Rich Davis Interview - Rise of Dracula ~ JeanBookNerd

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Rich Davis is the writer and creator of the underground horror sensation "Cult of Dracula" from Source Point Press. In a short period of time, he's built a reputation in the comic book industry as an innovator with a tireless work ethic. His first comic "Cult of Dracula" has sold more than 50,000 units and has been optioned by Sure Pictures for film development.

Source Point Press has exercised its option to publish his full, three volume Dracula saga. Rich also has upcoming comic book projects "Prometheus In Chains", "Shooter" and an untitled, depression era circus tale in development.

Rich has led an eclectic life. He founded a performing arts theatre, worked as a concert booker and a film producer. He's radio personality, an actor and a screenwriter. He even served as a campaign staffer for two Presidential campaigns! Now he gets to tell scary stories for a living.

Some might wonder at such an eclectic background, but he prefers to see it as an adventure!"

Beyond your own work (of course), what is your all-time favorite book and why?

Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire. I discovered the book when I was far too young to truly understand it. But it stuck with me. I obsessed over it. It’s such a transformative and genre defining work. It changed the way we see vampires. They were no longer empty monsters rising from the grave to devour the innocent. They were humans evolved. They had goals and struggles. They carried guilt. They longed to be more than their condition allowed them to be. Some were noble. Others were monsters. Most landed somewhere in between. Claudia’s plight was particularly impactful. Here is a woman’s mind trapped forever inside a child’s body. If that doesn’t scream teen angst, I don’t know what does!

Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published.

Being invited to be a guest at DragonCon. It was such a surreal experience. DragonCon is home. I’ve been going as an attendee since 2005. Back then I was covering it as a news reporter for WAAV in Wilmington, NC. A bit later, Dan Carrol asked me to join the Media Relations team. I got to handle all of the media requests to interview comics creators. I never imagined that I’d one day be one of those creators that media members wanted to interview. I will never forget that feeling.

What was the single worst distraction that kept you from writing this book?

Promoting it! Seriously! Thanks to my publicist and my booking manager I was able to attend more conventions than I can count. Add store signings into that. Then podcasts. Social media marketing. It was so time consuming that I had to fight to find the time to write. It was also draining creatively. Promoting the work is absolutely necessary. It’s the difference between success or failure for anyone in the indie comics world. But it’s exhausting. It makes it difficult to see the scenes and to connect with the characters. Finding their voices is hard enough when you have all the time in the world. Being pulled away three or four days every week. It’s killer.

In your new book; RISE OF DRACULA, can you tell my Book Nerd community a little about it.

Rise of Dracula is the continuation of the story I began in Cult of Dracula. Cult set Stoker’s Dracula inside a Manson family inspired cult. When we get to Rise, that cult has become a movement. That movement believes it can save the world. Others believe they’re going to destroy it. I don’t make any moral judgements either way. I leave it to the audience to decide who’s right and who’s wrong.

What was the most surprising thing you learned in creating your characters?

That Jonathan Harker and Arthur Holmwood were gay. I didn’t start out with the intention of making them homosexual. I had in my mind that they’d be close friends who were deeply devoted to each other. I saw them sort of like Sam and Frodo. As the story progressed, they came out to me. It surprised me, but it also made me very happy. It was a very natural diversification of the story. I think it’s very much in line with Stoker’s original intentions. He wrote Dracula as a rebuke of Victorian society’s hypocrisy toward sex and sexuality. Members of Parliament were tossing Oscar Wilde in jail on Thursday then dressing up in drag at Molly Houses on Friday. It was rewarding to discover that my characters could address that theme in a very natural way. Representation matters, but I think it fails when it’s forced. Trust the story. Trust the characters. You can’t go wrong.

Your Favorite Quotes/Scenes from RISE OF DRACULA

There’s a scene in the middle of Rise of Dracula #1. We’ve just seen the Ordo Dracul commit literal genocide in Washington, DC. We’ve been following Jonathan and Arthur as they operate kind of an underground railroad to help people escape. Their journey has been packed with tense action. The we come to a rendezvous point. Who’s waiting for them? Lucy. The Dracula’s sister. The heir to the throne. She’s pissed. She came to help Arthur escape. Here he stands with a gaggle of “strays”. She loves her sister. She loves Arthur. She betrays the Dracula to help her former lover. She hates herself for it, but she can’t turn her back on him. Lucy and Arthur are my favorite characters across both books. Their relationship is so complex. It’s beyond sexual. It transcends friendship. It’s so difficult to define. Here is where we start to see that.

What is the first job you have had?

I worked at Subway for exactly 42 minutes. I hated it. I told the manager that I was taking a break. Walked next door to Wal-Mart. Applied for a job and got it in the same night. I don’t want to tell you how long ago that was, but back then you could do that. Best date you've ever had? What is the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning? What is your most memorable travel experience? What's your most missed memory? Which incident in your life that totally changed the way you think today?

Have you ever stood up for someone you hardly knew?

I attended the Taxslayer bowl in Jacksonville, FL. I got to watch my Vols absolutely destroy Iowa! There is this guy sitting in front of us. He was there with a group of guys. He was giving this girl in front of him a really hard time. Being very inappropriate. He started to grab her ass. I grabbed his hand and stopped him. I looked him dead in the eye and started a conversation about treating a woman with respect.

Which would you choose, true love with a guarantee of a heart break or have never loved before?

I don’t really want to go too deeply into this, I’ve experienced devastating heartbreak. I can say without doubt or hesitation that it is better to have loved an lost than never to have loved at all.

What is the weirdest thing you have seen in someone else’s home?

We were looking for our new house in Knoxville. There was this weird old house for sale, so of course we had to see it. This thing reminded of the Winchester house. It just sprawled and sprawled. The design made no sense at all. It was clear that it had been expanded over and over again. That’s not the weirdest part though. Upstairs. Down a creepy long hall, was this lone room. Inside it was floor to ceiling Cookie Monster blue shag carpet. Still not the weirdest thing. Right there in the middle of the room was a bathtub lined with the same blue carpet. It had a clear glass bottom that opened up like a casket. I still have nightmares wondering what the hell went on in that room!

The saga of Dracula continues into a dystopian nightmare!

Witness the birth of a dystopian nightmare as the Dracula saga from the demented mind of Rich Davis continues! The world is sick, plagued by the human virus. Dracula is the only cure. It's time we took our medicine. This collects issues 1 - 6 of the hit series, Rise of Dracula!

You can purchase Rise of Dracula at the following Retailers: