Stephen King Bites Into Vampire Comic

Stephen King is truly sinking his teeth into his official comic book debut, writing half of the first five issues of Vertigo’s upcoming American Vampire. The brainchild of King buddy Scott Snyder, the series tells the stories of a line of uniquely American blood suckers. King will be writing the origin of “Skinner,” the line’s progenitor, while Snyder, a noted short-story writer, will write about his descendants.

King has flirted with the medium before, penning a few pages for a charity comic in the ‘80s and at least nominally co-writing the Dark Tower adaptations, but this looks like his biggest four-color effort yet. Snyder originally only asked him to blurb the book, but when King offered to write a few issues, Snyder leapt at the chance—and let him make the story his own. “It was just amazing to watch,” he tells the Daily Beast. “He added incredibly scary and wonderful gore.” (More Stephen King stories.)