Comic Book VAMPIRES!!!!

How the original 'The Lost Boys' & 'Blade' movies - helped reinvent the '15.5 Billion' Comic Book Industry + Comic Book Fan Culture which exists today....

Issue 7#

I first watched The Lost Boys in 1989 after literally dragging my duvet down a local residential road exclusively for home owners - to my first lower middle class (everything and everyone when you first start secondary school either back then was/or is lower middle class btw) - slumber ‘video’ party.

I remember that my friends sister had a slumber party for her friends too, and we were all in Year 8, so the generic term was to be ‘cool’ even though I awkwardly didn’t truly know what cool represented (and still probably don’t - well actually I think I still have a ‘cool’ taste in cinema!)

But The Lost Boys on VHS felt like the epitome of what cool should look like. I remember feeling that I when I was growing up - for only a few weeks - I wanted to be cool like ‘Kiefer Sutherland, Corey Haim and Corey Feldmen’ even though I was Black and there’s actually no Black Characters in this film?

Looking back I think this is a curious and perhaps larger comment being made on the inclusion and depiction of Black characters in 80s MTV horror!

Star (Jamie Gertz) was the coolest poster girl and the fictional Santa Cruz  fairground - crawling with vampires - was a location I wish could be replicated in visits to the local Blackheath Fairground on Bank Holidays which it really couldn’t, if you frequented it with your mother, who was the epitome of a resurgent rare groove counter-culture in RNB music.

The Lost Boys is many things but it certainly isn’t rare groove, (aside) ‘Hmm’ imagine a rare groove Lost Boys set in South East London in the 80’s’

Many would say Lost Boys is more 80s power ballad sax and coolish psychedelic rock covers.

Echo and The Bunny Men did a cover of The Doors ‘People Are Strange’ for the movie and this was my first time hearing and ‘owning’ this version from my generation. I actually didn’t realise that I was actually partial to Echo and The Bunnymen until realising that they did ‘Killing Moon’ but I… digress, what definitely was cool without question, was the fact that Corey Haim (sadly no longer with us) his character Sam is a comic book nerd (even though in real life he and Corey feldmen were young, cool Hollywood stars) and he was cool! On moving to a new town Corey (Sam) ends up in a comic book store whose owned by middle aged couple whose stoned - literally comatose (weirdly funny, but which emanates a strangeness which feels stranger with repeated viewings across different devices. On watching this again recently on BBC iplayer I now wonder if they themselves were ‘Vampires’?) while their sons who are really running the store are secretly under cover vampire hunters called ‘The Frog Bros’.

Now why is this cool? Well I suppose this was the era of the geek as established by John Hughes and his brat pack stars incl Emilio Estevez and Molly Ringwald but…what was cool, was that a lot of key scenes and key dialogue revolved around comics/comic book culture with the stories within the comics providing a blue print  of instructions - to the three cool reverse anti-heroes on how to confront the vampire threat. But I would make an even more important argument that this storyline, in fact provided a blue print to how Hollywood could or would approach truly learning from the comic book counter culture, and the fans that drive the subculture, how cool this could be.

The biggest irony is that this was directed by Joel Schumacher, in probably one of his best films before he would become and remain currently forever ‘infamous’ for destroying the Batman franchise with Batman & Robin (seriously now considered as one of the worst blockbuster movies or upping the ante, the worst superhero film ever made) 

But perhaps more importantly Batman & Robin this was probably watched countless times by Kevin Feige (Marvel Studio President) as a definitive blueprint for what not to do with a precious superhero franchise.

The Lost Boys is now an 80s classic and still stands up as an original and entertaining film. The Frog Bros (Corey Feldman and …with Corey Haim scenes rightly steal the show, and it’s all based around comic book fan culture and the post Hughes geek culture and pre comic book fanboy culture that would dominate chat rooms a decade or more later in the noughties.

Now where does Wesley Snipes fit into all this? At this point he was making a career turning cameo in Martin Scorcese’s Michael Jackson ‘Bad’ video - in a role originally meant for Prince? 

The following is a scene from Bad;

Snipes to Michael in ‘character’ pushing Michael’s student protagonist when he refuses to rob an old immigrant in a subway; 

Snipes - ‘You ain’t bad…you ain’t bad!?!’ 

Michael - ‘If I ain’t bad, you ain’t nothing - you ain’t nothing!’

Cue the ‘campiest’ post Fame/Bob Fosse contemporary jazz ballet dancing troupe in.. zippers, buckles and suede roller skates….

The look on Wesley Snipes face when he sees the dance routine is genuinely spooked like -

‘What the  f**k is going on here..Thriller had Werewolves & Zombies, I genuinely don’t know what my agent has got me into here. My agent may have ended my career before it’s even begun - ‘

Ok I joke, great moves and a phenomenally + culturally successful music video aside - Snipes character may have been ‘nothing’, but really he was cool and would prove to be  ‘down’ with the fan book comic fan culture when he starred in Marvels ‘Blade’

These days many comments on social media platforms are starting to say Snipes needs to be given his full kudos + recognition for being one of the major archetypes of the MCU!

Blade was Marvels first cinema success (everything before hand, Spider-Man, Captain America, Fantastic Four (by Roger Corman)  and the Hulk TV movies had failed while Superman & Batman were dominating the silver screens. 

After the hugely creative disappointment of Batman & Robin in 97 - you could argue that Snipes ‘Blade’ - grounded in a reality + grit synonymous with marvel, not only saved Marvel - but also the self respect of super hero movies especially after the embarrassment of Batman & Robin (which killed a franchise)

This is especially important, while in stiff competition from computer game adaptations managed to be a resounding success spawning 2 successful sequels  (the opening club scene in Blade remains a classic staple of 90s B movie appreciation)

Stephen Dorff up until this point a heart throb  ‘goody-goody’ South African actor as a villian, Blades stunning but no nonsense female lead a stunningly amazing performance from N’bushe Wright (playing Dr Karen Jensen) with Snipes himself the amalgamation of the action hero tropes he had started to develop in the early 90s films with films like Passenger 57 (starring Liz Hurley as an air hostess )

Snipes was confidently now a martial arts action star  playing  vampire hunter (unknown by movie goers but probably referred to in comic book store conversations by uncool comic book geeks & intelligentsia’s, who knew who he was, his importance in comic book fandom and  was lifted straight from those comic books)

Snipes for 5 years had comfortably taken over the position held by Jean Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal and you could argue Bruce Willis & Mel Gibson who were now making more independent arty films or  Oscar movies.

Tom Cruise was and still is making his ascent to action hero superstar status, but in the first Mission Impossible movie, it was the suspenseful thriller action packed  direction by Brian De Palma which made it watchable as Cruise didn’t get any decent action scenes.

Perhaps this is why the MI series has evolved into a far more action packed spectacle, as De Palma really wasn’t a typical action director. In one interview he said he actually hated directing car chases - he didn’t understand them ) no Snipes was an authentic action star, whose charisma + talent was more than enough to carry the Blade franchise.

Marvel had gambled on an unknown and it proved a surprise box office hit - they would do this again with Iron Man (admittedly a bit more well known) and Guardians of the Galaxy.

This strategy coupled with the visible commercial rise of ComiCon  would suddenly catapult comic book sub culture and the geek ideology, into a cool global business which has been the cornerstone of Hollywood for around 15 years! Breaking box office records!

So you could argue that we have the Frogs Bros & Blade to thank for the global and cultural cool blood sucking boom in comics,  even though they are sworn vampire hunters and defenders of the greater good..well at least in second hand comic book stores.

Which is cool…

Written by R.D Hutchiiinson 

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