I Don’t Know If You’ve Seen Nosferatu (2024) Yet, But I Am (im-)patiently Waiting For A Cat Orlock!

Everything about this drawing makes me happy, but the detail that makes my Undead heart sing is the yellow-covered copy of Dracula. It's the 1897 edition, designed to evoke the appearance of the 'yellowback' - the cheap sensational fiction sold at railway stations at the time. Dr Watson was mentioned reading one in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. (Above is the miniature version I made for my haunted dollhouse.)

Cover me in sunshine...Shower me with good times

Tell me that the world's been spinning since the beginning....And everything will be alright

What can I say, my little nosferatu loves yellow. Get some sleep, Aurik.

watercolour and gouache with coloured pencil detailing, a little white ink for highlights.

February first was hourly comics day! As always, I'm late to the bandwagon.

That was my February second. To clarify, I didn't go to bed at 11 pm. I just ran out of space because I didn't realise until then I'd drawn 9 panels and not 12. My last braincell was not at home that day.

I really like your poto cat drawings! They are very very cute! I hope you do not mind me drawing them!

GREMLIN! FLOOF! Come and look at this!

Mind?! You don't understand, I was giggling and physically, actually kicking my feet when I saw this!

Ooohhhh, it's so soft and sweet! Erik has his tiny forehead hairs and his tuxedo, and the Persian is big and fluffy and Putting Up with Shenanigans!

More Pharoga cats here, I NEED to draw more of the Daroga, it's unacceptable that I've neglected him, here's him having an interview with Leroux.

When I say I was bouncing off the walls and crawling around the ceiling when I got the comm, I mean it! I'm so happy my love for it translated! And Happy Nosferatu is going to be my new seasonal greeting now

I swear I have never been this excited about an advent calendar and just in case it wasn't clear I am a grown adult but I am bouncing around like a child.

@purrlockswatson made such a beautiful advent calendar already and then this. THIS.

Aurik has a yellow hoodie. His favourite colour. He's going to the movies. One of his favourite things. He's meeting for the first time a vampire who looks a bit more like him (Count Orlok) and that vampire is a movie star and they're watching his new movie and they got the big novelty coffin popcorn bucket and they got to bring the pet rats and and and....

It's so lovely. Merry Christmas to all who celebrate and Happy Nosferatu to everyone in general.

Susan Kay's Phantom, WHY?

Lord save me from Erik and Christine's child. I'll never recover from all the times the existence of that child hurt me - not in a good way.

The last 80 pages really turned the grasshopper for me. Kay built a beautiful opera house, then sent a flaming, gunpowder-loaded chandelier through the roof. I enjoyed the first three-quarters of the book. It took incredible storytelling and research to build up that sprawling history only hinted at in the closing of original novel, and I love how the story made a spectacular Frankenstein Phantom from many adaptations.

But then came Christine.

Kay's afterword makes it worse for me. She states she doubts that A) Raoul would doubt Christine's love for him, and B) whether pity is a strong enough motivation for Christine to go back to Erik in spite of her fear. Ergo: Raoul was right when he suspected Christine loves Erik.

Well, I can clear up both of those points - A) Raoul is an insecure, jealous boy; B) aside from pitying Erik, Christine thought she could pacify him by going back, making pity AND fear her motivations, which she explains in Apollo's Lyre.

But Phantom's loyalty to the original is beside the point. What disturbed me about this explanation is that Kay meant it to be a love story. But there is no love.

I have already harped on to two friends about Phantom of the Opera and sexuality (thanks to @blackforrestpunk and @blackghostm2o for putting up with me). I think I can write an essay on the subject. After all, vampire fiction is my area of expertise.

⚠️Warning: Heavier subjects discussed below. I don't usually post content like this, so I thought i should give a heads up.⚠️

Leroux's Erik was never sexually attracted to Christine. All his fantasies he concerning her were purely romantic, even domestic ('a wife to keep amused on weekdays and take out on Sundays') whereas in Webber's adaptation, seduction is a recurrent theme in the Phantom's songs. There is nothing wrong with adding this extra layer to Chrsitine and Erik's relationship, as long as it doesn't overshadow their artistic bind through music.

But in Kay's Phantom, towards the ending, Erik's music becomes purely a sexual euphemism. It's a hypnotic drug that he uses to control Christine, and of course, there is that scene where he describes himself assaulting her by playing Don Juan Triumphant.

That is deeply misguided. Erik's music was his one connection to the purest, truest part of humanity. He was treated like a monster and often lives like one, yet he could express and evoke feelings that no most people could never, through his song.

And there is the child.

Erik thinks that Christine looks exactly like his mother. He speaks of her as his daughter. He is, self admittedly, old enough to be her father. And they still have a son together. There is no context, no possible way, that this is romantic. Horrible things can happen in a book. But it needs to be clear that it is horrible. Not so with this abominable ending. It was written as a romance, the bittersweet parting of starcrossed lovers. If Kay set out to write a love story for Erik and Christine, she did not do it: there is no evidence whatsoever in the text I read that Christine and Erik love one another. Erik lusts after her; Christine is drawn to his dark broody mystery. That is not love; it's Twilight.

I will reread this book for the sake of the brilliant child Erik, who I see myself in, and for Nadir and my feline lady Ayesha, but I will never be reading past Erik's delightful meetings with his old friend. As far as I'm concerned, he lived in his damp cellar in peace, with a large salary, to the end of his days.

More rants, I mean, very dignified and reasonable reviews of POTO adaptations here.

How it feels to be writing right now.

Please, please, please stop talking so much, guys, we're too far over the word count already. Well. Serves me right for handing out POVs to everyone like cheap chocolates.

Is any of you good at deleting things? Or is it the universal plight of writers? Me, I'm not getting out of this without help or divine interference.

Prepare to be menaced by writing memes, I'm back at my nonsense writing these days.

Vampire-themed sestina

Feedback accepted and appreciated. I don't bite. Honest. Inspired by the part in Dracula where Mina turns back to human when he dies, so here the vampire narrator ends their own life to set their lover free. Thanks to @academic-vampire for asking to read my writing and for introducing me to the format! You can read his sestina here.

OUT OF YOUR COFFINS, SUCKERS! Edward Gory and Bram Stoker have collaborated again!

@vladimirsangel This is now my favourite (not) Christmas story. My only complaint is that I love cauliflowers. @blackforrestpunk The action! The drama! Applause! Nadir with horns is wonderful.

we did something again.

@vladimirsangel best writer of this damn planet! i am so glad to adapt again one of your short fics as a comic <3 it is always a pleasure for me

https://tapas.io/episode/3356336

if you want to read this incredible fic, written by vlad: https://www.tumblr.com/vladimirsangel/760266902105931776/not-christmas-but-close read it. it is so good.

@vladimirsangel 's Innocent in needle felt

Please take good care of my book, Innocent, that's a first edition.

Ask Vlad before booping his snout: I can't guarantee your safety.

This is Innocent, a furry monster who - Oi, what are you doing? Give that back!

*Ahem* I'm still alive. Anyway, that's a needle felting needle. The red stuff on the end is NOT blood, although I did stab my fingers a few times and may have made some accidental blood sacrifices to the small woollen creature. Should I be worried?

(I've also made a sculpture of him)

As @ablatheringblatherskite eloquently put it in their lovely tags for this post:

Now, go read it, people.

Erik - Top of the Sky Update

another sad chapter. man, this drama will take some time. AO3 Fanfiktion Song of this chapter:

Spotify

No Surprises

Radiohead · OK Computer · Song · 1997