"Marlowe. Kit Marlowe."

not gonna lie, it kinda slaps

The original is apparently satire, from the Dunning-Kruger Times website. Trump has shared it as true, either as deliberate misinformation or because he's that stupid.

Yup, count me in.

(source: i work for the publisher that makes 2000 AD, go ahead and ask me how i know this fact)

i want to protect satire, it's a powerful and important artform and form of political commentary, but every satire always does this, there's always fans who miss the satire

it's the big problem with satire - you literally can't make it blunt enough to guarantee no-one will take it at face value, there are people who still take starship fucking troopers literally

me and Tams have a hobby where we identify fairies in films that are not officially about fairies. we actually decided mary poppins was a djinn: wild, strongly elemental, rather vain, magically bound to a vessel that's much larger on the inside

your mouth to G-d's ears! i'll convince my boss to let me do another one one day

odysseus: [bow in hand, dick out] who fucken wants some

telemachus: [hands on face] omg dad, fucking hell

it'd probably work tho, i'd be lookin at this mad starin dude with his bow and arrows all butt-ass nekkid like, d'you know what, penelope, this was nice but i gotta go

you got my vote

With this one, we also emulated Stoker's epistolary approach: every story is told in the form of journals, letters, court records and other documents. It was a tonne of fun to work on.

As you may spot from the author list, I did this as a bit of an own-voices project. I thought it would be interesting, and a counter to some of Stoker's problematic orientalism, to have authors of Central and East European origins tackle the subject.

(Although Caren, with a bit of cheek, also wound the story forward to the modern day, but it was so good I rolled with it.)

By @aptshadow.bsky.social, @bogiperson.bsky.social, @spitkitten.bsky.social, Milena Benini and Emil Minchev, DRACULA: RISE OF THE BEAST tells the story of Dracula from the end of his mortal days (as Vlad Draculesti, Voivode of Wallachia) to the start of Bram Stoker's book.

It's a wonderful book, and I loved working with all five authors. Please read it if you haven't already, I love it.

The original Creature makes an appearance in every story, tracking down and seeking to understand the other Creatures as they rise (in some stories, his appearance is more overt, in others he is a more fleeting presence).

It's not a traditional anthology! The six of us worked together to weave a single story, covering the two hundred years from Victor Frankenstein's doomed experiment to the modern day.

Five very different scientists rediscover the secret to life, in stories that all end in some kind of tragedy.