The Weird History of Anne Rice’s Vampires in Comic Books

Anne Rice’s novels were most popular in the late 1980s. Though published in 1976, Interview with the Vampire gradually gained a dedicated following. By the time the sequel, The Vampire Lestat, was released nine years later, it built on the success of the first book and quickly became a bestseller. In 1988, the third novel, The Queen of the Damned, reached the top of the New York Times bestseller list. The following year, Ballantine published the first three books together as The Vampire Chronicles, and sales soared. For many Goth readers, these novels were as important as The Lord of the Rings, a dark and dramatic series full of blood and atmosphere.






