658 VAMPIRES AND ZOMBIES
human mindlessness triggered by any number of reasons including disease, spiritual
invocation, alien infestation, or scientifi c experimentation.
Vampires often come from non-Western sources (for instance Dracula comes from
the periphery of Europe and the Ottoman Empire), but their mythology is deeply
rooted in Christian theology; vampires are generally vulnerable to crosses, holy water,
and other Christian relics. While the vampire also invokes anxieties about safe tran-
sition into the afterlife, their more conscious nature and more calculated approach
to survival means their narratives are predatory by nature. Th e vampire is seductive,
scheming, and often subtle in its actions, while the zombies tend to be mindless, cease-
less, and simplistic. Because of its consciousness and overall alluring nature, vampires
also carry more over erotic (heterosexual and homosexual) undertones. Over the years,
vampires more than zombies have become sympathetic antagonists and even in some
narratives actual protagonists.
Several external sources have infl uenced comic depictions of vampires and zombies in
the 1940s and 1950s. Bram Stoker’s classic book, Dracula (1897), its predecessor novella,
Carmilla (1872) by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu, and several cinematic adaptations—
including F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1923) and Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931)—helped
to shape the early manifestations of vampires in comics, while Mary Shelley’s Franken-
stein, many short stories of H. P. Lovecraft (in particular, “Herbert West: Th e Reanima-
tor”), and fi lms such as Victor Halperin’s White Zombie (1932), Jean Yarbrough’s King
of the Zombies (1941), Jacques Tourneur’s I Walked With Zombies (1943) created the
backbone of the popular understanding of the zombie during this time. Th ese sources
helped shape the visual depiction, the mythological background, and the narrative range
of vampire and zombie comics for much of their early history.
Th ere is some fl uidity in these defi nitions and portrayals of “vampire” and “zombie”
since traits like genre conventions can fl uctuate or be manipulated in order to keep sto-
ries fresh and interesting. Th erefore, in some stories, vampirism might be identifi ed as
a blood-born virus; in others vampires might have an aversion to sunlight but have no
need to return to the tomb during the day. Also, one’s status as a zombie can sway back
and forth depending on the depiction. Characters inspired by Shelley’s Frankenstein
are the best example. In narratives that stick closely to the original story, Frankenstein’s
monster is less often seen as a zombie since the creature is eloquent, quick-witted, and
ultimately, left to his own devices in the Arctic at story’s end, wanting nothing to do
with humanity. However, Frankenstein stories inspired by the James Whale fi lm, Fran-
kenstein (1931), are more likely to be read as a zombie since the Boris Karloff version
of the monster is lumbering, monosyllabic, and, constructed in large part from a freshly
buried body, much more clearly than the original novel suggests. Mummies and ghouls,
too, have a way of fi tting or being excluded from the category of zombie depending
on the circumstance of their creation, their means of destruction, and intentions as
such beings. While vampire stories were easily identifi able, the same could not be said
for zombie stories. Many horror stories of the 1940s and 1950s featured people who
came back from the dead but for diff erent reasons and with diff erent capabilities. Many
