This is both a list and a catalogue of the holdings of the collection of CESPOC, the Center for Studies on Popular Culture of Torino, Italy, hosted as a special collection in the library of CESNUR in Torino. But we excluded vampire-like zombies, demons and ghouls (a ghoul is not a vampire,) and gothic “vamps” (with regret, we finally excluded comics about The Addams Family, since we did not find real vampires there.) Of course, the whole idea of a “psychic vampire” is debated, and there is a grey area where opinions may differ. By “vampire” we mean a character, more often tha not undead (or at least potentially immortal,) who sucks blood and, in some case, energy (psychic vampire.) It should be a personal being (after some doubts, we did exclude the saga of Elric of Melniboné, where the “vampire” is a sword.) We did include dubious cases, if the word “vampire” is used by the authors.
We tried to document every single appearance of a vampire, be it a mere cameo in a comic book which has nothing to do with vampires, or an appearance on the cover only. “Vampire comics.” In this list, “vampire comics” are not only those whose main theme is a vampire story, such as The Tomb of Dracula, or where a vampire is the main character, such as Vampirella. Occult and published in New Fun Comics in 1935 and going on to the end of the year 2000, the list includes more than 11,000 entries and documents the continuous fascination with the vampire theme in comic art, a facet of the lure of the vampire which is in turn inseparable from late modernity’s ideas about life, happiness, and immortality. Starting from the first comic featuring a vampire a story by Jerry Siegel (1914-1996) and Joe Shuster (1914-1992,) the creators of Superman, featuring their lesser known character Dr. Although their main interests lie in other fields, they regard this work as a professional scholarly achievement (much more than a mere hobby). Introvigne and Melton have devoted countless hours of work, including research at comic conventions, antiquarian and specialized stores, and on the Internet for thirteen years. Massimo Introvigne joined their efforts in 1995. Gordon Melton first conceived the idea of a comprehensive list of English-language comics featuring vampires in the 1980s, and prepared a first draft of several thousand titles.
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