Today, Literary Escapism is excited to welcome David Doub, author of the graphic novel, Dusk and Dusk – Volume 2!
Eve’s life is a living hell of her own choosing. She struggles to survive in a dark world of magic and horror, all in an attempt to please her vampire master. Now Eve has crossed a line and and innocents have been harmed. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by a well meaning cabal of occultist that’s mandate is to police the occult world. What will happen when these two forces clash? Is there ever a”winner” in the supernatural underworld of Dusk?
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Dusk – The DVD Extras.
When writing you realize that regardless of your intent or meaning, readers will interpret your writing in interesting and surprising ways. So I’d like to kind of share my thought process in how I came about the stories for Dusk – Volume 2, so it can be viewed in a different context. Not trying to tell a person how to perceive the story, just giving a behind the scene look.
And before I go into each story, I wanted to go over the format of Dusk. Dusk is not a whole complete story, but instead several short stories. I’ve gotten feedback that either people like it or don’t so I’m sticking with it for the moment to see if I can pull off the grand design I have in mind. Since Dusk is about vampires and the supernatural, I prefer the shorter stories because with that way you can illuminate certain details but at the same time conceal others. Since the supernatural is meant to be mysterious and unknown, I like a little obfuscation to help with that mystery. Also with shorter stories I can change the mood, tones and styles several times in the same book.
I don’t think I’ve perfected this format yet, but I don’t think I’ve totally broken anything yet. Anyways onto the specific stories.
Route 66
This story came from more of a feeling about a location than anything else. I do some Horror Conventions up in Tulsa a lot because all the people are great and there’s some pretty good writers hiding out there.
(Quick plug for Belladonna Drakul http://www.myspace.com/thevampirecollectionand Charles Martin www.literatipressok.com)
So there was this one show that was a eclectic mix of horror, music and even burlesque. It was at the historic Rose Bowl on Route 66. As I was driving down Route 66, I looked at all the old buildings and I was stuck with a curious feeling of melancholy. It was like I was viewing the past through a cracked and dirty window.
Then I met a friend that I usually see only at the shows and she was dressed as a Demon as she normally does at such events. So I was struck with this idea about a story about long forgotten things lurking about old forgotten back roads.
This story is actually a sequel to the second story in the first volume of Dusk. In that story there a small part where the protanagist, Eve, finds out a minor detail about this private investigator. The investigator is destroying his marriage. So instead of just letting it go, Eve projects herself in that situation and feels the need to fix the “problem”using her black arts. I thought about how that was a tad invasive and creepy, so I thought to turn the tables a little. So in Bad Mojo, Eve is now the antagonist and new characters are there to play protanagist to get Eve to fix what she had done with magic.
The Endless Desert War
This was a story where I wanted to comment or address two different topics, but I really wanted to keep the message simple so I made a fairly short story out of it. What I’m addressing is Zombies and the wars that the US is currently involved with. On the Zombie side of it, I feel they’re becoming even more overexposed than Vampires. I always find it interesting things like the Undead can be so happily popular despite their darker nature. So I tried to tell a Zombie story that was more tragic and not as action packed as seems to be the trend nowadays. On the War side, I’m not really preachy about such topics, so I kept to a simple view of how a War effects one on a personal level. I didn’t want to be political about it, just put it in a smaller frame of context.
Obey Your Master
One thing about me that I find contradictory as a writer who focus on Vampires a lot is that I don’t like how so many people think Vampires are cool. Vampires are evil, bad, damned souls that are meant to be feared, not admired. And I realized that even my character Eve, was in that mindset, so I had to setup a story to show that the vampire world is not fun by any means. The horror shown to Eve is simple but again it’s at a more personal level. That’s another aspect of current vampire stories I think has been lost, is the personal horror of it all. Everything has to be large conflicts with everything at stake. I like the slower decent of smaller fights for your sanity as you watch it chip away with each encounter you have with the darkness.
Love in a Bottle
This actually just started pretty simply. I was at a comic book show and had a table next to a friend who is an artist. He said write him a small story to draw and he would do it. So I had to think of something to fit in the space restraints that I had. So I decided to focus more of the “human”relationship between the human Eve and her vampire “lord”Ash. Also I wanted to play more with the addiction that Eve has to the vampire blood. That’s another thing I think has been lost in a lot of vampire stories, is the sensuality and the character of blood itself. I think that symbolism should play a big, but subtle, role in a good vampire story. But nowadays you read a lot of synthetic blood this, or blood farm that. I think things like that rob the intimacy of a vampire drinking blood from a victim.
So I was trying to watch an episode of Vampire Diaries because I heard a lot of hype about it. I never gave Twilight a chance, so I was trying to be open minded and give this show a chance. But as I was watching it, one thing kept sticking out, and I couldn’t look past it and enjoy the show.
If I was over 500 years old, the last place I would want to hang out is a high school. I did not enjoy school at all growing up and to this day I still have nightmares that I missed one credit and I have to go back to school all over again.
So this is a parody of sorts where I try to explain what sort of vampire would go to school.
Good Samaritan
My lead character Eve has several big emotional issues going on in her head. They’re so prevalent, she tends to see herself in other people’s problems. So this whole story is based around her getting into a whole “adventure”just because she is trying to fix a relationship like it would vicariously fix her own problems. It goes back to the a common theme running in Dusk where sometimes one’s biggest battles are ones of our own making.
I don’t normally read graphic novels, but Dusk and Dusk – Volume 2 sound really interesting! Teenage Vampire Drama sounds especially amusing, I can’t wait to read it! Thanks for taking the time to share the background on your stories with us! :)