What: August Vampire Meetup
When: Friday, August 6, 2010 9:00 PM
Where: Only Disclosed to Chicago Vampire Meetup Group Members
RSVP to this Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/vampires-21/calendar/zpdbpynlbjb/

We have a HUGE set of photos from Saturday night’s Vampire on Ice and Daybreakers events:

View 140 more photos (courtesy of Chad Hawks) in the Photo Album.

We’re encouraging anybody attending Vampires on Ice and Carpe Noctem at Neo on Saturday night to post tweets and photos from the events! If you are able to post to Twitter from your phone, add the hashtag #chicagovampire so Dark Chicago homebase can find and re-tweet your posts.

If you can send photos from your phone, send pics to photos@darkchicago.com and we’ll post them!

ChicagoVampire.com is pleased to announce that your Host and MC for the night will be none other than Mr. Chad Hawks from ChateauGRRR.com – one of our favorite local vampires and one helluva fun guy.

Details about Saturday’s Daybreakers/Vampire events

ChicagoVampire.com is pleased to announce a night of vampire-fueled fanged fun courtesy of the new Lionsgate movie DAYBREAKERS on January 2, 2010.

We’ll start with VAMPIRES ON ICE at the McCormick Tribune Ice Rink in Millennium Park starting at 7:30 pm: Come out and meet Kitty Zombie dressed as your favorite vampire (or type of vampire) and get great DAYBREAKERS shwag, photos with Kitty and other Chicago vampire fans and enjoy the general merriment that ensues when the Undead Take Over the Ice!

Then head north to Club Neo for DAYBREAKERS NIGHT from 10:00 pm to 5:00 am. There’ll be vampire-centric music, vampire drink specials, Daybreakers giveaways and passes handed out for a SPECIAL SCREENING of DAYBREAKERS on Monday, January 4.

Vampires on Ice is ALL AGES. Daybreakers Night is 21+.

DAYBREAKERS This January, Lionsgate takes vampires in a new direction with the futuristic sci-fi thriller, DAYBREAKERS.

The year is 2019. A mysterious plague has swept over the earth, transforming the majority of the world’s population into vampires. Humans are now an endangered, second-class species – forced into hiding as they are hunted and farmed for vampire consumption to the brink of extinction.

It’s all up to Edward Dalton, a vampire researcher who refuses to feed on human blood, to perfect a blood substitute that might sustain vampires and spare the few remaining humans. But time and hope are running out – until Ed meets Audrey, a human survivor who leads him to a startling medical breakthrough. Armed with knowledge that both humans and vampires will kill for, Ed must battle his own kind in a deadly struggle that will decide the fate of the human race.

Stylish, provocative and action-packed, DAYBREAKERS stars two-time Academy Award® nominee Ethan Hawke (Supporting Actor, TRAINING DAY, 2001; Adapted Screenplay, BEFORE SUNSET, 2004), two-time Academy Award® nominee Willem Dafoe (Supporting Actor, PLATOON, 1988; Supporting Actor, SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE, 2000) and Sam Neill.   Make-up Effects were created by WETA Workshop.   DAYBREAKERS is written and directed by the Spierig Brothers.

Northwestern University’s Medill Reports weighs in on the current (and past) popularity of vampires:

This sexual predator is not cruising chat rooms or walking into a sting operation with “To Catch a Predator’s” Chris Hansen.  For centuries belt buckles and bra clasps have unfastened at their  whim.  These long-toothed, porcelain hemo-fiends bit their own chunk out of the fleshy literary almanac.

Katherine Ramsland, a forensic psychologist at DeSales University, a Catholic school in Philadelphia, prefers her vampires with  a bit more bite.

She is the author of more than 35 books, an Anne Rice biographer and “vampirologist,” who has studied vampire culture for more than 20 years. She likens the worldwide phenomenon known as “Twilight,” to prolonged heavy petting, less the classic appeal of sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Read the full article at http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=152517

Editor’s Note: The reporters gave me way too much credit in this article. I’m flattered and embarrassed.

…at least according to the front page of ChicagoMagazine.com today:

Looks like ChicagoMagazine.com decided to capitalize on New Moon's opening weekend...

I’m more annoyed that the article leads off with “Chris Savage”, but what the hell – at least they’re linking back here, which is cool (thanks, CM!). You can now read the article from the November issue of Chicago Magazine online at http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/November-2009/Bitten-Chicago-area-vampire-enthusiasts/

The Chicago Sun-Times has a feature article on the new book Friday Night Bites, which features the Windy City as its setting:

“You would think an author who writes a series of books subtitled “A Chicagoland Vampires Novel” would be a native Chicagoan, or at least a transplant. You might be wrong, though.

“I don’t live in Chicago, but I do live in the Midwest,” admits Chloe Neill, author of the recently released Friday Night Bites. “Chicago had left an impression on me. The first time I visited was when I was a campaign staffer in 1996, and it was such a magical and meaningful experience for me both personally and professionally that I filed Chicago in the back of my mind as a place I might want to visit at some point in my writing.”

When Neill sat down to write her first novel in the series, Some Girls Bite, she was looking for the ideal big city in which to set her tale. New York and New Orleans have been the settings for numerous vampire tales. Her memories of Chicago came back to her and she realized after doing a bit of research that the Windy City had never been prominently featured in any vampire book…”

Read the full article by Misha Davenport HERE.

Subderma has merged with Vampire Body Piercing Studio on Belmont Ave. (inside A+ Studios), and will soon feature Vampire Body Jewelry. Visit http://www.vampirebodypiercing.com for more information.