Creator Spotlight: Fred Van Lente on Vampyrates!
Fred Van Lente writes nonfiction and fiction comics. With Ryan Dunlavey he made Action Philosophers! and the Comic Book History of Comics, and at Marvel he co-wrote Incredible Hercules with Greg Pak. In July, Vampyrates! launched from BOOM! Studios with art by Luca Pizzari.
We asked him how he built the Night Isles, a world where vampires run everything, what playwriting taught him about scripts, how he picks winners in his Comic Book Death Match column, and what's on his desk next.
For readers who might not know your work yet, how would you describe what you do?
I write comic books for a living! This is in fact my 20th anniversary as a professional comics writer. I have written prose novels and games too, video games and TTRPGs, but comics are my primary interest.
Vampyrates! launched from BOOM! in July with Luca Pizzari. How did you decide how much of the Night Isles to show readers in the first issues?
It's a very different kind of vampires because the Night Isles is a world entirely ruled by vampires. There are humans, in fact they outnumber the vampires four to one, but their status in this society is as second class citizens/livestock. Vampires don't need to hide in coffins, because they run the show. They also run this world's main religion (though there are others), known as the Sanguine Church of the Last Communion, so religious symbols don't affect them either. They cast shadows, they can see themselves in mirrors, because they have souls, they're not opposed to the local god, he's their deity.
Vampyrates! takes place during a thousand-year eclipse. What did a world without daylight make you work out in the script that a regular pirate story gets for free?
So this is the primary reason vampires rule -- it's a world of indefinite darkness. Because of that, we don't have green plants like we do on our world -- everything is these weird colors, like anemone who live on the bottom of the sea. I like the part of worldbuilding where you take one story point and all these other cool ideas spin away from it.
Nira starts out as an empress and has to work her way up the Vampyrates' ranks from lowly swab. What does putting someone used to giving orders at the bottom of a ship's crew let you do with her?
Nira starts out, not as a bad person, but more someone who's not interested in ruling. She inherited the job. She likes being rich, she likes being able to fence and have lovers, and gets in trouble for taking a human lover -- the Church revolts against her rule and starts her coup, forcing her to stowaway on a pirate ship, Abyss, where the captain, Akeyo, hates her almost as much as the church does. So this is gonna get bloody. Hope people pick it up, the world we created is so much fun and Luca's art is amazing.
You write nonfiction comics like Action Philosophers and the Comic Book History of Comics as well as fiction like Vampyrates! Does the research habit from the nonfiction carry over when you're inventing a world like the Night Isles, or do the two feel like separate jobs?
Basically they use different lobes of the brain. When I get tired of doing fiction, it's great to escape into non-fiction, and vice versa. They're both forms of storytelling, but there's a precision to non-fiction as opposed to the freedom of fiction. It is much easier to make stuff up!
You've also written for the stage, including King Kirby. What's something from playwriting that you've brought back into your comics scripts?
It's a really different kind of medium. In comics, the artist is the primary storyteller, in movies it's the camera, and on stage it's the actors. The reverence the theater world has for the written word is quite extreme. As a playwright it's a real "great power requires great responsibility" type situation.
Your Comic Book Death Match column on 13th Dimension puts classic series and runs head to head. What has picking winners between them taught you about what makes a comic work?
It's a fun column to do, I'm grateful Dan Greenfield at 13th Dimension made it a regular staple. The fun of it is pretending that I'm reading each one of these classic comics side by side, month after month, and I've got to figure out which one is better based on that. So if I review one issue of one title in the match, I have to review the issue of the competing title that came out in that same month. I think that produces a fair result, the "best" title does come out on top.
A comics script is the part of the job readers never see. What goes into yours that would surprise someone who has only read the finished page?
I try to make the script on the page both aesthetically pleasing and as clear as possible for the penciller and everyone else who has to read it -- I think those two things really go hand in hand, in fact -- beauty and clarity.
You co-wrote Make Comics Like the Pros with Greg Pak. If you were adding a chapter to it today, what would it cover?
Little has changed since we wrote that, honestly! There are more crowdfunding options these days, though I think Kickstarter is still the best.
What are you reading right now, comics or otherwise?
I just attended the Ringo Awards at Baltimore Comic Con, where I was honored to have me and Tom Fowler's book Gamemasters: The Comic Book History of RPGs nominated. We didn't win, but attendees got this massive swag bag full of comics I am excited to dig into, including Terry Moore's Rachel Rising and Through by David Dastmalchian and Cat Staggs.
Do you have a local comic shop, and what's your relationship with it like?
I do! Anyone Comics, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Yo, Dimitrious!
Besides Vampyrates!, what are you working on next that you can talk about?
Right now on the stands is the latest book of Ultimate OZ, Into the Outerlands, which I do with the amazing Mike Deodato Jr., and The Future Is ******, the on-going cyberpunk saga from Rekcah Comics, and I am very excited to say that starting with December's #20, I'll be joined by the legendary artist David Lapham as regular penciller. I get to work with two of my favorite artists--at the same time! Somebody pinch me.
Connect with Fred
Thanks to Fred for the time.
About the author
Hey, I'm Michael! As the creator and developer behind VerseDB, I get to combine my love for building software with a serious comic book habit. While I enjoy collecting, I'm ultimately in it for the stories they tell. For me, it's all about getting lost in a great narrative and appreciating the artwork. I built this platform to give readers and collectors a clean, organized place to catalog the issues, runs, and art that mean the most to them. Log your favorites and welcome to the community!
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