We’ve been in a vampir-ey mood lately. Perhaps its the success of Being Human on this side of the pond, the imminent end of the Twilight movie franchise, or maybe it’s Priest. …naaaahhh, haha, it’s not Priest. The Vampire is a mythological creature that can function as something of a Rorschach test: it is what you make of it. Vampirism has been a metaphor for pretty much any moral threat to the social collective. Originally, vampires weren’t sexy, pretty, pale people, tormented over their fate. (Or not.) Nor did they have a penchant for Egyptian jewelry or lying around on couches in cheap velvet listening to the Smiths. They were in many ways the original zombies. You know…re-animated bodies, crawling from the grave to feast on the blood of mortals be they sexy or no. Today, Vampires can be whatever we want them to be: recovering addicts, stunted children, sinners seeking redemption, or the object of everyone’s uncontrollable lust. Here we have listed, for your eternal pleasure, some of the most common, most famous, most versatile vein bursting bloodletters in our contemporary culture. And believe us when we say… they all suck. >>>List at The Mary Sue.

Anne Rice news is making the entertainment blogs this weekend for an interview with Vulture Magazine in which she hypothetically casts a hypothetical modern adaptation of Interview With a Vampire, mentioning, among other people, Robert Downey, Jr. for the role of Lestat.

Now Lestat, there are a lot of people who could play Lestat… Jamie Bamber, he’s terrific, I was just watching him last night in England’s Law & Order. I’d seen him on Battlestar Galactica, but I’d never seen him unleash that beautiful diction. So I think there are many, many actors…

Robert Downey Jr.? That would be wonderful. He is a great actor. He would bring the gravitas and the wit and humor and all of that to the part, and I don’t think he’s too old. I think if he had a blond wig and makeup, he would be a wonderful Lestat. Lestat has to have the gravitas of a 200-year-old man and Robert Downey Jr. can do it.

But we were actually much more interested in her comments on Twilight.

Whether you’re creating a username, posting on a forum, chatting on Omegle, or making an Internet purchase, people want to know your not a robot. And frankly, that’s a bit discriminatory against robots. What have they ever done to us?

The humanity-proving device of the now is the Captcha, where you’re given two randomly generated words to type in. And they’re blurry and gross, because robots can’t read things that are blurry and gross. It looks like this:

Sometimes the words are random and uninteresting, but sometimes the sudden, random juxtaposition is truly inspiring. And in those moments, great Captchart is formed. Here is a sampling that’s fun for the whole family:

Dark Horse, the publishers of such renowned comics as Sin City, Hellboy, and The Mask, may have gotten themselves in some creator-related hot water. According to the Swedish newspaper Metro, John Ajvide Lindqvists, creator of Let the Right One In (Swedish horror novel turned Swedish horror film turned American cult success), takes issue with how Dark Horse plans to adapt and use his work into American comics.

Dark Horse has said that it has plans to not only make a graphic novel adaptation of Lindqvists’ book, but also produce prequels and sequels, expanding upon his story. According to Lindqvists:

Nobody has asked me about this and I think that the project stinks. I am looking into this matter and hope that they have no right to do this.

Read on...

And you thought Twilight being studied at Cambridge was something: This coming fall, another British university, the University of Hertfordshire, will be launching the first-ever Master’s program in the study of Vampire Literature.

Dr. Sam George, the lecturer who’s launching the program, is also hosting an academic conference from April 16th-17th titled “Open Graves, Open Minds: Vampires and the Undead in Modern Culture.” The “undead” in the title refers to “[vampires'] less charismatic undead cousins, zombies, [which] have been dug up in droves to represent various fears and crises in contemporary culture.”

A few of the lectures on the docket: (spoiler alert: there is Twilight involved.)

Yesterday, The Daily Beast put up an exclusive interview with Stephen King regarding the making of his first comic book, American Vampire.  Yes, we know all about the Dark Tower comics, but this time, King is actually writing the scripts.  In fact, much to his disappointment, DC Comics told him he couldn’t use thought bubbles anymore.

“I got this kind of embarrassed call from the editors saying, ‘Ah, Steve, we don’t do that anymore.’ ‘You don’t do that anymore?’ I said. ‘No, when the characters speak, they speak. If they’re thinking, you try to put that across in the narration, in the little narration boxes.’”

King also mentions the Twilight books, as anyone who writes anything about vampires is now forced to do as if no one has ever done vampires before:

Fan-made reimaginings of old movies never get old (see: Titanic: the Sequel; The Shining recut as a comedy), and Gone with the Wind … with Vampires is the latest entry into that canon. Who knew that the famous “I’ll never be hungry again” monologue was actually about a terrifying feast of blood?

Bonus points for the meticulously vintagey soundtrack, fonts, and and wear-and-tear on the film. 1939 feels like yesterday when you’re immortal.

Video after the jump:

The whole “niche social network” thing has really got to stop. Yes, every group has particular needs in terms of social tools and interface. Yes, the only way to go up against heavy hitter like Facebook and LinkedIn is to exploit irregular network topologies and cater to close-knit groups of online weirdos.

But still: A social network dedicated entirely to fictional personas? Surely this is nothing less than a Pynchonesque exercise in exploring the concept of digital-aether-as-liminal-space?

Nope, it’s a bunch of grown-up Hot Topic kids who think they’re werewolves. Thanks, Internet!

Below, let’s take a stroll through the gallery of horrors: