Ricardo Delgado Interview

With the launch of the Kickstarter for the illustrated novel Vampyre: A Horror Folktale, we are delighted to be joined by Ricardo Delgado. Ricardo Delgado is a comic book creator, novelist, conceptual designer, and storyboard artist. Ricardo’s novels include Sam Specter & the Book of Spells and Warhead; his comics include Age of Reptiles. His previous illustrated novel was Dracula of Transylvania. Some of his movie credits include Men in Black, The Incredibles, Star Trek: First Contact, and X2.

Hi Ricardo, happy new year. It’s so great to have you here with us again.

Hey there! Thanks, and Happy New Year as well, and chuffed to be here, as the British would say!

Could you tell us about the origins of Vampyre: A Horror Folktale?

Well, there’s two sides to this project, the first being my eternal fascination with all things that go Bump in the night. From the time I collected TOMB OF DRACULA, WEREWOLF BY NIGHT and FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND as a kid, to my current obsessions with those uber-cool NECA toy monster figures (from ALIEN to PREDATOR and back!), monsters have always been my jam. I remember cutting out the ads for the classic Universal Monster movies from the TV guide as a kid every Halloween and just dying of anticipation to see them. No video recording back then, so if you missed your shot, that was it ‘till next year!

The other side is to do what everyone does at a certain age: Where do I come from? Who came before me? All that stuff. So, my siblings and I were born and raised in LA, so we grew up around TV dinners, THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN and baseball on the radio, but there was this place where our parents had emigrated from, this wonderful little country in Central America called Costa Rica, and whenever I would be down there, the vibe was so different, and to cut to the long and short of it, the supernatural was intertwined with daily life down there, from the religion, culture and cooking, I would see all these fascinating and exotic (for me) things that I could not help but start to intermingle them with my already overstimulated imagination, lol!  

What has the research been like for Vampyre: A Horror Folktale?

There were a lot of black and white photographs in our photo albums, pictures of my parents as little kids and they felt even more fascinating to me on level of going back even farther into the past, so I kind of had a basis for this as I started to dig up information about the town where my parents grew up, which is the setting for my story. It’s a little town called Alajuela, and it’s still there, and even though it feels more modern today with McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut here and there, there’s still many places that exude Old Costa Rica, and that’s the stuff I gravitate toward. 

Quick story: I remember being a little kid down there one year, about eight years old, and there was a parade that my maternal Grandfather took me to, and there was a glass coffin with a statue of a reclining Jesus inside of it! It was a very solemn Easter week parade, and I never forgot that experience. Also, on that trip my uncle took me to see EL SANTO CONTRA LAS MUJERES VAMPIRO with all those corpses in coffins, and well, one can see how all that got blended together in my mind. I was a weird little kid, lol, but I knew what I liked and here we are 🙂

What has it been like putting all of your ideas together for Vampyre: A Horror Folktale?

A true pleasure in that this book project combines my love of history, art, culture, architecture, all into one story. I will state that one of my big inspirations was/is CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF by Stephen King and Bernie Wrightson. I remember being an impoverished college student at Art Center College of Design and seeing that cover on the rack in the local CROWN BOOKS. I was agog but I also had very little money left in my 1980’s velcro wallet and so I had to make a choice between a few extra meals on campus or buying the book, and I bought that sucker as fast as I could and just took a few extra PB&J’s to class the rest of that week! But yeah, a huge inspiration for me, and cathartic, perhaps. Ironically, I shared CYCLE with my daughter, and now I also share my book with my grown children so they can know their own family history a little better. 

I stand behind the idea that you can drop a vampire into any story and make it more interesting, and that’s what I’ve done here. The story starts out as a murder mystery, and as the nights and murders accumulate, the aspect of the supernatural is introduced, and it’s just really fun to see all of my words and art come together and to fruition.

In terms of writing or creating the art for Vampyre: A Horror Folktale, did you enjoy one more than the other?

Well, I wrote the story first, then went back and created the concept art, all grounded in the process of Visual Development I learned as a designer for animated features. In that process, the prose and the image go hand in hand, and often an idea can come from the roughest, tiniest sketch and can blossom into a key part of the story. 

As an example, a shapeshifting vampire is not a new idea, but I came up with the thought to base the animals that the vampire transforms into on Costa Rican animals! There’s this really aggressive bird called the Teńate down there that looks like a roadrunner that can fly, as there are no crows or ravens in Costa Rica. Also, I wanted a cat/dog-like thing in the story so I based my designs on a Jaguarundi, a very rare and even mythical big cat that looks more like a STAR WARS alien!  

So my writing and drawing process can be very fluid, with the story being the most important factor. Ya gotta have a good, solid story, and I believe I have one here that everyone who loves this stuff will enjoy.  

Does crowdfunding a project make it feel like you are connecting more with your fans?

There is a deeper, more personal connection in my opinion, and I think that’s a healthy thing. I look back on all my design and illustration heroes growing up, and if I could have gotten some of the extra goodies that come with publishing campaigns like this, I would have loved to have gotten stuff from say, Frank Frazetta, or Moebius, for example. There’s just more of an opportunity for a dialogue and an insight into their process. I personally annotated all of the artwork inside, so everyone will get an in-depth perspective into my thoughts and processes.  

What else can you tell us about Vampyre: A Horror Folktale?

It’s a story about a small town in 1940’s Costa Rica. There’s political unrest in the form of a civil war, and it’s happening during the week of Easter, so there’s a lot of tension and story conflict going on, and into all this comes a shadow that starts to murder people from all walks of life, night after night. And so while a country is fighting itself during one of the most holy weeks of the year, a group of people start to hunt down this thing of the night. It’s a cracking yarn and I hope everyone will check it out. Lots of my concept art within, as well as maps and old photos, everything that helps support this most interesting tale 🙂  

Any message for the ComicBuzz readers?

Yes! Buy my book! Haha! But also be on the lookout for my next book from Clover, it’s called WARHEAD, and it’s a spy story set on another planet. Look me up on Insta and facebook, the cover’s right there, but don’t miss out on VAMPYRE, I’m super proud of it! 

Bring it to me at the next convention, be happy to sign and chat with any and all about it!

Thanks for the time, btw!

Feel free to check out Vampyre: A Horror Folktale on Kickstarter.

We would like to say a big thank you to Ricardo for chatting with us, and wish him the best of luck with Vampyre: A Horror Folktale.

Shabbir