Vampires Versus The Church in ‘Shadowlaw’

People often complain about the unoriginality of vampire stories nowadays, and it’s no surprise, most of them have been awfully yawn-worthy as of late. But coming soon is a new vampire tale unlike any other. Don’t believe me? How does a sci-fi action-horror mash-up set in a futuristic world on the brink of violent political revolution sound? A story about a race of powerful daemonic vampire cyborgs! Oh yeah, Brandon Easton’s upcoming graphic novel Shadowlaw is definitely like no other.

“In a future world of giant, mechanized, armored warriors, a rebellious soldier is sentenced to life in a distant prison colony, where he must stop an advanced race of vampire lords from taking over the world by way of breaking their restricted feeding treaty with the human race, all the while coping with the fact that his very presence in the colony may be part of their dark design.”

In Shadowlaw the Catholic Church is in charge of the struggle against the vampire lords, and lucky for us, Wired.com got to chat with Brandon Easton on this, as well as many other aspects of the graphic novel.

What drew you to a story that featured the Catholic Church in a struggle with vampires?
It was an amalgamation of a variety of my creative influences as well as a kind of rumination on the nature of power, government and religion. The original concept dealt with a chase adventure through a ruined landscape. Like if you mixed Book of Eli with The Lost Boys. Over the years, the story and world changed to fit a more cohesive theme. The funny thing is that I originally came up with the story for Shadowlaw back in 1996 before the current vampire craze in pop culture.

What other types of monsters are represented in the story?
Not really too many monsters other than the cyborg vampires – something that I don’t think has ever been seen before. One of the first artists on the series (Scott Kester) designed the mech-vampires and he went above and beyond my expectations for their look. People are going to see some stuff that has never been done before in an American comic series.

What do you think vampires represent in modern culture and why do they keep coming back in a new version?
I believe there are many reasons for the continued existence of the vampire genre. First, it has something to do with repressed sexuality. Our society tends to be extremely puritanical with regards to personal expression of sexual desire. If it wasn’t, the adult film industry wouldn’t have been pulling in billions of dollars over the years from creepy little porno stores with covered windows. [Laughs]

Vampires are a wanton expression of sexual digestion; to envelop and absorb your sex partner. When you cut to the chase, vampires are highly sensualized beings where the viewer can project their own fetishes and fantasies. Sometimes it is explicit like in the Hammer horror films with Christopher Lee where they had long, drawn out seduction scenes or it could be something more dangerous and thrilling like Anne Rice’s Lestat stories.

Read the full interview here.

Visit the Shadowlaw website for a look at the beautiful artwork featured in this graphic novel.

Shadowlaw will be available late November and can be pre-ordered here on Amazon.

What do you guys think of Shadowlaw? Will you give it a read?

– Moonlight

By Moonlight

Moonlight (aka Amanda) loves to write about, read about and learn about everything pertaining to vampires. You will most likely find her huddled over a book of vampire folklore with coffee in hand. Touch her coffee and she may bite you (and not in the fun way).

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