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| PLOT GUIDE VAMPIRE GUIDE THE COMIC & AUTHOR |
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FOR YOUR REFERENCE:
<<FUN GUIDE TO PLOT IN SILLY, DIFFICULT TO READ COMICS! |
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| Plot PLOT SYNOPSIS: A cabal of vampires begins recruiting new members for mysterious reasons. Jack Ballard is recruited by an older man named Demetri, a childhood friend. During a strange game Jack is painfully, and terrifyingly turned into a vampire, but by the rules of the game is not 'fathered' by Demetri, but to a vampire he just made named Vitus. Jack goes on to try to figure out how to live in this strange undead form, and all the moral implications of drinking blood, as well as to learn about the 'Circle' of vampires, and tries to figure out what has prompted them to begin creating new vampires after hundreds of years. |
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The story takes place in the capital of Glenland: Harlan. |
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Sometimes when a person dies and certain conditions are met, they come to 'life' again as a VAMPIRE. |
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They are called progentiors or 'natural vampires.' They tend to be mentally ill in some way or other, and socially outcast in death. |
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| A progenitor (or any other vampire) can create new vampires by feeding their blood to a freshly dead corpse, drained of its blood. |
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Vampires tend to think of this act in familiar terms, these new vampires being their 'children.' The offspring of progenitors have traits in common, and these 'families' are called lineages. |
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| In Harlan, four progenitors have a pact to form an alliance with their children, called 'the Circle.' |
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Only Greyburn is from Harlan, the rest are from other countries. Dragomir seems to be the leader, but the group is ostensibly parliamentary. |
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Vampires have special powers in the night. They vary by lineage but include flight, |
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| hypnosis, moving through solid objects and animal forms among other things. All vampires can use blood they have drunk to heal wounds, including severed limbs though it may take time. |
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Vampires have low body heat, no heartbeat, no breath, but have complete control over their bodies. (So they can fake signs of life if they wish.) |
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| Everyday when vampires sleep, they return to the same form as they had in the moment of death, though mostly without wounds, moles, tattoos, unnatural hair colors, etc. (They can return to their 'dead' form as well.) |
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Vampires can go in the sun, but it is painful and annoying. |
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| In the day they have no supernatural powers, and cannot heal themselves. They are more likely to be mistaken for 'dead.' (The sun seems particularly painful but this is true even underground or indoors.) |
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| Vampires must drink human blood to stay sentient. Vampire blood is a natural coagulant, so they can seal the wounds they create, and needn't kill unless they want to. |
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| Vampires do not age, and can live for hundreds of years. (Seems to have something to do with the 'resetting' in the night.) |
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| 'The Grace of mortals' as they call it, causes humans to disbelieve the outlandish acts of the supernatural they may see, and forget them quickly. (Though not always.) |
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A vampire that is low on blood may lose control and try to get |
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| blood however it can. When vampires are first created, they are in this state by default. |
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| If it runs out of blood entirely, it will go into a coma indefinitely. |
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| Vampires can be killed by removing the head, or being burned. (Among other ways to be discussed in the future...) |
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Vampires never become exhausted, poisoned, asphyxiated... They don't need air, heat, food and drink. (Other than blood.) |
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Vampires are very light in weight, due to a reduced blood volume and water content. Jack for example, went from 140 lbs (63 kg) to less than 90 lbs(40 kg)!
(MORE TO BE ADDED...) |
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ABOUT KELLY
(Drawing by Christopher)
Kelly Martin is a 27 year old artist from near Seattle Washington, United States. Kelly has a Bachelor's of fine art majoring in painting, has worked in video games, writes well, programs terribly and is parent to two delightful kitty cats Momo and Mochi.
Things Kelly likes - Morrissey, David Lynch, post-punk, coldwave, Al Columbia, fashion, antiques, art history, and silent films.
Kelly's art website, Kelly's personal Tumblr
ABOUT CHRISTOPHER
Christopher Shelton, Kelly's partner, helped write the original story of the Kingfisher and created this website. Good job Christopher! See his personal website Christophocles
Christopher and Kelly have been together for 5 years! <3 |
ABOUT THE KINGFISHER
The Kingfisher webcomic began Halloween 2010, but the original story began a year before. Over the course of a year, Christopher and Kelly wrote and drew more than 800 pages of the tale!
The Kingfisher is set in Harlan, Glenland, a location in a made up world. Glenland is a bit of a combination between the U.S., England and Germany. (Perhaps Harlan is overall a more euro-trashy London?)
The goal for the Kingfisher is to be an actually creepy horror webcomic. Kelly was inspired by the apparently defunct horror webcomic the Stiff by Jason Thompson, which was similar to Japanese horror manga by Junji Ito and Kazuo Umezu, two of Kelly's favorite artists.
The Kingfisher borrows from many different vampire traditions and folk tales. The different lineages are based on vampire mythos from different countries. The blotchy faces of Dragomir and Lepponen coming from Eastern European visions of the vampire as a living corpse. (Dead bodies of those accused of vampirism were dug up, their faces swollen with blood as corpses are wont to do, this somehow being proof of their unnatural ways.)
Another goal was to create a diverse cast of characters, and break vampires of their stagnant mold of late. Our preferred vampire is classic, as in Dracula, Carmilla, and films such as Vampyr and Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. (Not strictly a vampire tale of course, but who can resist Conrad Veidt in a turtle neck?) Thin, pale, glamorous people who may or may not enjoy murder, as well as creepy, frequently unattractive weirdos who had a rough go of life. Also, as in books by Anne Rice, Poppy Z Brite et al, a fair amount of characters that are queer/gay/bi/trans/LGBTBBQ etc etc etc.
Additional influences are the Vampire the Masquerade role playing game, Suehiro Maruo's horror manga the Laughing Vampire, and the Swedish film Let the Right One In, (don't talk about the remake.) |
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