modern vampires in the media

RID Scourge · Post by **RID Scourge** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 4:55 pm

Halfshell wrote:Incidentally, on the subject of Twilight and its fans, and on the off-chance somebody here is yet to see it:

http://xkcd.com/591/

So the moral of the story is that when we troll another site we should claim that we're from somplace else so that we don't get spammed by teenage girls?

angloconvoy · Post by **angloconvoy** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 5:52 pm

RID Scourge wrote: Though yeah. Maybe they should've scrapped that whole "Drake" business too.

That was all just in there so they could give a bit of fan service to the Nightstalkers fans, while not even Vaguely trying to respect the characters they were, ahem, servicing. I personally liked Nightstalkers, in the pre-movie days, I could even live with the fairly major reworking of Blade's character, well, origins, surly one-dimensional vampire hater was pretty much always his character. King's origins were in keeping with the comic while fitting into the movie mythos, though his character was very different. Having a comedy version of King at least lifted the general dullness of the movie a few times. Drake was turned from a character who was vaguely interesting into a piss poor cover for Dracula (he was originally a completely human descendant of Dracula, hence the similar name).

As for Twilight, aside from the glittering vampires thing, what new takes on the vampire mythos were there really? I just felt I'd seen it all done before and better.
Also, did anyone here give the books a go? I'm going to go on record as saying Interview with a Vampire was a very dull book which really benefited from the movie trimming some of the fat.

RID Scourge · Post by **RID Scourge** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 5:59 pm

Ah. Never read Nightstalkers. Then again I haven't read any Blade either . . .

Got any recommendations for those two?

angloconvoy · Post by **angloconvoy** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 6:37 pm

Probably not worth it, I have a feeling that revisited it wouldn't hold up to my youthful remembrances. However, you could always pick up the essential tomb of dracula to get a feel for some of them, they all started out there.

Also, I really didn't enjoy the post movie Blade, where they changed him from the original to the movie version with pretty much zero explanation.

Notabot · Post by **Notabot** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 7:16 pm

angloconvoy wrote: Also, did anyone here give the books a go?

My wife read them and thoroughly enjoyed them. She said that the action and vampirism is not really the key to the books, but that they are well written in that they keep your attention in the mundane things that take place.

That said, they are definitely not aimed at guys. I read a paragraph here and there and she'd read parts to me, and it was like reading a teenage girl's diary. Feelings, sappy "love" professions, the torment of hormones. It was painful.

A good friend is a child psychiatrist, and he is sick of troubled youth saying they wish they were vampires.
"Are you happy right now?"
"No. I want to be a vampire"
"Why? So you can be eternally hormonal and unhappy? Wake up doofus!"

Post by **inflatable dalek** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 7:21 pm

DrSpengler wrote:That reminds me to post this picture of the new DVD cover for "Near Dark".

http://www.horrorsnotdead.com/images/ne ... ht_dvd.jpg

Well, look on the bright side, it'll get da kids to take notice of a good film when they see it in the DVD emporium.

RID Scourge · Post by **RID Scourge** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:47 pm

angloconvoy wrote:Probably not worth it, I have a feeling that revisited it wouldn't hold up to my youthful remembrances. However, you could always pick up the essential tomb of dracula to get a feel for some of them, they all started out there.

Also, I really didn't enjoy the post movie Blade, where they changed him from the original to the movie version with pretty much zero explanation.

Thanks. Might pick up the Essential volume.

I'm still hoping they do another few essential Moon Knights. They probably could get the rest of his initial run, his minis, his second run and some of his adventures with the avengers into three volumes. I'd love to read that stuff, but I'm too lazy/cheap to track it all down.

Managed to read the most current stuff and can't wait for Revenge of the Moon Knight to start up.

That's actually the only Marvel title I read at the moment. Though I might pick up some Avengers and Fantastic Four stuff eventually when I whittle down the stack o' trades that I still have to read.

Notabot wrote:A good friend is a child psychiatrist, and he is sick of troubled youth saying they wish they were vampires.
"Are you happy right now?"
"No. I want to be a vampire"
"Why? So you can be eternally hormonal and unhappy? Wake up doofus!"

Sounds a bit like something from that "How to tell if your child is a goth" list that was released a few years ago.

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 9:17 pm

inflatable dalek wrote:Well, look on the bright side, it'll get da kids to think it's a low-grade cash-in and ignore it

Good point. Well made.

DrSpengler · Post by **DrSpengler** » Mon Jul 27, 2009 9:58 pm

The only Nightstalkers/Blade I've ever read was during the early 90s run, around the time of the Midnight Sons stuff.

It was all some pretty terrible dreck, I thought. Actually found Ryan Reynolds's goofy Hannibal King far preferable to the dull-as-dishwater version from the comics.

The only halfway decent arc was the "Midnight Massacre" storyline, where Blade became Switchblade, but even that still sucked more than otherwise.

I've thought about going back and reading some of the classic Tomb of Dracula issues, but I have a hard time reading most comics from that era (all the purple prose makes me sick to my stomach).

angloconvoy · Post by **angloconvoy** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 1:58 am

I totally get you on all those points. It was always the premise more than the actual issues that had me interested. It seemed like a comic with a lot of potential, especially as Drake was some fish-out-of-water type that had pretty much zero business being there except for some serious guilt/paranoia. He was always a little lighter than the other two though, so it could have maintained a decent dynamic even with the serious, and a little dull King, but I took that as a decent portrayal of a recovering addict, the point being he can't really let himself have fun or he'll lose it. Unfotrunately, they didn't do all they could with that in many instances, maybe not even a whole issue but more pages or panels within an issue.
Also, you're right about the prose, but to be fair, that does adequately ape the style of Stoker's Dracula. I kinda skimmed a lot of those parts of tomb of Dracula but then, I kind of cherry picked the issues I read of that anyway.

Also, I love the premise of Moon Knight's character. Is he a warrior/god or is he just some athletic mental who thinks its a good idea to be like batman except using the complete opposite of camouflage.

The Doctor · Post by **The Doctor** » Tue Jul 28, 2009 7:23 am

RID Scourge wrote:Someone posted excerpts of it online somewhere. The writing made my brain cry.

This girl I fancy was swooning over that Edward guy so I it mostly out of jealousy. Otherwise I probably wouldn't care.

You know what was an awful Vampire movie? Blade Trinity. Don't remember much about the Blade II, but I remember enjoying the first Blade well enough. I blame Ryan Reynolds. He did make a good Deadpool though.

Blade Trinity was awful on so many levels it was not funny. Blade 2 was 100% imo.