Insha Fitzpatrick Talks Horror, Comics, and Hanging With Vampires
The only guidebook you — and your little ones — need for surviving bloodsuckers!
Kids horror has been a lifelong passion of mine that was sparked during my own childhood by authors like Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine. Author and editor Insha Fitzpatrick is adding to that storied legacy with her delightful new non-fiction title Hanging with Vampires: A Totally Factual Field Guide to the Supernatural at Quirk Books. It's a gorgeous guidebook to all things vampiric, illustrated by the wonderful Lilla Bölecz. I was already a fan of Insha's writing when this book entered my radar, so I was delighted when she agreed to be the inaugural Rosie Recommends interview. In a delightful phone call we chatted about comics, horror, vampires, Twilight, and writing scary stuff for younger audiences.
We share a lot of similar interests, so I'm really intrigued to know: what were the things that made you fall in love with horror and comics?
I think the thing that made me fall in love with comics was Batman. I just really, really, really, really love the stories. I love the story of this man being created in this world trying to do better but ending up as his own antihero. I love the psychology of Batman and that really stuck with me in the world of comics. You can make comics silly and you also can make them super serious. I think with Batman comics and also X-Men comics when I was growing up I realized that you could put everything and anything into a comic.
I dunno what age people should be when they watch horror, but from a really young age when I was like 7 or 8 years old my two first horror movies were Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist. Everytime I tell this story to people they're like, "How old were you?" But I just saw the covers and they looked so cool and I really wanted to watch them. I wanted to know who that old man was and why he was standing outside that nice apartment building! Those two movies were my catalysts in loving horror and then I wanted to challenge myself to dive deeper into the genre.
What was your journey from loving these things and being a fan to becoming a writer and getting to make comics and then this wonderful Hanging With Vampires horror guidebook?
Honestly it's kind of incredible! I remember even as a kid I just used to say, "I want to be a writer." I'm not great at talking to people but I'm great at talking to people through what I write. It was really important to me when I started growing to be like, "I really want to tell stories, and I want to tell stories in a space where I know that I can say things that I would really, really want to say." And it helped that I met some incredible people who helped me create stories, like when I did Oh My Gods with Stephanie Cooke and Juliana Moon. We worked tirelessly to bring those characters to life and to make that world just so vibrant and spectacular. It was a very, very lucky happenstance that we that we got to actually make it. Then after that, all of my stuff, I'm just really thankful and grateful that people allow and trust me to write things.
It's so nice, especially getting to write a Rosa Parks story for the WHO HQ graphic novel series and then being able to write Hanging With Vampires was like coming full circle into my interest. I have to shout out Quirk Books and especially my editor and her knowledge of monsters. To have them trusting me to instill knowledge upon young impressionable children; it's really great to have somebody who trusts you to create nice scares. It's kind of the dream.
How did you approach Hanging With Vampires? It's a really unique project and I loved the way you handled something like Twilight — which I have a big soft spot for — but you don't shy away from the realities of its impact, including the way that the Quileute Tribe was never paid. So could you talk about that holistic approach to fictional vampires?
The first step for me especially was to get the notes from my editor and just research, research, research! To dive deep into what we as fans of vampires know about them and then what other people think about them. And those perspectives shift so much after a while because you get Bela Lugosi, then Blade, then you get Edward Cullen. So it's an all over spectrum. But the one thing that I love is being able to learn about everything. That's the stage where we also created the tone of the book where we want to make it approachable for kids in order to be like, "Hey, if you want to grab this guide and go out into the world of vampires, you're never going to be alone. In any case, like, whatever monster you come upon, like, right?" It has to be funny enough for a kid to understand it but then also a little bit serious for kids to also be like, "Oh, this science fact is really cool." Then we added the aspects of how we did Twilight, kind of showing that yeah this thing is cool and this thing is awesome but there is a problematic side.
Something else that really spoke to me about the book was the respect it has for its audience. As we reach the end of Hanging With Vampires, which acts as a lovely kid-friendly guidebook for vampire fans, you have the chapter that says "Vampires Aren't Real." Could you talk about that choice? It feels very thoughtful and responsible.
It's a little hard to strike the balance. I want kids to go into the book with the knowledge that vampires are real only in our collective imaginations but also there's this real, real, real place in history and myth and legend that comes with this tale. So as real as it is, it's also... not real. This is from real history but I want them to understand that ultimately this is a fictional thing. You're not going to meet Dracula or come across an Edward Cullen, none of this is real. But the way that you may see a vampire and other people may see a vampire does come with real myth and lore that we can very much learn about, even if we just want to tell stories later ourselves.
This was obviously a dream project for you, so how did it feel to then know that it was going to be an ongoing series?
I was ecstatic! I freaked out when I got the email. I was just like, "Dude, I get to write about monsters?" Monsters have always been my jam. I have a Creature from the Black Lagoon poster on my wall! I am all about monsters all the time. So knowing that this could be a thing that we could potentially keep going was so exciting. It's very humbling and I'm so grateful. I'm so honored to be able to go on this journey with the little supernaturalists — kids who love monsters, who are horror lovers — it's fantastic. And it's fascinating, especially, actually being able to go to places and hear these kids' questions about vampires and how they view them.
Hanging with Vampires: A Totally Factual Field Guide to the Supernatural is out now!
Very into this, really digging Insha's approach and Lilla's art is fantastic.