to enable vampires and humans to coexist, long before True Blood, in She Only Goes Out at Night."

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Dressing the Part

How popular are vampires at the moment?

According to an entry in Google's official blog, "vampire costumes" were "one of the top 10 searches this year".

A sizable amount of these (unsurprisingly) relate to Twilight.

Thankfully, MTV's Movies Blog provides some suggestions for non-Twilight vampire costumes.

Time for a Bite

Well, we've sent out the invitations, got some music and had a stab at a costume.

Now, it's time for some grub. I know! How about Vampire Cupcakes?!


Or maybe some truffles?

Worried about those suckers putting the bite on you? Well, as long as you don't mind scaring fellow partygoers off with your breath, here's some Anti-Vampire Popcorn.

There's something you can suck on, yourself: a lollipop!

After you're done scoffing down those, you can wash it down with a nice
Blood Shake. No? How about some punch?

Oh, you want something a bit stronger. Then here's a Vampire's Elixir. Down the hatch! And here's a Vampire Blood chaser.

Enjoy the party!

Suspicious Invitation

Here's something cute and crafty from Zazzle:

Sheesh. Vampires must be getting lazy this time of year. Normally you're supposed to invite them over the threshold.