Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, dynamite, entertainment, Mike Mayhew, nancy a collins, Patrick Berkenkotter, vampirella

Writer's Commentary On Vampirella #8 By Nancy A Collins

We have a short writer's commentary by Nancy A. Collins for this weeks Vampirella #8 from Dynamite. The issue was drawn by Patrick Berkenkotter with a main cover by Mike Mayhew.

In the second installment of The Accursed story-arc, Vampirella helps The Kabal track down "The Good Doctor"-aka the fabled Dr. Faustus. Their hunt for the immortal alchemist takes them to India, where Faustus is working on perfecting his 'black rabies'-a deadly virus that combines elements of a supernatural curse and a natural disease, turning the humans infected by it into homicidal maniacs! Can Vampirella find the mad doctor before he unleashes the mutant contagion on the population of one of the world's most populous countries? But, more importantly, can she trust her new allies once they get their hands on Faustus' research?

The book is in comic shops now.

Page 1: In the plays by Marlowe and Goethe, Faustus/Faust is dragged to hell by Mephistopheles in the final act. However, my version of the Good Doctor's history also has him being damned, but in a different manner. In this case, he is punished by Zeus for raping his daughter—and I'm not the first to read Faust's summoning of Helen of Troy to satisfy his lust in such a context.

Page 2: I've been writing vampire-related fiction for over 25 years, and I've had several fans of the genre state that they view immortality as an "up" side to being damned.  Well, maybe it would be, if you were still young. But what if you were old and became immortal? Living for countless centuries with arthritis, cataracts, incontinence, and false teeth kind of takes the shine off the apple, doesn't it? Personally, I can't think of a worse fate than being old, still vulnerable to disease and injury, and yet unable to die.

Page 3: Believe it or not, "The Good Doctor" was written months before last year's Ebola panic. The idea behind the "black rabies" has its origins in an outline for a suspense thriller I never got around to writing, where a terrorist organization spreads fear and chaos throughout the United States by setting up free clinics in high-density cities such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles that supposedly tend to the medical needs of the less fortunate while actually injecting them with diseases such as rabies, Ebola, anthrax, bubonic plague, and antibiotic resistant tuberculosis. Given our country's attitude towards public health care, it's a horrifyingly realistic scenario.

Page 5: Both Madame Evily and, to a lesser extent, Tristan, are modern reworkings of pre-existing characters from the Warren Era. Madame Evily originally appeared in Vampirella #2, back in 1969, where she was introduced as Vampi's witchy "cousin" and was never seen or mentioned again. 45 years later, I have repurposed her as the current director of The Kabal, the monster version of MI-6.  Tristan Caillet, the dashing werewolf secret agent, is modeled on Tristan, Vampirella's lover from Drakulon, who appeared in flashbacks and dream sequences several times, starting in issue # 57 back in 1977, and was often described as being more of her soul mate than Adam Van Helsing (although they looked identical, as far as I could tell).

For more on Vampirella #8, click here.

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