Meg Cabot (of Princess Diaries fame) is the author of over twenty-five series and books for both adults and teens. Her most recent book is the paranormal romance Insatiable, a modern sequel to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Armed with the Oxford World Classics edition, she launched a Dracula reading group earlier this summer, and now–in an exclusive Q&A–shares her thoughts on all things vampire. Read on for the chance to test your Dracula knowledge and win prizes!
If you were bitten tomorrow, and had to choose a vampire name, what would it be?
Well, obviously, Meg Cadaver.
If someone attacked “Meg Cadaver” with a stake, and you only had Dracula to block the blow, would it work?
Absolutely. My super vampire strength, combined with the amazing power of Bram Stoker’s prose, would easily defeat their piddling human arm and wooden stake that was probably made by Ikea.
If Dracula had a Twitter handle, what would it be?
The possibilities are so endless . . .
Longinthetooth
Vampyvlad
Undeaddandy
CoffinCasanova
Although personally, I’d probably go with a simple 8U.
What is the most fascinating thing about vampires?
They never seem to die.
What is the most boring thing about vampires?
They never seem to die.
Who is the most ultimate, hard-core, awesome vampire of all time?
I feel compelled, because of the forum, to answer Dracula. But if you weren’t here I would answer Blade. I realize he’s a Daywalker, of course, but he has that awesome haircut.
Who is the sexiest vampire of all time?
Sadly for me it’s Michael Nourri circa 1979 as Dracula in “The Curse of Dracula” on the TV show “Cliffhangers,” which I wasn’t ever actually allowed to stay up to watch. Which is probably why, in my feverish imagination, it’s still the best. And now I never want to see it, as it could never live up to what I remember thinking, from the commercials: that it had to be the most fantastic show of all time. Considering it was canceled after only one season, I think this must be untrue. But you never know.
I’m upset that most modern vampires don’t wear cloaks. How do you feel about this?
I agree. In Insatiable, I gave my vampire a black Burberry trench coat, the tail of which flapped around a lot in the wind during moments of high tension, to give the impression of a cloak. But it’s definitely not the same thing. In my defense, the only way to give a vampire a cloak in a book set in modern times and not have him stand out like a big freak is to either make him be an eccentric bestselling author, have live him in the subway tunnels of NYC with the mole people, or have him work at a Medieval Times restaurant. None of these are particularly appealing options, especially the first.
We were asked recently to suggest a version of Dracula for kids - no easy feat if you're interested in the original story and not a Hollywood approximation.
After some research, we suggest checking out the following two versions geared for younger readers:
and
The Great Illustrated Classics version
The links lead to their Amazon pages so you can take a closer look. Both are abridged and told in more modern English than the original, and geared toward the 8-12 crowd. Introduce kids to the classic tale without all the modifications so common in children's literature!
Only two more sleeps ’til Hallowe’en, kiddies! If you youngsters need a little help drawing monsters, then Monsterman ‘Scary’ Harry Borgman can help.
Way back in 1974 Harry drew a little booklet called “How to Draw Monsters”. By then, Harry had been drawing cars, people, landscapes and just about anything else you can think of for more than three decades. Harry began his commercial art career in Detroit in 1946.
In the early 70’s not only was Harry drawing cartoon Draculas… he also drew some gorgeous realistic Dracula illustrations for a book called “Great Tales of Horror and Suspense”.
Harry’s varied career has given him a wealth of esoteric experiences. For instance, though he was never one of “Mad’s maddest artists” he was one of Sick’s sickest artists. The cartoon creeps below are a great example of his ’sick skills’.
Harry is now 81 and still going strong. In fact, he’s just celebrated the first anniversary of his blog. Drop by Harry Borgman’s Art Blog and you’ll see for yourself that this amazing illustrator can teach you how to draw monsters… and a whole lot more!
* I’ll be featuring a dozen scans from “How to Draw Monsters” on my own blog on Saturday October 31st, but you can preview them all ( and tons of other amazing Harry Borgman art) in my Harry Borgman Flickr set.
Posted by Leif Peng on Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog |
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Tags: Dracula, Frankenstein, halloween, Harry Borgman, monsters, Sick
Greetings all,
I'm a newbie on this site, so I thought I'd take a minute to introduce myself. My name is Tim Baron and like many of you, stay up way too late after my bedtime drawing monsters and robots.
Feel free to check out my Website, or my blog for more examples of my work.
Happy to be here: )
Today I've been playing Amanda Palmer's song Oasis and the Bonzo Dogs' new song Beautiful People, more or less over and over, like some kind of weird A and B side. (That's a reference for the very old.)
Mr.Gaiman,
I was wondering where I might be able to find a copy of the "
Snow Glass Apples" which appeared on
scifi.com's "Seeing Eye Theatre" as SET has been removed from the scifi website.
Thanks,
Matthew
Interesting... and a bit mysterious. I figured I'd be able to point you to lots of places that had it up, as I did the last time someone asked. But no. It's vanished from the Scifi.com site, it's vanished from iTunes, it's vanished from Audible.com, and even the stuff you used to be able to listen to here on this site has vanished as well.
The Audie-award winning CD of Two Plays For Voices (which contains Bebe Neuwirth starring in Snow Glass Apples, Brian Dennehy starring in Murder Mysteries) is still available for as long as it stays in print (here's the Amazon link) (here's the DreamHaven link). Right now that's the only way to legitimately listen to it.
(Look, Dreamhaven have Mirrormask toys on sale.)
I'm not quite sure who the rights owner is for the online versions of Snow Glass Apples or Murder Mysteries, to be honest. Probably the SciFi channel. And if they're no longer hosting the marvellous Seeing Ear Theatre material they did I wish they'd put it up somewhere like Last FM, or at Audible, so that people could hear it...
(In a box in my basement are a hundred or so cassette copies of Two Plays for Voices that Harpers remaindered and that I bought thinking they were CDs.)
-Kevin
According to Harper Collins, it's a mistake on Amazon's part. It won't be coming out in the US until at least 2009.
Back in 1993 I got a book called The Essential Dracula: The Definitive Annotated Edition, with annotations by Leonard Wolf. Are you familiar with this book? How is the book that you introduced different?
thanks,
ErickThis one is better. It's been annotated by Les Klinger, who did the amazing
Annotated Sherlock Holmes collections a few years back. I've read it, and have seen a few designed pages, and it's a remarkable piece of work.
...
Oh, and the "nothing rhymes with Neil Gaiman" thing. Alan Moore said that. I didn't.
But those of you who are writing in to point out that "simon" or "rhymin'" or "hymen" rhyme with Gaiman are simply wrong. Honest.
Among the ones that came in and
did rhyme (and there have been about a dozen so far) this one, by Anna Lawrence, stood out...
In re 'rhymes':There was a young author named Gaiman
Whose books were beloved of the layman
But the story turned horrider
On a trip down to Florida
When his leg was bit off by a cayman.
... I'm sorry about that, but it had to be done.Not a problem. If we gave no-prizes, you could have one. Would you like a cassette of
Two Plays for Voices? (Anna only omitted "stamen" and "daemon", two other words popular with today's poetic correspondents.)
...
I wrote the end of Chapter 8 today. Then I went back and started writing a couple of scenes from Chapter 7 I skipped while I was writing it, so the book isn't quite finished. But it sort of almost is.
How in the world did Bruce Coville get left out of my NE SCBWI conference photos? What an incredible speaker. I heard him at the World of Children's Literature Conference in Lake Placid, NY six years ago and couldn't wait to see him at SCBWI last weekend. He was funny and smart and worth every minute of waiting.
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Leif, this is great! Man, I’m so glad you’re doing Drawn posts now.
I agree – Leif rocks… and so does Harry. Great post!