Vlad Has Risen: Talking ‘Elvira In Monsterland’ With Writer, David Avallone

Vlad and Elvira have gone through a lot together. They’ve been allies, enemies. At one point Vlad wanted to make Elvira one of his brides… The whole “Elvira murdered him” thing might’ve soured the romance (not that Elvira reciprocated his feelings), but Vlad isn’t done causing trouble and is about to make his return in Elvira in Monsterland. Artist, Kewber Baal, joins on-going writer, David Avallone, colorist, Walter Pereyra, and letterer, Taylor Espositio, for a new series starring the Mistress of Darkness and Avallone has the lowdown on what Vlad’s been up to and why it’s taken so long for Elvira to go up against werewolves.

Rachel Bellwoar: When we last saw Vlad, Elvira was (literally) sending him back to Hell. Is it fair to say he might still be a little peeved?

David Avallone: Vlad has got a lot to be peeved about: since he’s met Elvira it’s been humiliation after humiliation. When I introduced our Vlad all the way back in the first issue I wrote, I didn’t have any particular plan to make him her eternal supervillain… but it’s worked out very well. He’s a very good stand-in for all the evils of the world, past and present. “Present” is why Elvira always calls him the “second worst Vlad ever,” to his confusion.

Bellwoar: As we learned in Elvira Mistress of the Dark #12, time works differently in Hell. Two days can feel like an eternity there. Will the Vlad of Elvira in Monsterland be the same Vlad we all know and fear, or has Hell changed him?

Avallone: Vlad has changed, but you’ll have to read the comic to find out exactly how and why. On the surface he’s still the same old blustering medieval tyrant who talks about himself in the third person and is a literal vampire. But let’s say the other denizens of Hell have taught him a few things.

Bellwoar: We know Vlad wants to recruit monsters but what exactly does he need an army for, and why the Multiverse of Movies (where most of the monsters are played by actors)?

Avallone: Central to the premise of this series (and the previous one, Elvira in Horrorland) is that movies create their own pocket dimensions, and within those dimensions, everything in the movie is REAL. So while it may be Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff under that makeup… the makeup doesn’t come off in the Multiverse of Movies. Lugosi CAN turn into a bat and Karloff IS made of other people’s dead bodies.

As to why he wants an army… well… Faust teased him, some issues back, about the smallness of his ambitions, and about selling his soul for “Romania? And like, the darkest corner of Romania?” Maybe Vlad’s learned to dream bigger…

Bellwoar: Vlad is pretty unique among vampires. Sunlight doesn’t bother him. He can breathe fire. Will he have much patience for his weaker brethren that can be taken out using stakes and holy water?

Avallone: When I came up with my version of Vlad, I wanted to lean into both the real historical Vlad the Impaler, but also the folktales about him from his own period. I decided to take the name “Dracula” – son of the Dragon – literally. So he can sprout giant wings and breathe fire, and he is a former murderous king. All the other vampire mythology seems to come from Bram Stoker and his literary/filmic descendants. So all the classic stuff from vampire lore can’t kill him. On the other hand, he was first taken down in our pages by a sword-thrust from an Errol Flynn pastiche, and falling backwards into some high voltage wires. Which probably wouldn’t have killed, say, Gary Oldman or Christopher Lee. So he’s not technically weaker: he just has different strengths AND weaknesses.

And – small spoiler – his fictional counterparts have powers he doesn’t have. He picks up a trick from Bela Lugosi, for example, that he hasn’t previously used in the series.

Bellwoar: Vlad is assuming monsters will be falling over themselves to join his army, but might he be disappointed?

Avallone: It’s definitely more frustrating than he expected, and some of the comedy comes from that. Some monsters are excited, some are resistant, some are secretly the heroes of those monster movies, and behave accordingly. As a writer, there’s a lot of fun in being able to pose this question with the classic monsters: what would they do? Which Dracula would want it, and which Dracula would say “not my scene, man.”

Bellwoar: Elvira has already encountered her fair share of monsters, over the course of your run, but I was surprised to realize there haven’t been any Wolfman yet. How did you manage to avoid werewolves this long?

Avallone: Funny thing, I’m writing Issue 3 of Monsterland right now, and it’s titled… “Howl!”

To answer your question, I learned while working on this issue why I haven’t used them before. This may piss off wolf-fans, but… there aren’t a lot of iconic “looks” to werewolf movies. The Lon Chaney, Jr. makeup is pretty recognizable, but if we did a cover with every werewolf from the movies on it, you wouldn’t see the same kind of distinctiveness as with the Draculas. Also, some of the funniest stuff just isn’t that well-remembered by audiences. Have you watched Wolf recently? The final fight between James Spader and Jack Nicholson may be funnier than anything I’ve ever written for Elvira, and that’s not what they were going for. They both look like they lost a fight with a fur coat.

Bellwoar: All of the covers for the first issue are fang-tastic, but I especially loved Dave Acosta’s cover, which has everyone from Sesame Street’s The Count to Grandpa from The Munsters making an appearance. Was there a vampire you were especially pleased to see?

Avallone: I was very happy to see The Count and Grandpa. Also, the Daughter of Dracula, who Dave captures perfectly and who doesn’t get the pop culture love she deserves. My personal favorite, though, is seeing old John Carradine on there, who’s the (late) grandpa of a friend. He didn’t make it into the issue itself, but I was very happy Dave worked him into the cover.

Bellwoar: What has it been like working with artist, Kewber Baal, on this arc?

Avallone: Kewber has been a revelation. We worked together on one issue of Bettie Page Unbound (where he replaced brilliant series artist Julius Ohta) and I really liked what he did, so when Dynamite’s Joe Rybandt suggested him, I was happy to have him on board. But he’s exceeded my high expectations. A parody book lives or dies on the likenesses; like Horrorland, Monsterland is essentially a series of Mad Magazine movie satires with Elvira in the starring role. In issue one alone, Kewber captures the casts and locations of a dozen movies, flawlessly, and his sense of visual comedy is delivering the laughs. I can’t wait for people to see it!

Bellwoar: Me, too! Thanks for agreeing to this interview, David!

Elvira in Monsterland #1 goes on sale May 17th from Dynamite Comics with a FOC of 24th April.