"Hate Mail", the short story I wrote and drew for Vampirella Comics Magazine#3 is in comics shops and some newsstands now. Go pick it up, I'm proud of it. I did more gray tonal work than I have in the past, which seemed appropriate for Vampi. As a kid I sat on the magazine shelf in my dad's store devouring the Warren magazines, which had Jose Gonzales drawing one amazing story after another. Years later I noticed that he was drawing Vampirella super-realistic, obviously using models, and with all the male characters he would indulge his cartoony whims. I guess everyone was too busy looking at the bikini-clad vampire to notice the discrepancies. It makes them even more fun to look at now.

The story concerns a horror-show hostess who has angered a witches coven with her late night show. The witches have been sending a monster man out to terrorize her, and now she won't go back on air. Vampirella wants her to go on to lure the creature back out, but "Spellinore" is too scared. So our hero has to host the show herself to bait the witches, and provide criticism of monster movies in the meantime.

If you can find it, I did a variant cover for this issue. I've created a Workshop section at my website that will begin by showing how I worked on the cover, if I ever have time to finish my site overhaul. The cover on the one I picked up today is by Phil Noto, so it's worth having just for that. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume the other variant covers involve current model Kitana Baker standing provocatively in the costume. I'm no psychic or anything, despite the Ouija board up at the top of the page, but that's my gut feeling. Enjoy!