Werewolves are lame.

Well, at least that was my logic.

I hate the damn things. I figure they're these hokey old holdovers from another age where we actually used to find such cartoony monsters scary. They've seeped into popular culture now. You'll be more likely to find them in romantic comedies and kid's cartoons. They've been neutered, so to speak. And let's face it, they were always the poor second cousin to the vampire.

So I was asked to adapt a screenplay into sequential art, dealing with werewolves, no doubt to help sell it as a movie... and I declined. I just didn't want to go there. Visually I'm just not into them, and couldn't see myself gettng enthused at all. All I could think of was Teen Wolf.

Then I got a letter from the Colorado department of corrections or some such, explaining to my publisher that another of my books [...] had been banned from their fine institutions [...]

But I got thinking. Prison, eh? I'd been watching a lot of prison documentaries at the time anyway and wow, there are some messed up people in some messed up places... and something clicked.

After that, this thing sort of wrote itself to a degree. I sincerely hope you like it and want to desperately thank you for picking this here graphic novel up in the first place.

Whatever you do, just don't drop the soap.

     -- Ben Templesmith, preface to Welcome to Hoxford

Needless to say, I don't think werewolves are lame; quite the opposite. And judging from Twitter, Templesmith doesn't entirely think so either, at least when they're done right; Hoxford is a prime example of werewolves done well (and scary, to boot). Apparently (and yes, I know I posted that link last time) it's going to be made into a movie, and there's a forthcoming "Wolfman" film from Universal, the studio who did it first(?) all those years ago.

Although I've not finished Hoxford yet, I've been interested in getting hold of the rather awesome-looking The Astounding Wolf-Man, though I don't think that's available in graphic novel format yet. I think the first werewolf comic I read was the late-90's reboot of Werewolf by Night, which ran for all of six issues before being assimilated into Strange Tales, which then only went on for a further two. Apparently there was a one-shot back in '07, and this year there's a four-issue miniseries; something to look for, at least. There's also the Western-themed webcomic High Moon, but I think I'll wait until the graphic novel is released towards the end of this year, as reading it on the official site requires use of a clunky Flash viewer; meanwhile the first volume of Strangeways, another werewolf Western that (from its description) reminds me of the RPG Deadlands, is out already, so I may well see if I can pick that up.

On a more literary note, I got hold of a cheap second-hand copy of Nancy A. Collins' werewolf (werecoyote?) novel Wild Blood, though I've not read it yet. I also got The Sight by David Clement-Davies, which strictly speaking is about wolves rather than werewolves, and (apparently) comes under the dubious heading of 'animal fantasy'. Also, while I was browsing the TVTropes wiki -- like any good wiki, you can waste a lot of time and find things that you weren't looking for -- I read about the Mercy Thompson novels, which look pretty interesting. I'm tapped out at the moment though, so they'll have to wait.

On the same site, there's the pretty interesting article called Our Werewolves Are Different; not that I've written much of anything fiction-wise in years, but it does show some good ideas and various options to make the creatures less 'generic', -- if that's even an appropriate term -- and a fairly comprehensive list of how they've been interpreted in various media. (I should probably not treat it as a shopping list.) Also, via a link on that page, I found that limyaael has an interesting rant on non-angsty werewolves; it's well worth a read, and it's where I gleaned the subject line of this entry from.

Finally, to inject a touch of humour, the last line of dialogue in this trailer for the godawful-looking Lesbian Vampire Killers ("Like an episode of 'Goosebumps' but with two swearing cretins") is... interesting... at least. And probably the only interesting thing about the film.

[edit: Thanks to Mr. Templesmith for linking here on his Twitter, and hi to anyone who came here via there... most unexpected.]