All this week, I’ve been bombarded with ads for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. And every time I want to say, “Seriously?” How much do we need to rip off the quintessential inventor of this genre, Sherri Browning Erwin, whose groundbreaking works, Grave Expectations and Jane Slayre were the original contributions to the idea of historical re-enactment, mash-up style. Since this is my blog post, I can make whatever claims I choose, and so I will. 
But back to Lincoln, yes, back to Lincoln, I wonder if the Lincoln writers are onto something. There was discussion about re-imagining Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte as an erotica writer. Or slash fiction involving Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates (the most forbidden of love, M/M teacher/student, AND polygamy). All the ideas, all the historical figures, juxtaposed against sex, or vampires, or sex with vampires! Honestly, it boggles the mind with the creative offshoots.
Grave Expectations
So last night, I was thinking…Hollywood has already done The Last Temptation of Christ, and then Dan Brown did Da Vinci code, which I won’t spoil, but needless to say, Jesus and sex were involved, and not in the rather traditional .. “Yes, Yes, Oh my God, YES!” sort of way. So, why not go the other way. Why not Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter? It’s the ultimate battle of good vs. evil. Who really needs the devil when Dracula or Edward Cullen or… I don’t know.. zombies are involved? Think of the possibilities. It’s the undead vs. the never dead. Who will triumph? Can our hero save the world from this scourge of neck-biting, troll-baiting, virgin-loving, blood-letting, rich tycoonish billionaires with impossible good looks? I like to think that Jesus would win, but I can see endless sequels to this trope, because you know, vampires, just never stay dead. I don’t know what God was thinking when he invented vampires? Perhaps he wanted to give his son a new career opportunity. Don’t know.
Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, released 2001
But eventually I went to sleep, still dreaming of a bearded-robed Christ raising a stake on Black Friday and re-imagining the history of the world…
Whoa. It’s like listening to Pink Floyd for four days straight…
Or reading Forty Shades of Gray (which was the prequel to Fifty Shades of Gray), or Seventy Shades of Grape, the tantalizing tale of a mesmerizing Martian (disguising his natural purplish color and dual appendages in order to blend in as an ordinary software billionaire with a chiseled visage and a love of tight jeans…). Enter our heroine (both literally, metaphorically, and carnally), who senses something “amiss” with Marty and is both *shocked* and pleasured when he finally reveals his true colors (both literally, metaphorically, and genitally)…. Ah yes, the possibilities are endless. And then we learn that Marty has *brothers* who are not only software billionaires, but Wall Street tycoons, Arab sheiks, and dashing pirates, and exotic Princes, and Greek Tycoons (an endangered species, along with Spanish Tycoons, Italian Tycoons, and pretty much every other Euro Tycoon, except for maybe German Tycoons, but is the world really ready for a German Tycoon?).
Oh. It’s like listening to Pink Floyd for fifty days of gray straight, or maybe bent?
So, what has the world of literature overlooked? What treasure trove of blatant rip-offs remain to be mined and milked? Are you having a good Thursday? Is it hot enough for you? Does the impending heat mean that the world has become infested with heat-loving vampires with a disdain of air conditioning and thirst for human perspiration? I think I’m off to spin me some Pink Floyd while running the A/C, while wearing garlic, as well as the crucifix. Jesus Christ, patron saint of vampire slayers all.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I would love to write 50 Shades of Scarlett, a Gone with the Wind dominatrix story.
I sometimes try to come up with new concepts but everything new is actually old. I like the whole Planet of the Apes concept. So what happens if you go through a thread of time and emerge in another life but at the same time and the planet is over run by lizards but then you read The War of Powers (Robert Vardeman) and Princess Moriana (human) has to try and save her tribe of humans from lizards and ends up having to mate one (which btw has two male bits) and well the jaw dropping possiblities over take you.
Or what if we invent a way of crossing over and going back in time but once there you cannot leave and that goes with The Many Coloured Land (Julian May.)
I once wrote a short story (and lost it in a move) which goes along with the Stephen King type of horror, of a little town who has a sweet little old lady move in and take over the corner shop and turns it into a tea room but her specialty is a lemonaid that everyone gets addicted to and they do not realize it turns their blood into a really sweet lemon flavour which the little old lady who is actually a vampire is addicted to the lemon flavoured blood ….we will leave it at that. Yeah. I have a very vivid imagination.
They say we dream in black and white and I tell you not only do I dream in colour but I have smell-a-vision and taste-a-vision in my dreams. I can even feel things too. Which just goes to prove how weird I really am. I even see peoples auras.
I’m wondering when your book comes out, Ti. I will be first in line to buy it (or, you know, download it, as things go today).
Sherri the book I am actually writing now is a teen fantasy book. The problem is I have hit a ‘I do not feel like writing’ block. I have so many plans for it too!
Ah, we all have those days. You have to fight through it.
I like the lemon flavored blood idea.
I hate that I always have to follow her posts. Believe me folks tomorrow is going to be BORING in comparison. KO you make me laugh…and think of a certain car ride and a musical we “wrote”.
Seriously. I remember when I was the funny one. It’s true! I used to be the funny whine sister (*disclaimer: because I posted all the time and Kath G and JFL posted less in comparison – so I earned it by default). And now, I’m never funny anymore and Kathleen brings it every time.
Yeah I’ve been living in her shadow for like fourteen years!!!
HAhahahahahaha! I love you, Kathleen. I think about this all the time. I really do. The mashups are apparently something I’m good at, and I always wonder, should I jump back in? And I have ideas. Good ones sometimes. But I am finally writing all by myself again and loving it. Loving! So, I think I will stay on my own for a bit. But I’m disappointing some fans who really really want more mashes– they send me ideas! And it’s hard to let down the fans. Now that I finally have some, haha.
That’s a lotta questions for a Thursday morning, LOL! I dunno, I guess it’s just me, but what the heck happened to a story about REGULAR people? No fangs, no space-like appendages–just REAL people.
Huh–guess I need another cup of coffee–I’m sounding cranky, LOL!
Jacquie, sometimes I dream of rewriting Dracula as a straight fiction, no paranormal elements. Now that could be an interesting mash-up. Or a complete clunker.