Show Notes
We are love the story of Dracula and it's tales of vampires, and when new interpretations or stories come along we eat them up. Much like the vampires to their victims. Today is super special because we are talking with the Great-Grand Nephew of Bram Stoker himself, Dacre Stoker, who has been breathing fresh life (pun intended) to the Dracula mythos. We are also joined by his co-conspirator Chris McAuley!
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Dacre Stocker and Chris McAuley - Interview
[00:00:00] Casey: all right, everybody. Welcome again, to another episode of spoiler country today on the show, we have a special treat for you guys. we have Melissa Serratia on as a. Let me start this over. This is bull crap. I'm sorry.
Chris McAuley: All right. Hello, Melissa buddy. Welcome again,
Casey: everybody. Welcome again to motherfucking spoiler country today on the show we have Chris McCauley. We have dr. Stoker.
Dacre Stoker: What do you mean. My fucking name is not Docker taker.
Casey: gosh.
Dacre Stoker: I should have said everybody gets it wrong, but just the April planned with a D and now you can take her. Yeah,
Chris McAuley: we'll get all the fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Casey: All right, everybody. All right, everybody. Welcome [00:01:00] again to another episode of the spoiler country today on the show. We have Dacre Stoker, don't get his fucking name wrong. We have Chris McCauley and also joining me, helping out with the interview. We have Melissa Sasha, Melissa, how are you doing?
Melissa: I'm doing well. How's everybody else.
Dacre Stoker: Doing just great. Once the hurricane flew over, I'm doing much better today.
Casey: Yeah. it's it's and it looks like there are a few more, things developing in the, in the Gulf right now. So. Look forward to that, man.
Dacre Stoker: if it's not natural, it's supernatural and we can take care of the supernatural, but the natural stuff, that's pretty powerful too, man.
It's been some big stuff and just to start the season. So here we go. But we're also getting close to October and that's my season.
Casey: Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. So, so let's get into that a little bit. so, so what is your title October? tell me a little bit about yourself doctorate [00:02:00] or Dacre.
Dacre Stoker: Yeah, I always, everybody gets the name wrong and that's okay.
we'll we'll see how many times we can change it up a little bit, but that's cool.
Chris McAuley: That's
Dacre Stoker: the trick. If you get it wrong, you got to drink. And if you don't, if you get it right, like Chris does, you got to drink anyway. Cause he's Irish. but so it was Bram, Stoker. No, my great-grandfather was Bram Stoker.
I was born and raised in Canada. Brand's youngest brother. George had a son who came to Canada, and he helped start the Montreal stock exchange back in the early 19 hundreds. And, I kinda got tired of the Canadian winters after a while and moved to. Tornado alley and the hurricane country, South Carolina, but, you know, seriously though, my life kind of changed from being a teacher, a coach, a actually coach in the Olympic games for Canada in a sport called modern pentathlon.
And I sort of threw all my energies into trying to figure out the legacy of my famous relative, trying to find out his inspirations and his motivations for writing Dracula. [00:03:00] And, that kind of was about 15 years ago and I haven't looked back. It's been a lot of fun. I've met some really cool people on the way people I've learned things from people that I've taught things to.
co-authors and you know, now I'm working on graphic novels and comics with this Irish guy, Chris McCauley. Who's. You know, now in Canada, where I used to live. So somehow the world is turned upside down, but it's put me in the position to do some really cool stuff graphically, in an area that I've never, you know, done much with Chris.
So, w I think that's probably a good start for me to get going. And you need to hear about this guy a little bit, cause he's kind of, PR pretty special and he's really got a kinship with Bram Stoker that I will not say. And let him talk about it himself.
Chris McAuley: That's very keen. Jesus. That's so much reduction,
Dacre Stoker: right?
Chris McAuley: You're already, yeah, you're one up on me, not the mammoth. So, yeah. I'm probably well known in comic book circles, started working in UK comics about two years ago, worked with [00:04:00] , was a colorist, So th the, the DATs, became a writer. I started writing a few judge dread stories, and then moved on from there to, working, in video games.
So I work with a video game company called Datomic at the minute. So it's a PC subscription based company. and I work with them. I also, developed, and designs a few games for a couple of Canadian companies. I've worked with BioWare, on star Wars, the old Republic, MMO as story content guy for that.
what else have I done? I've worked with Disney. I'm working with Disney, legendary Disney Martin year, Terry Hart and Jackson at the minutes. I'm also working on, working on a Batman comic with her actually, which is really interesting. It's our first ever excursion into graphic novels. So you would know her work from Ghostbusters.
She created the proton packs and, stay Puft marshmallow man. And, the demon dogs from [00:05:00] Ghostbusters. She's worked on, I think 46, a total of 46 films. and, we work together. so which is a really good experience and yeah, I'm currently working with various comic with companies like one, two, three go publications.
I work on Malik, which, your Jeffrey houses rights, very elegantly. So I colored us, I color as a comic anthology of Coloureds. I think I've worked on a big five or six different titles with them so far this year. I think in total I've worked in something like maybe 30 in the last year, but 30 graphic novels.
so it's been a, it's been a big journey and that's, You know, I've been very lucky because I've been able to work with people that need gain them secret. So, yeah. it's been fun.
Casey: What was your, what was the impetus for you to move stateside because you started [00:06:00] in Ireland, correct?
Chris McAuley: Mount this lovely, beautiful Canadian girl.
And she came over and lived in Ireland. Lovely for 16 months. and then we decided to move to Canada. I love Canada. I love the country. I actually even tolerate the winters. I don't mind the wonders as much. so yeah, I just, I love it here. I obviously love home, but, the two pieces are actually fairly similar or there's a similar, Feel to the countryside.
Once you get out of the city, I live in Edmondson, but once you get out of the city, there's a familiar scene to the compensate, which is, which is lovely.
Casey: Awesome. Awesome. I'm really impressed. Anytime anybody brings up the 2008 D 2080 credentials because, we don't get a whole lot of them down here, but every time I see one at the comic shop, I have to snatch it up.
Chris McAuley: who's your favorite character? Is it going to be judged Australia? That's not nice.
Casey: Honestly, it's [00:07:00] mostly like most of the stuff that I've seen is dread based. Yeah. And, but also, trooper I love trooper
Chris McAuley: group troopers, a great
Dacre Stoker: character.
Chris McAuley: BME it into a film, like a Dunkin GM's is the guy who's been made into film was options.
really fascinating character, pop mills. He was my comic book mentor, the guy who started CFO's needy, he's well-known for slogan. He created , which is the, sort of the character. he really taught me a lot of boats, narrative comic book, narrative, both himself and the game taught me a lot of ignorance.
and it's, it is. Vastly different to an, a yeller form of story construction there, the graphic novel or comic it's just this beautiful synthesis of prose and imagery. It, you know, it really can take a story and, As you read it [00:08:00] really imbues all the senses. So, you know, you can almost be there.
I always say that if you look at make McMahon's original 2008 drawings for maker, city one, you could almost claim into the panel and be there. And I think that's the power of a graphic novel.
Casey: Oh yeah. Yeah. And there's so much stuff. That I find in, like the British comics that just does, hasn't been really explored in American comics.
and I think that's mainly just because of our insistence on people wearing tights and you know, all that stuff.
Chris McAuley: So yeah, there is, I mean, the lovely thing about this project that I'm working on with, Decker is that. it is unique. We have several unique, forms of story, which were, which we can offer up and, you know, nobody in them, whereas tights at the moment.
[00:09:00] You'll be example. yeah. There is,
Dacre Stoker: there are an
Chris McAuley: incident that might just stories you can tell. in comic books. And the fact is if you've a good artist and a good colorist, you've got a bigger budget than any Hollywood film could ever achieve. and it's really, it's really, it's a really powerful medium, and that's why I'm excited about this project because I can hand you a book of, brahms' short stories.
Brahm was a literary genius. There was no dividers. He was very driven. he was influenced by a lot of, the griots of his time, especially at ground pole, but he brought a unique field. We ever to golfer, that richer, but it, he can be very hard to penetrate. So with a graphic novel, we can bring some of that genius to the masses and get.
Bram Stoker talked about in [00:10:00] skills in universities, and just show how entertaining the stories
Dacre Stoker: really are.
Melissa: Yeah. how did you, and Dacre first start defending that. And so what was that process like?
Dacre Stoker: Well, I'll go first, then you tell the truth. Okay, Chris, he, she, he found me on Facebook and kind of asked me on a date and the date was called.
Would you write a little something for Dracula Lord of the future. and I honestly I'll tell you guys, I get so many of these inquiries. Oh, would you write the intro? Would you look at my script? Would you read my screenplay? I'm working on a Dracula thing. You must be the expert. Could you play in it like a God, not another one, but obviously there was something about it that it was like, this is a pretty cool idea of.
Dracula being in space. And I just, you know, as a kid, [00:11:00] I mean, not okay, I'm going to date myself by saying lost in space. You guys probably don't even know what that was, but I love loss in space. This is a TV show, right? Not the movies. And then I also love the alien movies and it just sort of stuck like horror.
To me, that was horror. And then when Chris said Dracula and space, I go, okay, this guy's onto something. So I followed up, answered the Facebook message and you know, it was just the one good idea after another. And I guess, number one, being an Irishman and the fact that he's shares other and an a, let him explain if he feels like it.
What other kinship he has with brand. But I felt right off the bat. He wasn't somebody just exploiting Bram, Stoker. And Dracula, he was paying homage and doing it in the right way. And that's kind of what I'm all about. You know, I've got no problem with people making movies and all these different adaptations and inspirations that's fine.
Cause he has inspired so many different creative forms of art. And this [00:12:00] is one of it, but. Bye. Bye. Just kind of staying true to what brand's intent was, but placing him, placing his character. And, you know, as he just finished saying, there's more than Dracula that we're working on, but this one happened to be a Dracula rate of project.
I thought this was worth it. And then I just, the more he explained it, and then we got on the phone, we got on Skype, we started talking about it and it was, this is neat. And it also filled an interesting void with me. I'm not a comic or a graphic guy. I'm again, aging myself. I was mad magazine, Archie, Batman, all that as a kid.
And then I got so into sport. Didn't even read my school books for goodness gracious until I absolutely have to. So I didn't have much time for other stuff, but I have gone I've seen the light and I've realized, and Chris has helped me do that another form of bringing Brams writing. To another section of the world that, you know, either hasn't read his [00:13:00] short stories or hasn't read all of his novels or don't quite get him.
Graphic novels and comp comics are a way to go and he's helped me figure that out and he's pledged to help me do it. So that was the first, second and third date. I just explained there. how much of that was true
Chris McAuley: for USC fairly you've you've you know, like, like any personal last name, Stoker you've adequately romanticized.
yeah. Yeah. I mean the Dracula future was the start of it. So that's a, it's a, originally it was a one shop for one, two, three go Phoebe. Who's the editor in chief. she asked me to come up with an idea, just a brief idea of, you could tell them four to six pages. and I feel like two thirds needy, the guy who, illustrates it's a guy who's, he's quite, he's linked to a British comics, column Maxwell.
So he actually illustrated the, The story. Oh, it is the central premise is quite simple. It's you know, what would happen if a Waylon's Yutani say [00:14:00] company, Kevin abstract healer. To extract, some of his tissues, some of his blood to turn those into pharmaceutical products.
Melissa: Wow.
Dacre Stoker: It's the most powerful stuff on earth.
I mean, who would not want it really?
Chris McAuley: He wouldn't want it. And we haven't really, we haven't really discovered. We haven't really explored that. I mean, I have really bootstrapped myself into Dracula in the force from, you know, film TV. I give watch the by 35 films in the last two weeks. and, you know, it, I haven't seen that before.
It's been crazy. I haven't seen any of that, you know, and the feed over it. I wanted the feel of it to be very much the original Dracula. So it's not the interpretation of this wildly handsome young man. No, it's this warrior. It's this warlords who has iron gray hair and American grain stash and looked a bit like Jack Polanski looks, he looks quite ruggedly handsome.
you know, he looks very masculine. I think a lot of the modern interpretations of Dracula focus more [00:15:00] on the S the vert sensuality when the real horror of Dracula is that he has school task, but he suggests you in certain ways, Chris,
Dacre Stoker: can I just interrupt you just for 60 seconds? Just puts context.
he's absolutely right. Brams. Original description of Dracula in the 1897 novel. He was not the handsome guy at all, but, as when he passed away and then his wife worked with Hamilton Dean and later on John Boulder's son to bring Dracula onto the stage, that's when two other actors and then Bela Lugosi, you know, massively brought the house down.
And that's when we ha we had the more attractive Eastern European looking, aristocrat. Who needed to be attractive in the dinner jacket and all that, because, you know, stage play goers, theater goers needed to see that otherwise they would have been repulsed and they wouldn't have even shown up.
So that's how the metamorphosis [00:16:00] started. But Chris and I are determined to, work with, and we've got some other partners in other areas to kind of go back to the basics. You know, that the retro feel go back to the type of Dracula that brand created. the vibe, the theme that he created. So that's keep going, Chris.
I just want to put,
Chris McAuley: yeah. We haven't seen that before. And I think I'm right. Was it the, the guy who wrote the dry or the vampire novel slightly.
Dacre Stoker: That was the Polidori
Chris McAuley: John Paul. Yeah. Yeah. It was not an elegant yeah. Elegant sort of style. Wasn't it? but yeah, it. It's something that's, has not been seen before.
I mean, even, Ford Coppola's film, where he recently says Bram Stoker's Dracula, it's not prompts. The priest Dracula. That's all. It really isn't you know, there are, it's a very good fellow. It's a beautiful artistically done film. a lot of people would [00:17:00] disagree with me, but I really enjoyed it.
I love the van Helsing character. I love the interpretation that Anthony Hopkins brought. Correct.
Dacre Stoker: Cause I think the reason people don't like it and a boy, I hear it a lot. It's not, cause it's not a good film. It's the hardcore, those people who are so faithful to brands novel, they hate the name Bram Stoker's Dracula on there.
And it's really Francis Ford Coppola. And it is
Chris McAuley: it's his interpretation. But the visuals in that
Casey: movie were amazing though. Oh my God. Yes.
Chris McAuley: I think Hopkins is quite, it's quite fearful. So is the interpretation of unhealthy, I mean, there's one scene where he says very quietly at the end, gentlemen, we have all become God's mouth man.
So I know what really attracts me to any story of a Dracula. It's not just the central. Character of Dracula, but it's high people here in kinder and change because everybody is transformed in some way by Dracula. So in Lord of the future, I do show that it is quite, it's [00:18:00] quite limited because it's six pages.
I approached, Decker because I was very concerned that I had done Brahm and justice with my rating, or I had done, I just wanted the Stoker steel, and the family. The sort of the guard up. And if they said he didn't like it, if they thought it was too lurid, or it was this TSL, I wouldn't have a published.
I just would have, I would have come up with something else, but it was very important to me even at that stage. so I went to Trinity university in Dublin as the university. Yeah. SIM university, the Brown Wannsee, my wife, whenever. We did Tirzah Trinity. I actually talked to her a bit Bram, Stoker, you know, her school thing was, Oh yeah, the guy credit Dracula, like, yeah, but he's not just the gay create a jockey one.
And we, you know, I'm just quite passionate by that. you know, he lived a life that was incredible.
Dacre Stoker: Okay, can I, can, I'll keep interjecting. Cause you're setting me up [00:19:00] really nicely and we didn't rehearse this, but one of the cool things about Trinity, that really needs to be explained.
I was a school teacher, middle school, high school. and I get it when I see young. Boys and girls growing up awkward adolescent period, and sort of coming into their own brand was very sick child for the first seven years of his life born just outside of Dublin and Clontarf, very sickly.
Wasn't expected to live somehow overcame this illness. and part of his recovery, I am absolutely convinced was him being set up by his mother and his uncles who were doctors to go and take long walks. I think the illness centered around his respiratory system and asthma cause he did recover.
And these long walks on the seaside and the salt air, I think made them healthy, but it also turned him into. Quite the, you know, the confident athlete, but he wasn't always that way. if you guys all kind of can visualize, you know, a [00:20:00] 13, 14 year old boy who immediately grows in a year or two to six foot, two, the largest in the family and the tallest guy around all his peers.
And then on the sports field, he becomes really quite useful. He plays rugby and does it very well. And he wins trophies for race walking, rowing, gymnastics, long joke with trapeze. He was the all around athletics champion Trinity. So here's a guy that went from near death for seven years. Strange adolescent period lives in his head by kind of getting this incredible sense of imagination by these near-death experiences and stories told to him, but he blossoms.
When he hits the campus and because of their sports program, he then develops all this confidence to become head of the philosophical society, headed the historical societies involved in drama, debating. He is sort of what we would call a big man on campus. And that kind of gave him a lot of confidence to develop himself and then develop [00:21:00] in an area that his father really wasn't that interested in because his dad got him a job as a clerk in the petty session's legal department.
So he wanted to be involved in the arts and he started writing poetry. I found his journal and actually published it. And so I could see this guy beginning to flourish as this writer, but he was being squished to sort that creative side of him to be a boring mundane clerk. And that's the environment that Chris is talking about is young brand Stoker.
Growing up coming into his own. And it's incredibly, you know, very well known and well thought of academic institution. And he was the big man on campus and in Dublin himself. So that's where he made his Mark.
Chris McAuley: Yeah. Yeah. You go to, if you go to Trinity, you'll see. there's actually a, there's a couple of pictures.
I used to eat in a pub as well, and Dublin that would have had a picture from still growing up. Well, they've got a Brent
Dacre Stoker: Stoker [00:22:00] club. A
Chris McAuley: part of the philosophical
Dacre Stoker: society is the Bram Stoker club for delivering papers. And grant started it when he was the head, because he realized some people were, you know, intelligent and wrote good papers, but they weren't very effective as orators.
And so they were at a disadvantage. So they started to portion of the club to read your paper. So even if you weren't great at public speaking, which we all know is an art. You deliver your paper and they've revived, revive that whole club. And there's actually a cool painting by a guy called Damien Draven, who has become a friend that I've commissioned, the oil painting, which I have in my home.
But I then asked Damien, would he give permission to have a print made and put it? And we donated it to. to Trinity. So there's another pitcher.
Chris McAuley: You've got a jam. I must go and see that. Yeah, I must go and see that. I mean, all our connection I have with Bram Stoker, Decker is alluding to, is that I'm a Freemason.
And so it was, it was prom Stoker, and that's a, quite a strong [00:23:00] tie. So really, I wanted to make sure that whatever I had written was, was okay. You know, I D I didn't want to. take any liberties, then, you know, take her like that. we got onto chats and we started talking about, you know, Braum's work and how it could possibly be translated into, into graphic, novel formats, to reach a wider appreciation.
his writing is incredible and stuff waive that it's like a painter, he paints words. when you. When you look at Stoker's work and it is like, looking at a PMT, Greystones is one of my favorite, poems and it's featured in Stoker on Stoker.
Dacre Stoker: Well, I use this, I use it in Stoker on Stoker, but it originated.
It's the first dated piece of writing that anyone's ever found and it's, and I, we found it in his last journal and then I actually had it put in [00:24:00] into this pamphlet, excuse me, a booklet that accompanies the lectures that I give. and I'll just say one more thing. I mean, I'm, obviously this is all about Bram Stoker.
He was an artist and he actually was a founding member while he was at Trinity of the Dublin painting and sketching club. And there have been a few, one painting that has popped up in Cruden Bay, Scotland attributed to Bram in a house that he rented. And the signature is almost rubbed off, but it's been validated by an expert and then myself and another Dubliner have actually found, a couple of sketches that Bram did.
It's funny. He didn't do it professionally. It was, I think it was just a pastime Florence. His wife liked to paint as well in the holidays, but what it does is exactly as Chris said, He looks at things in a different way because he is got this artistic background. And, you know, there was actually a, an American, reviewer.
I [00:25:00] think it was Detroit that said the same thing as Chris did. And Chris, I promised, I know we have never rehearsed this. You said brand sober States with the eye. You write with the eye of a painter. And yet it's because he was talking about Dracula. And if you read Dracula. And you read it with the eye that Bram Stoker never went to Transylvania, but he's done a heck of a lot of research and plenty of other people did go to transplant.
Any that wrote books about their adventures and describe the country, the people, the cities, their customs. And put it in their books that sit now in the London library, Bram use those books sort of second hand as if you and I would go Google a location. If we wanted to write it into a novel, Melissa, you know, you'd look at some picture of it.
Yeah, I was there, but Bram had to get that from books with just a few sketches. and so that's what a painter would do. So, sorry, keep going.
Chris McAuley: No, there's also a deeply spiritual context to a lot of what Brahm writes. you mentioned Scotland. And what's interesting as, new [00:26:00] Scotland actually has a claim to the, you know, the Dracula and the fossils couldn't Bay.
yeah. And a lot of forums writing centers around the, coexistence of Christian and pagan beliefs. If you look at their flight world worm, that comes up quite a lot. but yeah, it was, it was very addressed and because Aberdeen shower, they were still doing the pagan, festivals, which, made of observed.
Dacre Stoker: He did. I really am. this guy wrote a book. Mike Shepherd wrote a book called when brave men shuttered. I did the intro to Mike is convinced. Same thing, as you're saying that he did. And, you know, in a funny way, Bram was sort of a believer. I mean, he certainly was a church follower and a believer in God, but he also was looking at the earth as mother earth.
this pantheism concept that Walt Whitman I think, introduced to him. And [00:27:00] that was one of the things that he. Felt comfortable with including Bay Scotland. Oh my God. He went there 13 summer holidays. There it's the only place he kept going back to. And back to you went to Whitby once, but Cruden Bay was his place and I've been there twice and I kind of get it because it's so unspoiled and it also has very interesting.
And yet strange geographical features that you wouldn't notice unless you were looking for it. They've got this granite shelf that is upheaved by, you know, the tectonic plates underneath the North sea. And when it low tide. You see these kind of red pinkish rock and you see
Casey: them looking at them now
Dacre Stoker: it's incredible.
And then it blends perfectly into these long flat beaches and then into the sea grass and then into the countryside. And at nighttime it's like everything touches like the th the stars come down and the [00:28:00] earth comes up. and that was where Bram was at one with himself and with the earth. And then it's Chris said, Emily, Gerard, the lady who wrote land beyond the forest and track to have any superstitions was Scottish.
And she was totally focused on. The rituals that mythology and things that they had. And I'm sure that was a big part of it. So, we seem to be dominating. We haven't heard from Melissa yet. Who was
Melissa: everything you're saying? It's like, you're taking me on this journey. It's incredible. I am curious how old were you when. You sort of became aware that this was your family legacy, where it was sort of this reality and why did you fail this whole, to want to contribute to it and to celebrate it and join the rates?
Dacre Stoker: you know, it sorta happened in stages. The first thing was. When I was in the birthing room and the doctor was holding garlic when I [00:29:00] came out and it was like, Oh my God, something must be up. So yeah, once my mom said it's okay, son, just take it easy. Now, actually at about 12 in Montreal, Canada, growing up, kids would joke at Halloween.
Ooh, what happens if you come to the Stoker household? You know, you're going to take our blood or give us candy. And that becomes old after awhile. But I asked my dad, I said, dad, what's this all about. So it sound it's time to show you. So he brought me to the, you know, the house in the library and pulled out this yellow first edition copy of Dracula signed by Bram to his mom.
And as a couple of their names, the other family members, it was passed. And funnily enough, this was, you know, early seventies. We didn't know that much about the legacy. To be honest, I learned about it. After I had tried to read Dracula about the age of 13 or 14, and it was very difficult book to read. So I sort of got it, but it wasn't until I read McNally and fluoroscopy who wrote in search of Dracula [00:30:00] and I was in university and it was now time in an English literature class to do a report on an author.
And so I said, okay, it's now time to delve into this, Melissa. That's when I sort of got the idea of the worldliness of brand's influence and how many people around the world were. Really into this. And so that again, that's thought that part pause, because I was so into making the Olympics for Canada as an athlete.
And then later as a coach, it really wasn't until the early two thousands that my wife who's really big into genealogy said, you know, Dacre, if we don't do this, nobody else in your family is going to. Reconnect because my dad had passed away. One of his other brothers had passed away and the final brother in the family.
Was really the keeper of the papers. And he would send us things by facts that we should be reading. And, you know, as you guys know, faxes are like the curl up and then the ink all goes away. And if you don't read it about a week, [00:31:00] it's all gone. So we quickly read these things from my uncle, Patty, which is really cool stuff about our relative and what he knew about Bram.
And so on that it was okay, I need to do this. And then there was a little bit of fate. I got this phone call from, a screenwriter who had written a play, excuse me, a screenplay about Prince Vlad, Dracula as a empire. So he was kind of doing the thing that, that Jim Hart and Coppola did. And, it didn't go anywhere, but he said, you know, I think it'd be really cool if a Stoker got involved and it would be neat if we had Bram Stoker in this story.
Would you be interested in getting involved and doing the research and doing co-writing with me on this. And, it was at a time when I was. I just decided to stop teaching at a certain school. The school was kind of not going where I wanted to go in the direction. And it was like, I was in between things.
I said, why not? And my wife said, let's do it. And so we just [00:32:00] stuck in, like, I would be training for the Olympics. I was training for the Bram Stoker's Dracula Olympics. And just as I've got to read the biographies, go to conferences, you know, make the Trek to Dublin, go to England and meet Brams great grandsons that direct descendants.
You know, look at their files and their boxes of things and look what they have and just try to absorb as much as I can, because by golly, I'm going to be, co-authoring a book on this and that was Dracula the on dead, that came out in Oh nine. And just, you know, from then I haven't turned back because in the process of that, I found this last journal that I then moved into the sort of more academic world and had the famous Elizabeth Miller.
Dr. Elizabeth Miller, helped me. Transcribe these, this, the journal make sense of it and make comments on it. And we split it up 50 50, and that came out to the world. So I had a novel out and then this journal, and then I started creating some cool ideas on my own. and then [00:33:00] this book cool came out, which was a long time in the making, which is a huge success.
Yeah.
Melissa: On that, by the way. Yeah.
Dacre Stoker: So, yeah, that's the short version I could go on, but I'm not going to, but that's, you know, that's what prompted me to get into this and no looking back, Melissa.
Melissa: Yeah. Awesome.
Casey: So you, you guys are basically bringing Dracula into the future in this comic, correct?
Chris McAuley: Yeah. Well, yeah, it's one possible future, right? So it is, it has been commissioned as a series. so Decker or myself will be called right now. And, you know, it's, it's going to be a fun story. So, give
Casey: given that, you know, that's one of the trajectories is going to go a lot of the Gothic narrative back when, you know, Dracula was written, had to do with the.
Just sheer [00:34:00] awfulness of the, the industrial revolution and how it's taking man away from nature, taking man away from God, how we need to go back to, you know, a simpler life. w how CA how are you going to, are you going to talk about that at all? in the, in the book.
Chris McAuley: Well in the comics. Yeah. I mean, it's a bit, it's a bit like, I mean the first issue has, you know, a company, a corporation, which will fail, you will find more ADA bikes, and really, you know, they tech Dracula and, for all of Dracula's sins, they do treat them quite appallingly.
you know, and a it's what's, an individual is worth on the black market. what they've done is it's like the, it's like, you know, a bit of a bit like the modern day horror stories, where you have people here sort of kidnapped and then their organs are used on the black market. It's pretty much what they're doing with Dracula.
I don't want to give a gateway of the game, but you know, we've got, we've got a series, [00:35:00] so he's okay at the end of this, right. He's okay. He's all right. I'll tell him we're not killing them off. but I think there's. Yeah, I think there's the capability to look at Dracula and use Dracula and, Vampirism as a Lance for many things.
I mean, vampirism is allowance for, you know, syphilis and the, various sexually transmitted diseases. by the time Dracula was written, horror is also a good lens to look at the banality of evil as well. there is a level of banality to, Dracula's evil, Dracula users, people. Users people he doesn't care about them.
the real, yeah, the real Dracula. Yes. We have to be off the sale. The original Dracula. he has pars and desires. And if you read, powers of darkness, which is the Islamic translation Dracula, you'll see that Dracula. That's not a romance [00:36:00] story. It's very much, it's very multiple par.
Dacre Stoker: So paragraph
Chris McAuley: yeah.
A domination. So in the future, when we are dealing with, corporations, corporate grades, what would Dracula be influenced by the environment around them? How would he have hired ?
Dacre Stoker: So if you think of this for just a sec, sorry to digress, but Bram said Dracula. We think, I mean, from his notes in 1893, even though it was published in 1897, he wrote it.
It's a real time, real places, real newspaper journals, diaries, all that stuff. What we're doing is something similar. Right? They're writing it a little bit in the future. But we've got people in international space stations. We've got, you know, pretty close to having civilians going up and in, you know, Virgin airways and their first supersonic rocket and all this stuff.
So it's not, you know, th the concept that Bram had [00:37:00] to make this horror, even though it was classic Gothic stuff, but his twist was, he made it so freaking realistic with the pistol or style that Chris and I said, What would it be like nowadays? So that only do we have the, you know, the Lord of the future, we've got plenty other ideas to sort of bridge gaps and other graphic projects.
Based on, as we said, some of Bram, short stories, we've, you know, my cousins, the Bram Stoker estate are interested in us going forward with some of that, you know, we've gotta make it the right deals, but get some of his other stuff out there. What about some of the other backstories too, that we've, you know, that people discuss all the time about.
Unfinished little bits and pieces of Dracula. I'm not sure. Melissa Europe, you're a fellow author, but you know, Melissa, have you ever heard of, Dracula's guests for instance, that short story, does that ring a bell?
Melissa: I've heard of it. Yes. I have not read it, but I've heard of it. Yeah. [00:38:00] I'm a big fan of,
Dacre Stoker: okay.
It's a good, it's a good read. And it's something that when J D Barker and I wrote draft cool, which was the prequel, the Dracula. We went out and looked at the Dracula TypeScript that the Paul Allen estate owns and matched up those hundred and one missing pages that Dracula's guests was definitely part of it.
There's no question. We found three references in the TypeScript that were crossed out that had, situations happening at Dracula's guests. And there's no. You know, there's no arguing. And when you see that, and in addition, when his widow published the two years after he died, she said this was excised from my husband's, you know, most famous book, but you know, naysayers go, Oh, that's she just wanted to sell books.
Yeah. And that's why
Chris McAuley: make the protagonist is even called you. Huh? Yeah. Oh, Jonathan Johann. Let's even just for God sake, folks to watch the film that's called Dracula's guests don't [00:39:00] stuff.
Casey: No,
Dacre Stoker: it was nothing to do with it. it was a cheap way to get the rights has nothing to do with it, but yeah, go read the books only.
you can get it for free. I'm not trying to make money for my family. but it's worth it. And so we're looking at some of these other cool things that. Plug into Dracula, the back stories of some of these other characters that, that need some developing brand. You know, his book was very long and a lot of stuff got cut out.
So that's why you don't really understand where Mina really came from and Lucy and all the rest of them. So Chris and I have some cool ideas on how to sort of round out some of those interesting things besides the original stuff.
Chris McAuley: Yeah. It's still given it's not given enough in a way, just to say that we have a roadmap.
we like to call it the roots of Dracula. Yeah. And that is a roadmap. And, it's, for me, I like to look at, Dracula as a whole, as a sad, you know, our layer that's higher. Do people hire people affected when they make Dracula for rent [00:40:00] fades? He was a Messiah, for Jonathan Harker. He was a grew task.
And he was horrified by him. you know, get that in. In the actual original text, but I want to sort of tease out a little bit.
Dacre Stoker: yeah. Lucy was attracted to him and meno. It was a puzzle.
Chris McAuley: Yeah, exactly. It is that it's all that weird stuff because there is some romance and Dracula. I mean, whenever the, whenever the, Dracula's braids for want of a better words are sort of thrown off, Jonathan Harker and they throw the thrills, throws the BBB and that's a really horrendous scene.
the, a donut grind and they mock them basically said he had never loved. And he said, Oh, I, you know, well, I, to have loved. And that's another very interesting lane, which we, but Decker and I will be exploring. so you know, it. Are one of our goals in the route to Dracula series is to give fans, a rounded view of, the original texts, [00:41:00] but also start to tease out, the various pasts of these individuals, so that whenever we eventually do tackle the Meehan story, there is there's greater resonance for anybody who follows our look to Dracula roadmap.
I think it's really important. It's not that we're adding anything as such, but we're trying to make, greater resonance by teasing these stores.
Melissa: They're complaining like a Dracula universe essentially about it
Chris McAuley: pretty much. And then I'll say it from that we have original stories.
you know, we have original stories that feature, some, classic. Horror film characters, but with twists, you know, we've mentioned that we have the Brahms super short stories that we are converting to graphic novel formats. we have so many ideas because it's such a rich universe, the plan and Brown Brahman roots, not just the word, you know, vampires, but he wrote a really eloquent mommy story.
Which tied in [00:42:00] directly to the stuff of the paganism Christianity. and that's, you know, we have, we're so excited about what we can bring to the reader as a form of entertainment, but also, you know, to really showcase Bram Stoker's work, why it's important to our culture, Weyburn that I think more than NLR offer.
I think Brahm has brought more. to our modern culture, understanding , you know, if the keys he's brought that, and spirits. Okay,
Dacre Stoker: let me ask Melissa question just for a second. Cause I, ER, earlier we chatted that you've written some vampire style novels yourself, and again, not rehearsed.
What have you got out of Bram, Stoker influenced you in any way and any of his writings that have helped you or given you little tidbits and things that have helped you in your writing.
Melissa: Yeah, absolutely. I think the biggest thing that really resonated [00:43:00] with me was this concept of immortality. And I think it's obviously something that every human being wishes they could possess at some point, but also the concept of good and evil in the lens of the person's perspective, because every.
Every villain is the hero story, right? So essentially it's this like crazy, like juxtaposition as like, are you the hero or the villain, in relation to what your perception is about what you're doing. So for brands Stoker's Dracula, I do believe that constructing it was, you know, doing what he did because this was who he was, you know, he missed his wife the way that he felt.
Right. And he was a creature at predator. There are many things, but I think it also really, influenced me in the concept of good and evil and struggling with humanity. So like in my books, I have, vampires who still claim to their humanity, remember [00:44:00] what it was like to be human. And when it comes to war, you know, they can turn that on.
But when it comes to love or passion or, you know, taking pity on someone who's weaker than they are. That humanity sometimes comes back, and haunts them. And still, I think of vampires and things for very depressed characters, because as much as we want them mortality, living forever might not be the best thing.
You know,
Dacre Stoker: he takes a life, he takes life, but he gives immortal life, but what's the trade off. And is it really that cool, an idea to. Be around forever with all your loved ones and your friends don't have that luxury.
Chris McAuley: that's a, it's an interest in the whole, the mortality aspect of vampirism is interesting. And I think, you know, a lot of the, a lot of shops that we have them understand, like vampirism, You know, what a lot of people do know is that, you know, mythologically speaking vampires come [00:45:00] quite and some, the key differences that they can't exercise their multiple pars,
Dacre Stoker: just an invention of Nosferatu.
Wasn't it, Chris? I mean, Ram didn't use that at all.
Chris McAuley: No, it's it. But it's, it's Brown the news, but mythologically speaking. It sucks. that's actually, that's actually, a thing. So that's why I find it very interesting that you included that in, chuckle. Yeah. I really liked that. I thought that was, that was, that was well done.
so if you have a lot of folks go and reach goal, it's really good. Yeah. Yeah. There's our plug me up
Dacre Stoker: today. That's one. Okay. That's enough.
Casey: One thing that, That was really cool about the original, rumps. Shucker not novel was, it was all just, it was written in forms of like diary entries and ships logs and all that other stuff.
it wasn't like, just a straightforward narrative. Are you guys going to explore any of that in the comic?
Dacre Stoker: W well, I mean, let me [00:46:00] just say that it's not easy. And when I made the. I guess I would say the mistake. I didn't realize it was a mistake at the time writing drag to the, on dead in normal pros, as you just said, really turned off people because it was supposed to be a SQL and there was some, many people loved it to death, but then some of the purists, how could this be a SQL it's not run in the same pistol or style?
How dare you? And I was like, Whoa, sorry. I did. I mean, I realized. You know, this was hallowed ground after the fact, but really hallowed grounded. So I was determined to rectify that and when J D Barker and I, when I approached him and I had this outline, I said, J D whatever we do. We need to be able to write in the pistol or style because we'll get roasted yet again.
And I just got over it. It's been eight years. I got over the burn barks, you know, so it's like, okay, let's do it. And neither of us had written that way before. [00:47:00] So it took us a while, but it is a really interesting way to write because you can build tension from many different directions by having.
Different characters in their own diaries or things that are put out in the newspaper can build tension. And yet it's not a collective. feeling that's that happens at the same time when people realize, Oh, what's going on here. And so graphically, when you do something in a graphic novel, and again, I'm coming at this from just, you know, a few months of doing this with Chris, you don't have quite as much space as many pages.
So, you know, it's a little bit difficult to do a graphic novel in epistolary style, but I'd love to ask Chris. he may know the answer to that. Do they do the well, are
Chris McAuley: wasted, either wasted? There are ways it's, what's really interesting about the difference between American comics and UK comics and European comics.
UK comics will [00:48:00] not be as wordy. Generally, American comics will be more wordy and European comics have a way of, displaying proves and a comic book form up. That's unparalleled. So look at the French publishers like Glennon. so there's an alert vampire story called Requiem vampire night, but my mentor, mom pop mills creative.
And, he kind of crafts frozen in there as well as, visuals and traditional comic book, lettering, bubble texts, all that sort of stuff. So. That's again, one of the, well, a very powerful aspects of graphic novel design is that you can, you can't incorporate all those forms of narrative.
It's just, you know, it's gotta be designed, in a congruent fashion.
Melissa: Yeah.
Kind of how you display. Your art and your message, in graphic [00:49:00] novel format, obviously you have more freedom in some aspects with the visual. And then, you know, as we're comparing the UK versus USA, comics, they're going to be either, are you going to take it on the more wordy approach actually, or are you going to do it more of the UK style?
Chris McAuley: Some, it's actually a mixture. So, depending on the story and actually depending on, On the visualization of the story. So for example, you'll Brahm used a lot of words to describe a scene where an artist can do that in a panel. the important thing is taking the emphasis that Brahm used, with the words, making sure that the artist represents that and the panel, if a character has a well Wallace, one of the scripts that's already been written.
it's some aspects of it are word heavy because their style log on some aspects are actually, and for narratives with the action that's going on within the panel.
Dacre Stoker: what I found was interesting in one of the scripts we've already done [00:50:00] is that you would explain at the beginning, I thought, Chris, who you telling this to he's actually.
you've got the bubbles where the characters are doing their dialogue, but then he explains in another panel and I didn't get it at the beginning. He goes, no, Dacre, that's me explaining it to the artist. what the artist has to add to depict here. And it was like, Oh, thank God.
Because you know that asking for too much writing, but no. And I guess, you know, there's so many different people involved in putting a page together. That you all have to be in sync. And I guess it helps if, you know, you're all playing by the same rules and I found that fast, isn't it
Chris McAuley: co compliments that I got.
Was that a visually designed script? No, there's another reason for it is that I can see that everything, the Decker and I. Are doing can become a, account, can be brought to life in an all or four months. So, you know, an animated, short story. [00:51:00] we do have something that's, we do have a production, competence and trust at one of the scripts that have been written.
and you're not, it'd be a live action. So, hi, I construct a scripts is an, a manner that if we sound that script for a possible. You know, fits your franchisement the opportunity it's understood by screenwriters or it's understood by, You know, if he ever needs to, visualize that in their way.
and I think that's a very powerful, gifts that a writer can, or the comic book industry can put upon a writer because, you know, if you're writing a novel, you, Dan has to have to translate that some way visually down to a screenplay, for example, or.
Dacre Stoker: You just get lucky or unlucky. if the director and the, the camera people don't get it.
But here, what you're doing is you're handing them their homework. Plus the wishlist from the office here. You guys go to that. I mean, to be honest, guys, it scares me to death about what could happen with Drexel, [00:52:00] because we don't get to, you know, we describe things, but it doesn't mean that whoever's directing and head of Cameron or rails.
If they're going to do. Just depict it their own way. So I love what Chris is doing. It's like, if you don't like it, then please don't buy this script from us. If you like it, we've done all the work and it's the way Bram, Stoker desired it. And that's the best way. Obviously there will be some tweaks and we're not going to be totally inflexible, but it is.
It's cool that here it is. It's all right in front of you right here. Yeah.
Chris McAuley: And I mean, one of the, one of the things I love about working in comics, Is working with the artists, you know, I'm an artist myself, and I'm actually working on GA. And then I think I'm allowed to say that.
Yeah, I'm working on GA. so what's up then we'll start is they've got contacts for every day with the writer on the artists, so, and color in that. And we're coming up with narrative ideas to do with color. So every step in comic book design, We're talking narrative that's the process of comic books or should be sorry, it should be.
I know it's not always, [00:53:00] but we are discussing narrative at return. So even with the lettering of a comic book, that is that as a form of narrative of exposition of the narrative. So, I'm really excited to work with, you know, Artists like Dracula, lot of theater working with Colin Maxwell's grit and Colin depicted, Dracula in a way that has not been done before, but it's completely authentic.
And I think that's the secret. That's part of the secret sauce of designing and writing a great graphic novel series. It's not just giving the reader what they expect because you left a book or a graphic novel, and you think, Oh, I know what they expect here. Everybody knows Dracula. Here's the challenge.
Everybody knows Dracula. Everybody knows the baits of Dracula. Everybody knows what's supposed to happen, but how do you present that in a way that's, even though, you know, what's going to happen. You're not sure what's going to happen, but it's still Fensick. So there's the greatest challenge of [00:54:00] trans tech and established story.
So Brahms short stories and, crafts craft a, a newness freshness. so that even people who are familiar with these stories, that it's something new when they left it from the shelf and they read it's like, Oh, this is incredible. This is fresh. This is,
Dacre Stoker: I never thought of it that way. Or boy, those guys included a cool twist.
You know, that's what we're looking for. It's just that little something that sets it apart from something that maybe was written a hundred years ago or more, and just hasn't had its legs and we're giving it new legs. New twists, obviously visualization.
Chris McAuley: I've read in the last three.
And the last month I've read 60, 60 vampire calling books. 25 of them are tracking
Casey: on empire comics.
Chris McAuley: Like, I can tell you this, I can say this, that, you can go and pick up a comic that says Dracula on [00:55:00] it, but I can guarantee you'll you're not going to see the real drug dealer until you pick up a comic that's panned by, Decora myself.
Yeah,
that's a big clam, but I mean, I think, you know, I'm quite confident, that it's going to be authentic. It's going to be, you know, powerful. and a lot of that comes from Decker's intention. The, my intention, by hider represents, his ancestor and hi, to bring the story into. and so what the new fresh approach, to really get people, to start looking at Brahms, Stoker, and a completely different way.
and it just, it's such an exciting process to work with them on this. It really is.
Casey: That's awesome. I think there's a ton of utility behind this idea, and I think that people are ready for something new in terms of popular horror, because. For, you know, for the past 10 years has been zombie, zombie zombies.
[00:56:00] Dacre Stoker: and there's nothing wrong with zombies,
Casey: not at all.
Dacre Stoker: And there's nothing
Chris McAuley: wrong and we've written a stormy story. Yeah.
Dacre Stoker: You know, it's, it goes in waves, doesn't it? And I'll say this about vampires. I mean, they become more romanticized. They become like. The person next door at the, and that's totally fine, but I just think there's room for it to ebb and flow from, you know, the horrors zombie remnant from the grave to the boy next door to, you know, Dracula in Alaska to Dracula in space to a little girl, let the right one in and Sweden and you know, all these different, it's just where we.
Are all looking for creative avenues to keep people on their toes, to keep them entertained and doing something a little different and a little bit original and getting people look at, you know, the old works in new ways. and that's just, it's a lot of fun, but it's also cool. It's a great feeling when people go.
Ah, I didn't think of that, but that's cool. You guys did something it's a little bit [00:57:00] neat and different with that one.
Casey: So, do you guys have any, any specifics as to when we can expect to start seeing these on the shelves,
Chris McAuley: the future's going to be out next month and apology 13th moon, which I'm actually coloring in the whole book.
So, yeah, it's great. It's actually, I just talk to a lot of the minute with the book. That's all the features in, yeah. it's got werewolf stories. It starts, stories that actually linked to Jeffrey's, Malik character. so for those who don't know him, the big Malek, Melissa scrip ruler,
Casey: well, that'd be digital only, or will that be,
Chris McAuley: yeah, it's gonna, it's going to be difficult, digital and physical.
Casey: Awesome. Awesome.
Chris McAuley: It's going to be, it's going to be available in all four months. and, yeah, it's it's so, our first collaborations is coming out next month. Awesome. Yeah,
Casey: we'll make a [00:58:00] big deal about it when it comes out and, hopefully, I'm sure when it comes out, we will have this out, kind of congruent with it and we'll post details in the show notes.
Chris McAuley: So.
Casey: Is there anything else you guys want to promote before we,
Dacre Stoker: yeah, Casey, I'd like to, I mean, it's just because we, haven't got a lot, you know, farther along into publisher's hands yet, but, I would like to plug because we're talking graphic novel, something that I did before I met Chris and it was simply, I wrote an afterward.
For a graphic novel. That's really interesting because it's a first, but it's the Bela Lugosi estate and it's their edition of Dracula put out by legendary comics and. The, I've just been in touch with, the granddaughter of Bela Lugosi. she has taken over sort of running the estate [00:59:00] of, for her father, Bella jr.
And is, did you decide to go, I kind of do what I'm doing for Brent. They've got a lot more licensing and marketing deals going on than I do, but that's fine. Both trying to protect are the legacies of our ancestors. And, but there have gone so far as to get them very cool deal. They, she wrote the forward I did the afterward it's coming, you know, in October.
And it's the bill that goes to state Dracula and, Lynn. We're actually going to be on a panel series of panels together in a convention, obviously a virtual one in Phoenix called fear con and that's later in October, Oh,
Casey: that sounds cool.
Dacre Stoker: Yeah. So that's kind of fun to kind of reconnect with, you know, Bella and Bram Stoker we're, you know, really owe a lot to each other's fame and now their descendants are kind of re reconnecting and Lynn Lugosi, and I are trying to keep the gig going.
And, [01:00:00] and so it's, so we're Kristen and I doing that. So we'll have more information, you know, go check out the Bram Stoker, state.org. My books are there. Some cool products are there. I've got a Bram Stoker bobblehead that's in that is licensed by the Bram Stoker estates, some cool other products. And, Yeah.
And then what are comics and graphic novels come out? we'll tell you more about them.
Chris McAuley: Do you know what I'm going to buy? One of those bubble hats and habit set at my desk, I'm going to have to buy one of those nights brilliant, by the way. Thanks. You know, play club and they put, they plug one thing.
I think, it's another vampire call Mike. I'm working on with a rockstar called Barmah scarier. Breckley so, the Baron. And he's never told me his real name. He goes a bit secretive, a bit strange.
Dacre Stoker: Chris they're secreting
Chris McAuley: these things. yeah, lovely guy. I've spoken to him on video chat. but I've never asked him to show his [01:01:00] reflection to me in a mirror.
but yeah, he do in a comic book together. So that's with, that sort of blue tape productions, I believe. and, we are, I'm not colorist for it, so that is due to be released soon. So if you want to give that a plug, just to say it, I'm working on that, for sure. so it's kind of related to it.
You can say it I'm working on GA or if you want, we're failing w. And, God I'm working on, I'm actually working on comic books, military. So you're
Dacre Stoker: not telling them about the guy from star Trek that you're working on.
Chris McAuley: Oh, geez. Yeah. I'm working with William shopper. I forgot. I hit yet. I got my back
Dacre Stoker: fire.
Chris McAuley: Come on. Oh man. Oh God. Oh fuck. I turn off. Would it be broadcast? This I can tell you. It's scary.
Melissa: When do you sleep?
Dacre Stoker: He does. I'm telling you the truth. He doesn't like garlic. He doesn't sleep. Have you guys not figured it out yet?
Chris McAuley: Yeah. Well, you know [01:02:00] that's actually the old joke. The old joke when I moved to Canada, because Africans list garlic in Canada and Ireland, we do roll. We still wall up grips garlic. and we, in some areas of the community, we do bury people, crossroads. you know, my background is actually, I'm a phylogenetic tree and to be a priest, you know, left all that.
But, and it's yeah. Working with shoppers that dressing that he is the only person that truly scares me.
Casey: Totally.
Chris McAuley: personally, looks at all your work. Right. So I've, I had 10 pages, sent away to him on Monday or Tuesday. this is what days as firstly I was Tuesday. So, yeah, you're kind of waiting for the email to come back if he likes it or not.
And if he likes it's brilliant. If he doesn't like it, God help you. But I have had the cool experience rewriting me and it was like all mr. Shutter. And he said, well, just call me bell.
Casey: Oh, nice.
Chris McAuley: I didn't tell him, I didn't tell him I was wearing a t-shirt at the time.
[01:03:00] Okay. My wife actually pointed that out. that was the moment of irony. Like I've worked on her. I think I worked on the last hell razor horror film with Paul Taylor. I did that. I generally don't mention that because it was scripted. It was cannibalized. it was hell raiser, revelations, and, Yeah, it was a troubled production.
so I mean, if Don soften the horror of feelings, but what fascinates me is that, moving away from the traditional tropes of horror, into, aspects of everyday horror, you know, I do have an idea for a comic book. That's basically office hail, you know, office space. I never really, it's not like working in an office.
Fuck. 'em hell. you know, they always say, hell is all our people. Well, I can tell you. It really is. Yeah. So it says, it's this comic book. I don't know, you know, if it's going to be in the lane of Decker and I ordered it, or if it's just going to be played for fun, but it's going to be this calf gas sort of hail, you [01:04:00] know, and I think, you know, cause I've watched office space recently.
Yeah. I could really relate to that. And previous jobs. So do you like car, but I like looking at horror from a different angle. I'm going to check out your books, Melissa, uncle Jay. So I'm like, hold up. That looks interesting because I don't read a lot of romance.
Dacre Stoker: Well, listen, what, which would be if I was to start, which would be the first one.
If I wanted to understand your writing and get to know what you do, what's the, what do you think is a good starting
Melissa: point? Well, the first one is it's called blighted magic. the beginning of the blood and darkness series, it was my debut novel.
Dacre Stoker: Okay.
Melissa: yeah, so that's like sort of the beginning.
And then I just released the first book of the spinoff series in may of this year. So it'll be 10 years after the events and I'm trying to create my own, you know, universe of. different characters. And there's just like you were saying earlier, there's so many different possibilities that, besides stories [01:05:00] and things you can kind of play off of.
So why did magic like definitely be the first one to start with? They got the best introduction in there. Yeah.
Dacre Stoker: Thank you. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you. Okay.
Casey: Awesome. Well guys, thank you so much for coming on the show, Melissa. Thank you for coming on and helping me out with this. yeah. I can't wait to see what you guys have in store for us.
you guys, we're going to put all this stuff in the show notes for the show. So,
Chris McAuley: Oh, I write for spoiler. I write for spoiler country now. Yes,
Casey: that's what they said. Yeah,
Chris McAuley: there you go. There's an older plug. So there's one it's sitting there and I, it was a Dracula. Dracula why the lights and the jurors forever or something was the, the article.
So if you want to give that a B plug as well when I had
Casey: Oh, dude, for sure. Yeah. I need to, I need to post that on the, on the Twitter feeds and all that. I'll get onto that soon. It's, this week has been insane because my, my [01:06:00] in-laws normally keep my two kids during the week. Cause they're doing, school via, via the computer until all this crap dies down at the beach.
So I've been the teacher and, my wife is, my wife is a kindergarten teacher. She has 20 students. I have two they're my own kids and yeah. Insane. Yeah. But, I actually have to go tuck them in.
Y'all have a good, I had a blast talking to you guys.
Melissa: great. Thank you so
Dacre Stoker: much. Thank you all
Casey: man. And,
Dacre Stoker: yeah.
Casey: Hopefully we don't send any more up to you. This to that.
Dacre Stoker: That's enough for now. It's only the beginning of the season. I'm sure we'll get some more Alabama weather. Oh
Casey: yeah.
Chris McAuley: Roll tide two weeks.
What does my, this is my second or third winter and Evanson. She's I'm just Prius himself [01:07:00] as a Mainer. 60 gets two strong things,
Dacre Stoker: right. Hunker down. Can't even
Chris McAuley: imagine it's so yeah.
Dacre Stoker: All right, guys. Thank you all very much. Okay. Bye-bye.
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