Let's get political

The vampire-as-political metaphor is nothing new. But did you know mainstream interest in vampires might say something about which type of government is in power?

Well, American political party, anyway. S Peter Davis wrote this compelling piece on '6 mind-blowing ways zombies and vampires explain America.' The article is based on data collated from Mr. Science Show, in which a comparison table is drawn up between Republican and Democratic presidencies and the popularity of vampire and zombie films during those interims.

The table kicks off with the presidency of Republican, Dwight D. Eisenhower, in 1953. Davis's caption reads, 'And apparently all our apocalypses started with Eisenhower', as the article notes two zombie flicks released that year.

That's an interesting comment, because the following year, a novel was released which would have a significant impact on fictional vampire and zombie portrayals. The novel in question? Richard Matheson's I am legend (1954), which deals with an apocalyptic vampire plague. How significant was it? Put it this way: if it wasn't for that book, the marauding, flesh-eating zombies you know and love, would not exist.

As I've mentioned before, the modern zombie genre stems from George Romero's 1968 film, Night of the living dead, which is funny, because his creatures weren't intended to be zombies in the first place. Indeed, in the movie, they're called 'ghouls', a name derived from Arabic foklore, for a demon that feasts on the flesh of the dead. The reason they weren't called zombies, is because zombies, traditionally-speaking, aren't undead, flesh-eating, infecting corpses. They're undead slave labourers, controlled by a bokor; a sorcerer. Rather than shooting them in the head, feeding them salt will send 'em back to the grave.

That's why (actual) zombie flicks released before 1968 stick to the zombie-as-slave trope. Take Victor Halperin's White zombie (1932), Jacques Tourneur's I walked with a zombie (1943) and John Gilling's The plague of the zombies (1966). Occasionally, modern representations of the sorcerer (read: mad scientist) were used, as in Jerry Warren's Teenage zombies (1959). Even the cannibalistic overtones in Del Tenney's I eat your skin (1964) are a misnomer: no skin is eaten during the movie.

Somewhere along the line, the 'ghouls' of Romero's flick were morphed into 'zombies', extant Voodoo lore to the contrary. Zombies didn't infect others with their 'curse', a major trope associated with modern zombie flicks. That's a vampire trope, i.e. one featured in Romero's 'inspiration', I am legend. I use quotation marks for 'inspiration', because Romero, himself, admits that he did a little more than simply be 'inspired' by Matheson's novel: 'Then I read I Am Legend and adapted - well, actually ripped off! - the first half. And made it into Night Of The Living dead.'

Anyway, back to the political stuff. I was surprised to see the following image appear in Davis's article:


I wasn't surprised with the startling imagery of Obama as a vampire (not the first time I've seen that), but because the picture has been shamelessly 'vampirised' (heh heh) from Alex Ross's famous cover for The Village Voice:


Ross's image was used to illustrate Rick Perlstein's article, 'The end of democracy: losing America's birthright, the George Bush way.' What we have here is a political tool called zoomorphism. Its purpose is highlighted by Joël Kotek: 'To abuse one's adversaries, one dehumanizes them by turning them into animals.'* Funnily enough, this practice has been deployed against me, during my investigations in the Highgate vampire case.

* Kotek includes vampires in this category: 'The two other predominant anti-Semitic zoomorphic motifs are the blood-thirsty vampire and the octopus.'

On Diaries, Part Two

(Continued from previous blog entry.)

We now move along to "The case of Mercy Brown". His method of investigating the case? Copying it from Wikipedia's "Mercy Brown vampire incident" article (last modified on 11 January 2009, at 15:55).

The same level of originality is to be found in "Emma S------ and Eleonore Zügun", which is another extract from Montague Summers' The Vampire: His Kith & Kin (1928), which is at least cited. Sames goes for "Concomitants of Vampirism" and "Introducing Montague Summers" (aka "The Vampire: His Kith & Kin").

Meanwhile, "Discerning the Vampire" cribs portions from Seán Manchester's "A Demonologist's Reflections on Time Travel", an extract from Stray Ghosts.

And last of all, his most recent entry, "Montague Summers", is a copy-n-paste job of the Vampire Research Society's "Montague Summers" page.

The only entries that I had a bit of difficulty in tracing verbatim content from, were "The haunting of Elizabeth Wojdyla" and "The case of Petre Toma".

So what do we have with Diary of a Vampirologist? A "diary" that regurgitates the contents of other websites, which it could just as easily link to and/or provide commentary on. Its author is a "vampirologist" whose study is all but non-existent, going by the content relayed thus far.

Even his page design, page name and username have been borderline ripped-off from me. Indeed, he has previously "tailed" me in other mediums, as well as repeatedly plagiarised material, so his latest incarnation comes as no real shock. His agenda is an apparent mouthpiece for the Vampire Research Society, as is apparent from his frequent "borrowings" and dissemination of their writings. I also suspect his assumption of identities similar to mine is an attempt to get people confused as to thinking we are one and the same person.

This is highlighted be his approbation of one of my usernames, by aping the title of my blog and even by outright copying the title and format (which, I admittedly based on Magia Posthuma's) of another of my blogs.

The sinister intent of such actions becomes apparent, especially after Ms. LuluBelle's recent comment to "Imitation Isn't Always the Sincerest Form of Flattery", regarding Niel's uncovering of plagiarism on Diary of a Vampirologist:

That's interesting... I actually almost deleted you off my blogroll because of the plagerism post. Glad I didn't, because it wasn't you!

Oh, and now that he's been rumbled, don't be surprise if a few changes start taking place on his blog. Which is why I took the recourse of saving the pages I've discussed. Wouldn't be the first time.

On Diaries, Part One

Normally, when we write diaries, we describe our own thoughts and experiences.

"The Overseer" of Diary of a Vampirologist seems to have great difficulty grasping this concept. Indeed his use of the term "vampirologist", regards someone who studies vampires in different media. We'll see how much of his blog actually carries that out.

Niels K. Petersen first brought The Overseer's copy-n-paste blog entries to attention in "Plagiarism" for Magia Posthuma. But, just how extensively plagiarised are they? That's what I intended to find out.

Oh, but before I continue, I'll provide a correction to my previous post. I indicated that The Overseer's "Introducing Montague Summers" (which, after my previous post, has been re-titled to "The Vampire: His Kith & Kin") was his first blog entry. It wasn't.

His first actual entry was "Genesis of the word "Vampire"", which, regardless, still postdates my first entry. His inaugural blog entry also conveniently serves as the perfect springboard to this investigation. Why? Because it's nothing but an un-cited chunk of Wikipedia's "Vampire" article (last modified on 13 January 2009, at 02:00). The only real difference is, that the "Footnotes" in the Wikipedia article have been relisted as "Source" in The Overseer's.

Now we move onto "Those who are not vampires". He lists his source simply as "Seán Manchester" (his tendency to very vaguely list his references is a recurring theme, unsurprisingly). Is this a copy-n-paste job, too?

You better believe it.

It appears on a MySpace forum thread called "Vampirism". The entry in question is ripped off from someone calling themselves "The Highgate Vampire" (presumably a pseudonym for Seán Manchester, considering The Overseer's citation) in a post dated Tuesday, 30 December 2008 2:38 AM.

Next up is "Definition of a Vampire". Its sources are listed as "Seán Manchester" and "Montague Summers." Well, that certainly helps. But so does Google!

It looks like The Overseer tried to be a bit more sneaky this time, and rather than completely copy-n-pasting in verbatim, decided to rearrange the contents of "Vampires: Their Kith & Kin", the Vampire Research Society's FAQ page. Nice try. Incidentally, the same practice was carried out on The Overseer's "Why do people dismiss Vampires?". Ditto for "Vampire antidotes and exorcism".

Noticing a pattern?

"Philosophy of Vampirism" at least cites Montague Summers' The Vampire: His Kith & Kin (1928), but one must question the redundancy of copy-n-pasting a portion of his book, when the whole thing is available online.

Wikipedia is obviously a handy "source" (albeit, unlisted) for The Overseer, considering that his blog entry, "The case of Arnold Paole" has been cribbed from "Arnold Paole" (last modified on 14 January 2009, at 01:32), right down to the sources. Niels also contends that The Overseer also made use of his "Visum et repertum" blog entry. However, if this is the case, I'd say that the Wikipedia article, in turn, may be plagiaristic.

The free online encyclopedia is used once again for "The case of Peter Plogojowitz". Compare it with Wikipedia's "Peter Plogowitz" article (last modified on 3 January 2009, at 16:41).

Imitation Isn't Always the Sincerest Form of Flattery

I was rather startled to read Niels' "Plagiarism" blog entry on Magia Posthuma.

Why? Because of this:

Someone calling him- or herself The Overseer has started a blog called Diary of a Vampirologist that includes posts on a couple of famous 18th century vampirism.

The similarity of the title made me think, briefly, that my blog was being referred to!

But it couldn't possibly be. I've never plagiarised anything from him, and if I have quoted him, I would no doubt have given citation.

So, I decided to check out the link...and came across this.

Yep, a blog called Diary of a Vampirologist (DOAV). Gee, I wonder why that title sounds familiar. Oh, and doesn't that choice of background look familiar too...

(I've saved a link to the page, so if it "mysteriously" changes in format, I'll post up a screencap for the sake of comparison!)

For the record, my blog pre-dated his own. Note the date of my first blog entry against his.

However, the other interesting item that stems from the plagiaristic blog is its author's username, i.e. "The Overseer".

As it happens, it's the same username I use on another blog I write for.

I've got a hunch that the author of DOAV could quite possibly be the one and the same person written about here.