Onion writer jumps on the vampire bandwagon: “The New Vampire’s Handbook”

By Willie Clark for Campus Times University of Rochester

There seems to be no shortage of vampires nowadays and with all the vampire-infiltrated books, movies and TV shows, it can be hard to find the right one to bring back to your lair or castle.

But, luckily, you won’t have to look that hard. Brought to you by writers of The Onion and The New Yorker, “The New Vampire’s Handbook” offers a humorous look at the genre, while presenting rules for new aspiring vampires (or real ones) to abide by.

We were lucky enough to talk to Joe Garden, of The Onion fame, and discuss the book he contributed to and vampires in general.

First and foremost, what made you decide to write this new vampire book?

Joe Garden: Well, it was kind of a combination of things. Obviously vampire books and stuff have always been popular. Everybody has been talking about the new vampire craze and that’s really not totally accurate because vampires have always been popular. Ever since “Dracula” in the ’30s or even the old “Barnie the Vampire” books in the 1800s.

But there were a couple of things. There was the popularity of the “Twilight” novels, in which there are the vegetarian vampires who don’t really want to kill humans and who sparkle in the sunlight. And that is sort of repulsive for a long-time vampire fan. Vampires are not supposed to be romantic; they are supposed to be frightening.

The second thing was when you start watching vampire movies, you notice that there are a whole lot of scenes for the vampires that are, like, “What have I become? What’s happening to me?” for the new vampires. And it seems funny that that was never put down in book form, and it’s also funny because it always changes. Every vampire movie, every vampire book, they all have their own rules. I thought it would be fun to quantify what the rules were and, in the process, I try to throw in some of our own things.

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Free pdf excerpt HERE