Who Is Peter Stan?

Al Giovine, a fellow Count Dracula Facebook member, posted a particularly impressive image on the group recently:

Facebook

Fans of the Stephen King miniseries, Salem's Lot (1979), will immediately recognise the riff on Kurt Barlow's Graf Orlok-like head, hovering over the Marsten House.

I was so impressed by the pic, I decided to do a search for the source. The "Peter Stan 2010" signature was the obvious starting point.

It turned out "Peter Stan" is actually Bulgarian artist, Peter Stanimirov. He's also famous for illustrating Stephen King's works. His illustrations appear Knowing Darkness: Artists Inspired by Stephen King (2009) and Черно-бели илюстрации, вдъхновени от Стивън Кинг (2011). You can view his other artworks here.

What does Cage say?

Remember the Nicolas Cage 'vampire' photo? A lot of you do. Much to my astonishment, the most popular entry on this blog discusses the source of the picture. And it's way, way ahead of the others (click to embiggen):

The fifth most popular entry—'Can't keep a good vamp down'—is another post discussing the picture. I've also covered it here and here. Guys, I just don't get it. What's the appeal? Yes, I know, I've covered it several times myself—but from the perspective of someone truly bewildered by the whole thing.

So what does Cage have to say about it? On February 10th, he was confronted with the pic on the Late show with David Letterman. Here's what he had to say:

The interview was discussed on The clicker, which noted his denials of vampirehood, but added: 'It's hard to argue with that, unless, of course, he's still around in another 140 years.'

Does Jack Mord, originator of the 'Nicolas Cage is a vampire' phenomena know about this? Quite likely.

Another dustjacket intact!

I previously discussed the rarity of finding Montague Summers' The vampire, his kith and kin (1928), dust jacket intact. This scarcity also applies to its companion tome, The vampire in Europe (1929). 

Last night, I stumbled across one Weiser Antiquarian Books' website. They're selling it for a cool US$350.00 (left).

It has a prestigious link, too: it's 'From the collection of English bibliophile and Aleister Crowley scholar Nicholas Bishop-Culpeper (1942-2011)'. A little more about him here.

As it happens, Summers knew Aleister Crowley (1875–1947). But the extent of their relationship varies depending who you ask. For instance, Rosemary Ellen Guiley states:

Their exact relationship remains unknown, for neither said much publicly about the other. Their friendship was well known, however. Summers privately confided his interest in Crowley, and collected a huge dossier of magazine and newspaper clippings about him. He told Lance Sieveking, a Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) hero and important figure with the BBC who knew Crowley, that everything about Crowley should be preserved because he was "one of the few original and really interesting men of our age."¹

Meanwhile, in the same book, Gerard P. O'Sullivan notes 'they were not friends, but acquaintances, and dined together only twice'², adding '[Charles Richard] Cammell, one of Aleister Crowley's several biographers, was the man who brought Summers and Crowley together to dine at his flat in 1938'.³

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^{1. M Summers, The vampire, his kith and kin: a critical edition, ed. JE Browning, The Apocryphile Press, Berkeley, Calif., 2011, p. xxii. Introduction by Rosemary Ellen Guiley.↩}

^{2. ibid., p. xliv. Prologue by Gerard P. O'Sullivan.↩}

^{3. ibid., p. lii.↩}

Another vampire picture mystery

GothzNewz

Some time ago, I discussed well-known 'picture of a vampire with a stake embedded in its heart' (left), and thought I'd discovered its illustrator—William Mortensen (1897–1965). But I'm not a hundred percent sure he did it.

Mortensen 'was one of the most well known and respected photographers in America in the thirties' and his 'obscurity today is mainly due to his championing of Pictorialism, a force within photography that promoted retouching, hand-worked negatives, chemical washes, and an artistic, painterly approach that soon faded with the advance of modernism.'

The version you've seen in books, is taken from the Bettmann/CORBIS photo archives. It's called 'Engraving of the Death of a Vampire', but gives no further details than that. Not even a date. The picture hosted by them—at least, on their website—is also black and white.

Flickr

However, Mortensen's vampire (left) was rendered in a sort of sepia tone. So where does this colour version come from? Was Mortensen actually its original illustrator, after all? Was it merely 'colourized' by someone else at a later time? If so, who? Why?

Was the picture an example of Pictorialist technique? If so, what was the original image? Could the colour version actually be a painting which Mortenson, uh, Pictorialised? If so, why would Bettmann/CORBIS list it as an 'engraving'. Hmm.

I'd love to get to the bottom of its origins, as it's one of my favourite vampire images. It's a graphic late-nineteenth century style engraving—I have my doubts that it was actually created during that period—and, apart from the fangs, gets close to what a staked vampire corpse of folklore would've looked like.

Not for the squeamish

Along with Vlad the Impaler, Gilles de Rais and Elizabeth Báthory, Peter Kürten's (1883-1931) one of those guys who often turns up in vampire books, despite not being undead.

Wikipedia

But just like them, he was known for bloodthirsty pursuits. Indeed, he was known as the 'The Vampire of Düsseldorf', although this seems to have been a reference to his ghoulishness, not actual consumption of blood. But that ghoulishness was pretty nasty in its own right:

On July 2nd 1932, the ‘Düsseldorf Vampire’ went to his death at a guillotine erected in the yard of the Klingelputz Prison. Kürten expressed his last earthly desire on the way to the yard: "Tell me", he asked the prison psychiatrist, "after my head has been chopped off, will I still be able to hear, at least for a moment, the sound of my own blood gushing from the stump of my neck?" He savoured this thought for a while, then added, "that would be the pleasure to end all pleasures."

The murders he committed weren't altogether pleasant, either. But speaking of his lopped-off head, it was an offhand item I stumbled upon while looking up stuff on Ripley's (why will be revealed soon), that caught my attention. The thing that triggered this blog entry. According to Kürten's Wikipedia page, 'In 1931 scientists attempted to examine irregularities in Kürten's brain in an attempt to explain his personality and behavior. His head was dissected and mummified and is currently on display at the Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum in Wisconsin Dells.' What the hell?, I thought.

Morbid curiousity got the better of me and I Googled Peter's detached scone. So, ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to see a pickled 'vampire' head, then behold the final resting place of Kürten's twisted mind:

Flickr

Well, not quite: after execution, his head was flown into 'the German-Russian brain institute at Buch near Berlin', where the brain was 'sliced into millions of diaphanous segments by the brain scientist'. The head itself resides in 'a small refrigerator with a glass front. It revolves continuously on a metal hook.'

Welcome to civilisation, folks.

Cage's coven

It's not too surprising that the Nicolas Cage, vampire meme has spawned a few cash-ins—oops, I mean imitators.

Another eBay seller's selling a pic, claiming John Travolta's either a time traveller or reincarnation. Admittedly, the pic's more 'convincing', this time around. If you're gullible and have a lotta money lying around, this one'll set you back $50,000. Or, you could PayPal it to me.

eBay

Then you've got sellers who're really scraping the bottom of the barrel. One seller's listed an 'Original 1860s Tintype Kurt Russell Reincarnation Not a Vampire' for US$1,000 (left). Looks more like Jeff Bridges to me. 

I've also noticed that the more these cash-ins follow, the less the bother with 'evidence'. The descriptions become more vague. 'Now that the world has discovered that there is a group (coven?) of celebrity time travelers, or vampires, or something similar, (not) consisting of at least Nicolas Cage and John Travolta, a young Kurt Russell can be added to the list,' wrote akersfam1. 'This tintype dates from the 1860s or 1870s and is approximately 2.5" by 3.5", which probably makes it a sixth plate. This photo is original and has not been altered in any way.'

Diminishing price is another characteristic. I don't know if the Nicolas Cage pic sold for its US$1,000,000—I really hope it didn't—but it seems these guys know they'll never top the success of Cage's 'vampire' pic. So why bother?

eBay

That's why you get sad entries like 'Vintage Photo Unusual Baby Light Eyes Vampire Twilight' (left). You can score this one—although, why would you want to?—for US$14.99. Its seller, theperfectgift, dispenses with 'evidence' all together: it has no accompanying description apart from photo size and payment details. Apparently, the baby's 'glowing' eyes are 'proof' enough.

Is this really what the tintype trade's come to? Are they that desperate to unladen old photos, that they're investing them with 'strange' or 'supernatural' backstories? 

Sure, you could say that it's all fun and games, but let's not forget: these photographs depict real people. Real people who had lives, who had history. What happens to their memory if it's 'erased' by childish stories, by meme cash-ins? Don't they deserve respect? A fair (and real) representation of who they were? Their history is already being 'overwritten' by these opportunists. Should it continue? How many more cash-ins will this one-trick joke inspire?

In the meantime, the guys from The Thanatos archive—which you'll recall as the 'source' of the 'Nic Cage vampire' pic—are still yucking it up, with one remarking that 'The news about John and Nicolas images were featured in one of the most important tv news in my country, Chile'. Wow.

Kith, kin and dust jacket

icollector.com

The image on your left is a very rare one, indeed: Montague Summers' The vampire: his kith and kin (1928), dust jacket intact.

I own a first edition copy of the book, meself. Unfortunately, without its wrapping. Bought it a few years ago for about a hundred bucks. As naive as it might sound, I didn't even realise the original had a dust jacket.

To give you an idea of how rare it is to find one with dust jacket intact, the one you see on your left was sold in 2005 for US$380. I've seen another on sale for £575. Yikes.

The squatting image on the cover's 'a reproduction from the Revue d' Assyriologie, vol. VII [1909], and represents a Babylonian vampire.'¹ A bit of a stretch, as Summers' 'evidence' for this claim was speculation from R. Campbell-Thompson: 'The idea is, I presume, to keep off the nocturnal visits of Lilith and her sisters' and by process of sympathetic magic, 'the man troubled by nightly emissions attributed to Lilith, depict on his amulet the terrors which are in store for these malignants.'² 

Summers' subsequent coverage did not directly ascribe vampiric qualities to Lilith (a Hebrew, not Babylonian name), but tried to weave her origins with the Greek lamia and Roman strix.

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<sup>1. M Summers, The vampire: his kith and kin, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., London, 1928, p. xiii.↩

2. ibid., p. 226.↩</sup>

Savage inspiration

What was once a mystery, was finally solved, thanks to Little Socks. For years, I'd been puzzled over the source of a vampire picture I had on my hard-drive. It turned out the picture was called Penangglan and painted by Chad Savage in 1994.

I contacted Mr. Savage¹ to get an insight into the creative process and the why behind his brilliant illustration. Here's what he had to say:

I was bitten by the Vampire Bug in 1987; by 1994, I had read many books about vampires, one of which was “The Book of Vampires” by Dudley Wright. After creating the painting in question, which featured a variety of historical and current interpretations of the concept of vampires (circa 1994), I was looking for a title, and Penanggalan (I may very well have started spelling it wrong over the years) jumped out at me while I was reading Mr. Wright’s book.

So there you go, mystery solved – I just thought it would make a cool title for a general image interpreting the concept of “VAMPIRE”.

I painted it for myself, and it was one of the first images I ever posted online. Bear in mind that, in 1994/95/96, the idea of image piracy didn’t exist – it never occurred to me (or many other artists at the time) that posting our work online was sending it out into the world to be endlessly ripped off. ;)²

Chad also included two links in his response. The first concerns his background with vampires and the second shows that Penangglan is far from his only illustration of the undead.

Bookshops.com.au

Regarding his inspiration—Dudley Wright's The book of vampires—as it happens, I own two copies: the first was published by Causeway Books, New York, in 1973 (left); the second by Dorset Press, New York, in 1987.

My copies, and Savage's, are retitled reprints: the original was published as Vampires and vampirism by William Rider and Sons, London, in 1914. A revised edition followed in 1924. The book has also been published under its original title, as the Tynron Press, Dumfriesshire, 1991 reprint attests; or embellished with a subtitle as per Lethe Press, Maple Shade, N.J.'s 2001 reprint, Vampires and vampirism: legends from around the world.

Despite Savage's hesitance on spelling, the 'Penangglan' variant is found in Wright's book, when he noted 'amongst the Malays a penangglan, or vampire, is a living witch, who can be killed if she can be caught in the act of witchery.'³ A Google Books search also turned up the same variant, even if their origin probably lies with Wright.

Spelling variants are common when it comes to transcribing vampire 'species'. Indeed, Theresa Bane notes several for the penangglan, itself: 'Pananggaln, Panangglan, Pênangal, Penanggalan, Pontianak'.⁴

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Chad for sharing his painting's story. Oh, and not suing me for posting his picture. Cheers.

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1 A Hogg, 'Penangglan', Thursday, 22 September 2011 6:54:20 PM, <amateurvampirologist@hotmail.com>.^↩

2 C Savage, 'RE: Penangglan‏', Monday, 26 September 2011 6:15:34 PM, <savage@sinistervisions.com>.^↩

3 D Wright, The book of vampires, Causeway Books, New York, 1973, p. 4.^↩

4 T Bane, Encyclopedia of vampire mythology, McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, Jefferson, N.C., 2010, p. 114.^↩

Kill the dead!

Corpses for sale

Another image from my aborted website, you'll recognise one as the thumbnail next to 'Kill the Dead!'. It's a life-size 'Female vampire corpse', created by Di Stefano Productions. You can score your own for $600. The stake's removable.

The rest of their website's just as icky; although, I did get a few laughs from their hate mail.

Homepage pic

Elfwood

This is startling image, as seen on the homepage of my aborted website, is called Close encounter (2003). It's by Ville V. Vuorinen, who drew it with inks and coloured pencils.

Seconda edizione

Here's an image I found of the 'seconda edizione' of Gioseppe Davanzati's Dissertazione sopra i vampiri (1789). The photographer came across it in the Palazzo Davanzati, Florence:

Flickr

Many authors claim Davanzati's Dissertazione was first published in 1744 (example), but Massimo Introvigne, president of the Transylvanian Society of Dracula's Italian chapter, notes, 'Finally, in 1774, Rome granted the imprimatur to Davanzati's Dissertazione sopra i vampiri. The work . . . was written between 1738-43 but was circulated only as a manuscript.' As to the second edition, he adds, 'the second and definitive version of Davanzati's Dissertazione was published in 1789 with the Church's imprimatur'.¹

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1 M Introvigne, 'Antoine Faivre: father of contemporary vampire studies', in R Caron, J Godwin, WJ Hanegraaff & J-L Viellard-Baron (eds.), Ésotérisme, gnoses & imaginaire symbolique : mélanges offerts à Antoine Faivre, Peeters, Leuven, 2001, pp. 608–9, 610.^↩

Picture mystery solved

Not only does Little Socks have the distinction of being the first person to post a comment to this blog, but she solved the vampire picture mystery: 'Well, instead of doing homework, I put this picture into Tin Eye and played detective for awhile. I can't say for sure, but someone named Chad Savage seems to be a likely candidate.'

If you haven't heard of TinEye, it 'is a reverse image search engine. You can submit an image to TinEye to find out where it came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or to find higher resolution versions.'

The dark art of Chad Savage

She provided two links as evidence. The first link leads from Chad Savage's 'Vampire art' page's gallery index. I have screencapped and cropped the relevant portion, above. All the information is there, from the picture's title, 'Penangglan', to the medium in which it was painted, the year it was created, etc.

The second link takes us to Mystic crypt, where the image is is offered for sale as a postcard sticker. It is also called 'Fenangglan', rather than 'Penangglan', but Chad Savage is also credited as its creator. 

I find that 'Penangglan' is its most likely title, as the penangglan [sic] has a relevance to vampires that 'fenangglan' does not. The penanaggalan is 'a peculiar variation of the vampire myth that apparently began in the Malay Peninsula' and 'may be either a beautiful old or young woman who obtained her beauty through the active use of black magic, supernatural, mystical, or paranormal means which are most commonly described in local folklores to be dark or demonic in nature.'

To back up this supposition, not only does Savage list it as 'Penangglan', but he also describes its origins: 'One painting to say everything I had learned about vampires up to the point at which I painted it.' I must admit, I am curious as to why he chose that name for it, as the picture does not depict a penanggalan. I'm also wondering whether it was commissioned by anyone. Either way, it's a beautiful painting.

Diary of an amateur vampirologist

I guess I'll have to ask Chad. The funny thing is, there's already a tenuous link between Chad and myself: his blog, Sinister missives, featured on Diary of an amateur vampirologist's 'Reading list' (above). I had no idea it was his pic. Trippy.

Props goes to Little Socks for tracking down the picture's source. Well done!

Picture mystery continues

'DRACS'

In 2009, I asked readers if they could identify the source of this image. No takers, unfortunately. So how about now? Does anyone know where this image first appeared? Who's it by?