Dead Romeo

Dead Romeo has nothing to do with Romeo and Juliet - although with all the popular historical/supernatural remakes someone will probably make a vampire Juliet and a werewolf Romeo. Anyway, Dead Romeo is actually an amazing graphic novel by Jesse Blaze Snider. Vampire comics ftw!

“Jonathan Romero, aka "Dead Romeo," was the lead singer of the '80s rock band "The Dead Romeos." But that was before a mysterious set of circumstances turned him into a vampire and sent him straight to Hell. Now he's back on Earth and he has a difficult choice to make: Kill his true love and earn his permanent release from eternal damnation - or protect her and burn for eternity. Either way, someone is going to die! It's vampires, romance, rock and dismemberment like you've never seen before!”

For more on Dead Romeo check out Comicmonsters' interview with author Jesse Blaze Snider.

How did you come up with the concept for this book?
Well, the goal for me was to create a vampire story that had both men and women in mind from the word “go.” Most vampire stories are written with a pretty clear audience in mind. For Twilight and Anne Rice’s stuff it’s women. For From Dusk ‘Til Dawn and Blade it’s men. I wanted to unify the two audiences and do something that was totally written for women, but at the same time totally written for men. For the women it meant that ROMANCE was paramount for men VIOLENCE was paramount. So, I created a story about a vampire who keeps throwing himself in front of the woman he loves in order to protect her and gets horribly f**ked up in the process! See that? For the first time ever Romance begets Violence and Violence begets Romance! Well, Not sure if I created that, but…well, you don’t see it enough, damn it!

Who are the main characters?
Our lead is Dead Romeo. A former rock singer and brooding but smart-alecky vampire who is released from Hell with a number of others to kill a girl named Whisper!

Whisper is our love interest. She is a really cute but sassy, homeless, virgin, orphan. Love all those words, sassy, homeless, virgin, orphan! This book has got to kick ass! Hell’s interest in Whisper will be revealed later.

Dwight Fry is the leader of the Hollywood Vampires! The H.V. are the group of crazy vamps who get brought back to kill Whisper. Dwight was buried alive in a cage and since he was a vampire died slowly over the course of 100 years and went completely crazy! Not that he was particularly sane to start with.

Finally, our book is narrated by DEATH!!! Since he gets to meet EVERYONE who dies and escort them to their final resting place, he kinda knows everybody! Well, everybody who is dead, which is most of our cast members.

Since this is a vampire comic, what can we expect in terms of blood and gore?
As much as I can get in there! I told my editor Ian from the beginning that I was just going to write the book exactly as I think it should be with no restraint and then he has to tell me what has to be toned down. That way, after the fact I get to figure out ways to keep it in, by either rephrasing or having something violent happen in silhouette or off-panel. So far there hasn’t been a single moment that need to be removed completely. I would just adjust it until it fit under a DCU PG-13 rating.

So, in answer to your question the most blood and gore possible!!!

For the full interview head over here.

- Moonlight