EDIT: I did two versions of this comic. I ended up liking the second one better (I just felt like it was punchier) but you can check out the old one on this new tumblr thing I got here.
Attention! If you have not been tested, do yourself and your partner(s) a favour and head to the nearest clinic now! You could be a vampire and not even know it. Vampirism is the silent killer and it will not hesitate to mess your shit up! If you know you’re a vampire, we don’t take kindly to your type around here so why don’t you just mosey on back to your coffin!
I’ve always thought of vampirism as being an awkward affliction. Maybe you become a vampire without realizing it and just start biting people. You realize, later, that you’ve contracted this disease. It’s time to make some phone calls. Who were you with recently? This is going to be tough…
I’ve never had an STD before, but I imagine it’s roughly analogous.
Then again, I suppose the thirst for blood, the fangs, and the aversion to sunlight might make self diagnosis much simpler. WebMD’s probably got some info on dealing with it.
Awkwardness aside, the vampire in modern fiction doesn’t seem all that bad if you take away the unquenchable desire for human juices. Being a vampire is, largely, a matter of having super strength, super speed, good looks, and pale skin. You get to sleep all day, go clubbing at night, and have beautiful perfect teeth with some bitchin’ canines. Oh and you get to live forever. Yeah yeah, you watch everyone you love die, wah wah wah. Give me a break. You want to hang out with them for eternity? Turn them into a vampire, you baby!
Back in the day, being a vampire was actually seen as pretty horrible. The thirst wasn’t just a slight thing, it was constant and it was painful. Vampires were less human and more walking corpse. Nobody wants to live forever if they can’t at least look good doing it.
I sure as shit don’t.
I guess that’s the thing about eternity. You never hear people talk about heaven or vampires now and hear them talk about how they’ll look old or ugly or have that terrible acne problem. No, everything’s perfect forever, whether you’ve been bitten or living in a sweet afterlife. I’m not sure if that’s a product of our own wishful thinking or a more modern concept thanks to a culture of celebrity worship and super model obsession, but it’s strange when you think about it. Why should every vampire look good? Maybe good looking people just taste better. Maybe there’s some kind of pheromone at work. I don’t know, I’m not a scientist.
If I were a scientist this is the sort of thing I would study. As soon as my patrons found out I would promptly lose my funding and never be taken seriously again, if I ever was in the first place.
You know what, I think I’ll stick with comics. It’s probably for the best.
man, story of my life.
If you get buried under heaps of snow, I will be there with you. And the rest of the Midwest.
how does one become a dracula? D:
Hey, K, do you live in NYC? The snow just started coming down like crazy outside. I’m hoping it’s not too bad in the morning. I have to hit the bank and head to class. Just started a new semester!
Close! I live in Massachusetts and it’s snowing here now! I think I’ll be skipping class today :O
Good luck on your new semester! If things keep up the way they have been this winter, we’ll be lucky to have any classes at all!
Hell I live in Maryland and I took today off from classes. Dragging a 3ft sheet of zinc back and forth to printmaking and not getting it scratched of scuffed on the metro while it is ice-raining?
But this was a funny one, so when does she turn into a vampire… or is this the type of mythology where she becomes a mindless slave, or just dies?
The snow comes up to my knees and I still go. Even when it’s -40 degrees Celsius.
Where in Massachusetts? I was born in Westbrough.
Yay for living in Mass! Not yay for my city not know how to clear roads…
Yeah all these new-age vampires really don’t have the stuff that made the old ones kind of awesome. I mean being pretty forever isn’t half bad but… most of the early vampire myths were really kind of awesome. And they did used to be able to go out in the sun, they just lost their powers (No this is not Buffy, no amulet crap, this was old European myth). They also had backward facing palms, could turn into mist and wolves, and had an awesome evil magic stare (which Bela Lugosi emulates wonderfully).
The new takes on vampires these days just seem way too easy. If being a vampire was just about being pretty and living forever everyone would do it. And then you get Daybreakers *shudder* … we need fewer vampire movies…
K, you go to college in massachusetts? is it western mass, perhaps with a bunch of other colleges around it? (eh? eh?)
This vampire obsession is out of control. It’s interesting/terrifying how one lady’s sex dream can turn into like a billion other peoples’ sex dreams which fuel the whole market for a sexy vampire CULTURE. The only similar situations I can think of revolve around teen pop sensations. I suppose the bloodsuckers have more in common than I thought.
And I originally thought they had a lot in common.
The answer you seek is in Alfred Fox’s “Fat White Vampire Blues.”
Set in pre-Katrina New Orleans, it’s a hoot!
Arnold, not Alfred….
I’ve always thought the idea of…I can’t remember if it’s explicitly Chinese or if it’s just Asian in general…anyway, the idea of the Chinese/Asian vampires hilarious. If I remember correctly, they were just heads *with the entrails still hanging out* that flew around sucking the qi out of people, I always thought it to be funny because I could never get the picture of them rolling around and me (or someone else) just punting them away if the got to close.
That’s one of the versions to be sure. In other versions they are more like zombies or reanimated corpses. supposedly the idea was at one point, when a body dies far from their home and the family didn’t have money to pay for a wagon to bring the body back, they would pay a local monastery to animate the corpse and make it walk back home. Except rigor mortis had set in so they kind of just hopped. Eventually evil sorcerers or something found out and would use it to animate corpses to do their bidding. That’s why the qi vampires occasionally are shown with tags on their faces, someone is controlling them. They also ranged in appearance from newly dead to hoping corpse zombie (which I think is a funnier picture than head+entrails).
You know, I think I come here every bit as much, if not a bit more, for the blog as I do for the comics. You always make my Tuesday and Friday, K. Thanks, and keep up the good work!
“EDIT: I did two versions of this comic. I ended up liking the second one better (I just felt like it was punchier) ”
Punchier… Puncture… alternative had a girl full of puncture wounds….
yeah.
Bahahaha. Dracula FTW
dude, if by tomorrow we don’t hear from you, im TOTALY sending a rescue party…
Actually, less like STDs and more like the Bubonic Plague. That’s probably what a lot of the European ‘outbreaks’ were based off of–basically people started freaking out because people were getting sick and dying within a few days (not to mention entire villages disappearing within months). They often accused the first victim of being a vampire and tried to cure the village by destroying his body. If that didn’t work, it was time to stake all the dead bodies. There were also a lot of wacky and not-so-smart cures or inoculations, for instance, smearing yourself with or drinking the blood of a supposed vampire.