There’s just something about vampires…

And all the more when they are Japanese.

This is the post where I tell you my favorite vampire anime. There are plenty of top 10 lists out there, but these are the ones that I enjoyed. I hope you do, too.

Vampire Hunter D

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This is the one that started it all. I think the first Japanese anime I’d ever seen was Totoro. There was this girl I met at a bus stop in San Jose and we became friends based on our book preferences. (Go figure!) She invited me to her apartment and we watched Totoro in Japanese while she interpreted it for me. I have loved anime ever since.

Oh, but we were talking about vampires! So, years and years later I was working as a tech writer and there was this programmer who lived over the cubicle wall from me (you’ve seen Dilbert comics right? Office Space, maybe? yeah, so you know about cubicle walls). And he slipped some anime over the wall and it was Vampire Hunter D and BAM. Hooked on anime again.

Vampire Princess Miyu

vampire-princess-miyu

This is the prettiest of them all. The art is gorgeous and the story’s atmosphere so very full of beauty and creepiness. Hard to explain, you just need to watch it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hellsing

Now this is a classic! You gotta love a series that names its main vampire by spelling Dracula backwards. That’s some chutzpah, right there. But besides that, there are some great characters and interesting politics and a lot of great anime action. Miyu may be the pretties, but this one has so many kickass pics that it’s hard to choose just one.

Vampire Knight

Vampire-KnightThis one is pure YA (young adult) fun, through and through, with the love triangle and everything. What to do when you’re supposed to be guarding everyone from the vampires, but you have a crush (maybe?) on one of the vampires… One of the best things about this anime is that it only has two seasons, so you get a complete story (more or less) without giving up years of your life watching hundreds of episodes. Ha!

 

 

 

 

Oh, yeah, and of course I enjoy the classics…

dracula-untold…Even though they aren’t Japanese. There’s the haunting and beautiful story Carmilla, which you can download free from the Gutenberg project. And the original Dracula by Bram Stoker (and the movie version).

Anne Rice has done so much for the genre with her many books, especially with the fascinating Interview with a Vampire and our introduction to Lestat.

The recent movie Dracula Untold was pretty cool, too. Go, Bard! I mean, Luke Evans. Heh heh.

I’ll tell you a secret!

In my own story world, the vampires are called hemavores. “Hema”, meaning blood. And “vore”, meaning that’s what they eat. You know, carnivore, herbivore — and hemavore. Hemas, for short. Of course, it doesn’t really matter what they’re called. They’d suck you dry in a minute if they could get away with it.

So tell me, what’s your favorite vampire story?

Drop a comment below and enlighten me.

Be amazing. Do what you love. Find others to share it with.

Excerpt from the end of the video and words of wisdom from Benjamin Von Wong for us all:

The people you want to work with to achieve the best results are not the most qualified professionals or the ones with the best credentials or the most experience. But it is the people that have the most passion and that really, really want to be involved. If you work with individuals who are as passionate as you are about success, you can’t fail. You can only succeed.

The three-step key to success:

1. Do [stuff] that you love.

2. Work with people who love [stuff] that you do.

3. Make good [stuff].

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Well, you know what I mean.

Check out Von Wong’s blog for more about the underwater photoshoot or see him on Flickr or 500px.

Headspace

Doctor Who fans arrive for the Season 8 premiere in the theater, inspiring thoughts of fandom and shared headspace

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I stood outside the theater on a Monday night. The crowds of the weekend were only faded after-images, filled in by my memory and imagination. As the twilight dimmed people trickled in, a middle-aged couple here, a family there, occasional small groups of teens. These few, these happy few.

This Monday night’s movie-goers were a special crowd. My homeys. Except geeks like us don’t say “homeys”. My tribe. My fellow travelers. Time travelers, to be specific. It was the premier of Doctor Who, Season 8, and Peter Capaldi was about to take the screen and occupy the TARDIS. Every Whovian was beautiful in my eyes, and I felt an instant kinship with each one that passed by, oblivious to my allegiance because I hadn’t worn my Whovian apparel. I was invisible.

Later, I could relate when the 12th Doctor said, “You can’t see me, can you? You look at me and you can’t see me.”

Heh.

Movie, or Mind Melding?

What happens when we immerse ourselves in a TV series? Week after week (or day after day for the Netflix bingers) we share headspace. People occupy our heads like Capaldi occupied the TARDIS. These people evoke emotions in us. Sometimes we like them, sometimes we hate them, sometimes they make us laugh, sometimes cry.

It’s the same when we read a book series. Or a comic book series. People take up residence inside us. We think it’s the story characters that we love, but have you ever considered what’s really happening? Is it really Doctor Who that we love? Or is it Russell T. Davies? Steven Moffat? Was it really Sherlock Holmes that everybody loved, or was it Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? Or in modern times, again Steven Moffat! Is it the crew of the Serenity, the cast of Buffy, the sympathetic aspiring villain Dr. Horrible — or is Joss Whedon whose heart we enjoy?

If you have ever been the fan of an author who wrote more than one series that you enjoyed, you may have made this connection. “I’ll read anything he writes. Doesn’t matter what genre. His work is amazing.”

Lois McMaster Bujold, author extraordinaire and fellow reader, mentions briefly in this review of The Rivers of London the very concept I sat down to write about here. She says,

There exists a quality of a book that I do not have a name for; it is approached by terms like “mode” and “voice” and “the writer’s world-view”, but isn’t quite any of these. I short-hand it as, “What kind of head-space am I going to be stuck in now?” And is it one I that will enjoy being stuck in? We seek out, I think, any favorite writer’s other books, even if they are varied, in the hopes of entering that agreeable head-space again.

Headspace.

When a single author creates a character, or a cast of characters, or a story world that we return to again and again, we’ve found someone whose headspace we enjoy inhabiting. Occupying, and yet opening ourselves to. Melding with.

The publishing world is changing. The world of entertainment is shifting. The best part of this transformation: the opportunity to find authors whose headspace we want to share. Authors whose voices might never have made it past the editors and publishing committees whose eyes were always on the bottom line, always looking for the voices with the widest possible audience.

Now those unique voices are set free and accessible to all.

I’m not saying it’s easy. There are a lot of stories to sort through. Which is why we readers need to get smart about finding what we’re looking for. Search for what we love. Find authors who love the same shows we do. Read their samples. And when we hit gold, when we find the ones we love to immerse ourselves in, hang on for dear life and don’t let go! Buy every book they put out. Support every Kickstarter they launch, even if it’s just with five bucks because it’s all we have. Talk to them on social media and leave reviews telling them how much we love their work.

Because they need encouragement. Because shared headspace is a sacred and precious gift, made possible by another amazing gift — the gift of words and the human imagination.

Readers and authors, unite.

Let’s love each other. Honor each other. Celebrate each other.

Live long, and prosper.
May the Force be with you.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
Geronimo! Allons-y!
Excelsior!

It is a good time to be a fan. Our new favorite story is just around the next bend.

Yay! I won the Internet today

In which an unassuming retweet results in much happiness.

Okay, maybe not the whole Internet.

But check it out: I won a print of this gorgeous piece by David Mack (one of my comic book creator heroes).

David Bowie by David Mack

You can see the image in a bigger size on Mack’s Tumblr.

Funny thing.

I didn’t even know I was entering a contest when I retweeted it. I just thought it was beautiful.

And now I get a copy of it! Yay me!

Much thanks to @gallerynucleus for their generosity.

Moral of the story:

Support other creatives.

The good seed you sow will come back around, sooner or later!

The Moon

The relationship between the werewolf and the moon, in comic style

Delightful surprise today. I was tagged in a tweet that led me to this fantastic bit of art. Ah, the relationship between the werewolf and the moon!

el_poder_de_la_luna_by_carecomicart-d76d2n0
El poder de la Luna by CareCOMICart on deviantART

This image reminded me of what my lycan (werewolf) friend Paul Conrad said about the moon:

I glanced up the sky, where the waxing orb hung, his pull and fascination never waning.

Most people thought of the moon as a “she”, but to me, that laughing bastard would always be male. The great, big alpha male in the sky. Jerking the strings and making all the lycans of the earth dance to his rhythm.

So arbitrary.
So brutal.
Hateful.

The comic style, with the moon glaring down, captured Conrad’s perception of the moon rather well, don’t you think?