Blood Suckers (32 Days of Halloween: Day 8)

filed in Book Cover Illustrations and Artwork on Oct.07, 2012

“Wandering Stars” by book artist Duncan Long

Vampires have terrified audiences since ancient story tellers conjured them up hundreds of years ago. Bram Stoker codified today’s notion of what a vampire should be with his novel Dracula. One odd twist to the story is that vampire bats were discovered AFTER Stoker had made his character a bat that drank blood.

Yes, sometimes life (or perhaps the living dead) really does imitate art.

The silver screen has had its fair share of vampires as well, with F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) creating an iconic monster while Béla Lugosi added his own creepiness with his 1931 portrayal of Dracula. Since then all sorts of genres from science fiction to slasher movies have employed one sort or another vampire in plots, with the TV version of Salem’s Lot and several of the Kolchak: The Night Stalker as well as films like Lifeforce and the Underworld franchise all adding their own spin to the concept of the living dead.

Following in those footsteps, here are a few of my vampire illustrations, created over the last ten years or so.