Take a look at any magazine stand at your local gas station or grocer and you’ll find hundreds of titles. Fashion, Guns, Gaming, Home & Garden, Fitness, Teen, Celebrity Gossip, Computers, Nature, Movie & Television, Animals, Hunting, Tattoos, Cars, MMA, Hobbies, Kids, and Sports make up the majority of magazine subjects out there. Yet do you think I could find even a single US magazine publication in print which was devoted to all things vampire? If there are magazine publications out there that have slipped under my radar, please do tell.
Otherwise, popular vampire magazines in the US are utterly obsolete, meaning someone desperately needs to bring them back to life. There are those magazines that have bit the dust, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer Magazine and its counterpart Angel Magazine, as well as VampireFreaks Magazine, which only launched 2 issues before exhausting its funds. Buffy and Angel were not entirely the magazine-type I am yearning for, as they were more focused on their respective television shows than vampires (and vampire friends) on the whole. But apparently, at one point there were several vampire magazines non-related to TV series or movies, although most were directly related to specific vampire societies (i.e.: Voices From The Vaults published by The Dracula Society). Yet few printed publications still exist, and as far as I know, no such printed magazine exists within the US for vampire fanatics.
There is one magazine not associated with any society or organization, that has held its own for over ten years now as an exclusively vampire magazine, but the magazine hails from the UK. Poo-pooey on us Americans for dropping the ball on this one. Bite Me Magazine is a uniquely all-things vampire magazine that has published twenty issues since its launch in July 1999. Each year two issues are released with great success: one on Imbolc and the other on Halloween. Bite Me features interviews with Ghost Hunters, Authors, and real-life vampires, book and movie reviews, and a taste of the latest gothic fiction. Not to mention a whole added slew of ingenious articles revolving around our beloved bloodsucker, werewolves, ghosts, and other supernatural beings.
Of course, there is other printed vampire literature out there, but not magazines. And then there are the obvious alternatives to the printed word; the internet is bloated with vampire ezines, as they are commonly called. I know that ebooks, and ezines, and e-everythings are the latest and greatest, and since I get my paycheck using just those means of communication, I can’t really complain. Maybe I’m just old fashioned, but there’s still something about holding an actual paper publication in my hands that just hits the jugular. Whether it be rare old books or equally rare hand-written letters, I take pleasure in the physicality of the written word.
Nevertheless, I am sorry to say I have yet to find a magazine publication that will do us vampire lovers proud. My hands are still empty and my skin is just itching to see who will be the first to accomplish such a feat. Now that’s an idea.
Hey, maybe it will be me. Just saying.
I have a few back issues and Bite Me is put together really well.