I was skeptical when a movie adaption of Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter was announced. Sure, it made for a fun book, but let’s face it, so much gets lost in translation when most books hop over to the big screen. I’m honestly surprised this film got much of a budget at all, given how terrified many studios seem to be of new ideas. Why make something original (well, an adaption of something original) when you can churn out another sequel? The answer is simple, I think: vampires.

And there are no vampires in this poster. Just Lincoln himself, slouched in dramatic fashion with his axe in hand. We’ll have to wait until a trailer shows up to see how the movie will be handled, but here’s hoping they go for a pulpy, entertaining route rather than the more serious path. Because, come on, there’s no way to make this concept serious. The posters were revealed exclusively by IGN.

The New York Times recently released this photo of the upcoming film Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter — a film I still can’t believe is actually in production. I have yet to actually sit down and read the novel its based on. The concept for the film just seems so far fetched, not that it isn’t the least bit awesome. Imagining Abraham Lincoln waging war on the South while taking the occasional sabbatical to axe a few vampires sounds pretty cool, and the trailer for the novel did a great job of selling it. I just hope the film lives up to the hype.

Tim is a pro-blogger and freelance writer out of San Diego, California. In addition to Fanboy.com, he contributes to the ModernMethod Network of sites as the Features and Reviews Editor for the Japanese culture and entertainment blog, Japanator. He’s also an Assocaite Editor for their popular gaming blog, Destructoid, and the collectible toy culture blog, Tomopop. For more information, follow him on twitter, or check out TimSheehy.com.

The image of a vampire licking their blood stain lips after feeding, or bearing their fangs may or may not send a shiver up your spine, but for viewers these are possibly a quintessential appearance of a vampire. Vampires was first mentioned in literature around the 1700’s, but until Bran Stroker’s Dracula was published around 1897, the other vampire works weren’t as definitive or influential. Now the usage of vampires is a very common tool. Viewers can easily see vampires in contemporary series like Twilight, True Blood, or The Vampire Diaries. But consider these vampires in three different categories, Movies; Television; Comics, and see if you want to be bitten, if they have their focuses on you.

Cinema

Bela Lugosi: Around the 1920-30’s when silent films transitioned into talking pictures. There were several versions of vampires in this period, though the most notable and striking one has to be Bela Lugosi. He was an Hungarian born actor, who initially played Dracula on Broadway. After the death of another actor, he was invited to play Count Dracula, in the 1931 released film. He became recognized as movie history’s first horror star, and even if you have never seen his movies, you will see him in the various images that is representative of vampire horror genre. Too bad that after this movie, Lugosi was quickly typecast and by the end of his life, playing low budgeted films for Ed Wood.

Christopher Lee: He is the second Count Dracula, that is a familiar face to horror movie fans. He started this role in 1958, and eventually went on to reprise it in several sequels throughout the 60’s. For some of the Dracula movies he starred in, there is no dialogue other than Lee requiring to hiss for the camera.  As Dracula, there are so many scenes he acted out a the end to a vampire’s worst fears: death by stake; death by sunlight; death by moving water, just how vampire vices can you recall? Lee certainly doesn’t count his foray as Dracula memorable, but to classic horror fans, his movies are a must-see!

Television

Buffy the Vampire Slayers/Angel: As the 90’s began, there was a Buffy the Vampire Slayers movie, that was a parody of horror movies at the time. Now fast forward several years later on television around 1997, and you may remember Buffy the Vampire Slayer with its eventual spinoff show of Angel. The premises of the televised Buffy is that in every generation, a slayer is chosen to battle evil forces. When the show aired, it brought forth new ideas and concepts to the sexy vampire image. People would remember the story’s various vampire characters of Angel, Spike,  Drusilla, Darla or even the Master. Their makeup alone would remind people that vampire depictions is not just the fangs that set them apart from other humans. This show definitely made its mark still in cultivating strong female roles, spinoffs and fandoms.

True Blood: As a recent cable network show starting around 2008, True Blood brings to light an idea where vampires are living alongside humans. How does the human race react to the vampires that live alongside them? With a vampire and a human falling in love, how is this relationship even sustained? Vampires in this show are not as originally depicted, but their role brings forth an emotional appeal that vampires are beings with emotions and trials. Evil can come in many forms, that are not just vampires as the culprits.

Comic Books

Blade: Initially appearing in Marvel Comics during the 70’s, Blade was a supporting character in several horror Vampire comics. He is a character that was involved with short lasting series, that weren’t as lasting as Marvel’s other more prominent series, yet Blade as a character got used. During the 90’s he appeared in Ghost Rider and Nightstalkers, but it was in 1994, that he debuted in his first color comic, Blade: Vampire Hunter. Despite his horrific origins, he is known as a Day Walker to the other vampires that he swore to slay. Just what is the quality of this Dhampir (half vampire/human) that compelled the movie and television spin offs?

Skinner Sweet: is the first of his kind, an American vampire who is different from the European vampires. He doesn’t have an aversion to wood, and like Blade, is a daywalker. Famed horror writer Stephen King, writes the story of this original series. He is an anti-hero, with an agenda of keeping the Old West alive. Skinner was killed during the 1800’s, and this story takes place around the 1920-30’s. At first, he is determined to get revenge from whoever who made him into a vampire, but he eventually learns to live with his vampire status. Just what other potential stories are there to be made for this original character?

Linda Yau is a fan of Japanese culture, and various anime/manga titles. She is a freelance writer and editor under her own name or animemiz. Her main blog is here and she can be contacted by Twitter.

So, all of you know who Richard Belzer is. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, try Detective Munch, or “the skinny paranoid cop on Law and Order: SVU who used to be on Homicide: Life on the Street” (the latter clause only if you’re a true obsessive when it comes to crime TV, or are over the age of 30).

But did you know that long before he played one of the most crossed-over, spun-off characters on television, Belzer was a stand-up comedian? And did you know that he’s apparently returning to the stage…digitally? Pop Eater has just debuted Belzer’s new video, an homage to vampires…who love the ladies.

(So does Belzer, fyi.)

Gia Manry is a professional writer specializing in geek culture. She currently writes primarily for Anime News Network, but also likes being followed on Twitter. She can be contacted via her website.

If you were a fanboy child of the 70s you’ll well remember the Mego Star Trek action figures. Of course there was Kirk, Spock and McCoy but sadly if if you wanted that one other character you had to * gasp * use your imagination! Well progress being what it is there is an entire series of all of those other characters you wanted to play with in the backyard but who never were (except on the small screen). Shown above is the Captain Pike action figure which is a nice tribute to actor Jeffrey Hunter who passed on the role of captain in 1965 in favor of a film career — and sadly he passed away in 1969. And on the silly side is the Salt Vampire whose proper name is the now extinct M-113 creature from the episode The Man Trap:

HBO’s True Blood has been a huge success, no doubt due in part to the Vampire craze that’s plagued the nation since Twilight hit the scene. It might be slightly more overplayed than mixing zombies with our favorite Sci-Fi series, but that certainly won’t stop anyone from watching the show — or, reading the comic. That’s right, IDW has picked up the license to the hit show and will now be publishing the True Blood comics. The first issue should be available in stores now, but a special edition is available at San Diego Comic Con with a limited edition wrap-around cover. The comic should continue the on-going adventures of Sookie Stackhouse and her lover Bill. No word on if the series will actually feature any cannon storylines, but I imagine it won’t unless the producers get involved.

Tim is a pro-blogger and freelance writer out of San Diego, California. In addition to Fanboy.com, he contributes to the ModernMethod Network of sites as the Features and Reviews Editor for the Japanese culture and entertainment blog, Japanator. He’s also an Assocaite Editor for the collectible toy culture blog, Tomopop. For more information, follow him on twitter, or check out TimSheehy.com.

Apparently tired of their own boring and ubiquitous banner ads, Ancestry.com decided to try a more novel approach to publicity, more in the time-honored tradition of tabloids and Perez Hilton: release interesting information about celebrities. Rather than go about peeping in windows, however, Ancestry.com used its own database to discover that Robert Pattinson, aka “that guy who plays the vampire in Twilight, the book/movie franchise designed to sexually arouse 13-year-old girls,” is in fact related to Vlad Tepes, aka Vlad the Impaler, aka Bram Stoker’s inspiration for Dracula.

The funny part, of course, being that anyone who has the slightest understanding of genealogy or of how long ago ol’ Vladdie lived knows that you might be too!

Any number of blogs and TV newscasts aching for something more fun than the oil spill to talk about picked up the story, but I think the best piece was The New York Daily News’. See, they point out that Pattinson is also (slightly) related to the British royal family, whose heirs Prince William and Prince Harry have a bit of the Vlad in ‘em…and then goes on to say that Twilight author Stephenie Meyers is also related to England’s family royale. Which means that not only is Stephenie meyers related to Pattinson (ZOMG NEPOTISM!) but also that the Twilight author is related to Vlad herself.

People, when we’re talking about this kind of timeline– Vlad lived in the 15th century, for pete’s sake! –there is almost nothing of interest about this. Vlad had 3 kids, who probably each had 3 kids, who probably each had at least 3 more. If we say a generation is every ~25 years (a generous estimate), and each generation had an average of– we’ll lowball it at 2.5 children –aaand 222 is about 568,434,188ish possible descendents of Vlad, about 9% of the world. That’s almost as many people as are left-handed in the world (~10%).

In other words, this is no divine province, just minor coincidence. Move along.

Gia Manry is a professional writer specializing in geek culture. She currently writes primarily for Anime News Network, but also likes being followed on Twitter. She can be contacted via her website.

I can just see the meeting where the demography folks break out their PowerPoint and announce that “if we want to gain a female readership we gotta have vampires!” And to be fair women love vampires — so how can you go wrong? Well looking at the above cover of the Marvel one shot Death of Dracula you can drive a stake through its heart. Clearly what the art director didn’t get is that vampires are really all about romance, yet what you’ve got here looks like a bad parody of a 50s pulp magazine. But wait it gets worse, here are the character designs by the talented Marko Djurdjevic who seems to be channeling the worse elements of Elfquest and DEVO:

I must admit that I’m not exactly a historical fiction buff, but when I heard about Seth Grahame-Smith’s recently released novel, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, I must admit that the concept piqued my interest. Of course, it wasn’t until I stumbled across this amazing trailer for the novel that I found myself compelled to buy a copy. I’m still in the process of reading it, so I can’t comment too much on the content, aside from my assurance that it isn’t Twilight.

It’s also come to my attention that the book has been licensed for film by none other than Tim Burton. It sounds promising, but after seeing Alice in Wonderland, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t the least bit worried. Still, if it looks anything like this trailer — it probably won’t — I’ll be happy.

Tim is a pro-blogger and freelance writer out of San Diego, California. In addition to Fanboy.com, he contributes to the ModernMethod Network of sites as an Associate Editor for the Japanese culture and entertainment blog, Japanator, as well as the collectible toy culture blog, Tomopop. For more information check out TimSheehy.com

There’s always been something very haunting about the eyes of Blythe dolls so it’s highly appropriate that we’d see a vampire Blythe sooner or later. Although what I didn’t expect to see were these two Disney Blythes which celebrate the classic films Dumbo and Pinocchio:

Being a manga fanboy the release of Devil #1 immediately caught my eye: “Manga artist Torajiro Kishi (Maka-Maka) and blockbuster anime studio Madhouse (Trigun, Paprika, Ninja Scroll) love comics. So much so that they’ve decided to publish an original, Western-style comic exclusively with Dark Horse! Enter Devil, a thrilling, sci-fi take on the vampire genre.”

However looking at the book I’ve got mixed feelings: On one hand the illustrations look great, but on the flip side the coloring is cheesy (i.e. bad Photoshop) and the page layouts look quite static because each panel is trapped in a western style layout. My guess is that this is Dark Horse making the comic “specifically for the American audience” but as an American fanboy I’m a bit letdown. But you be the judge and look at the previews below:

This film looks silly, stupid and dumb — but I’ve got to see it! Yeah sure the plot reminds me a bit too much of Buffy meets The Lost Boys but that passes with me if you do it with a good sense of humor, and seeing John C. Reilly on the screen makes me feel sort of happy from the get go. And then add Salma Hayek doing her goth thing and we know we’re going to have some fun here. The Vampire’s Assistant opens on October 23rd.

On this day in 1960 the British film The Brides of Dracula made it’s American debut. The film was produced by the beloved Hammer Film Productions which did some amazing horror and science fiction work in the 50s with films like The Quatermass Xperiment and The Curse of Frankenstein. Although by 1959 they started to revert to sequels and by 1974 had produced a total of 9 Dracula flicks. Of course in this case the Dracula title is slightly dishonest as the lead vampire Baron Meinster (played by handsome David Peel) was in fact just a mere disciple of Count Dracula as seen in this trailer:

Sadly Christopher Lee as Dracula is lacking from this film, which means by default the real star of this gothic tale is Peter Cushing who plays Van Helsing. The leading lady Marianne is played by super sexy French actress Yvonne Monlaur, although I have to say that the brides tend to steal the scenes. My personal favorite here is Freda Jackson who even in this trailer stands out with her delivery of the line “Don’t be afraid, she’s DEAD!” By the way it should be noted that Freda Jackson would also go on to play a bit part in the science fiction series Blake’s 7 (series 2, episode 12).

The most depressing thing about this trailer is that awful cover version of a Kate Bush song that kicks in about a minute and a half into this trailer! Until that point I was willing to give yet another vampire flick a chance, but ruining a musical icon ruins everything for me. Well in any case Daybreakers will come out in January 2010 so perhaps they’ll have time to fix the soundtrack. Here’s an overview of the plot:

“Edward Dalton is a researcher in the year 2019, in which an unknown plague has transformed the world’s population into vampires. As the human population nears extinction, vampires must capture and farm every remaining human, or find a blood substitute before time runs out. However, a covert group of vampires makes a remarkable discovery, one which has the power to save the human race.”

The film is directed by Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig, and stars Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Isabel Lucas, Michael Dorman and Vince Colosimo.