Monster Mash
Author Tom Sniegoski on Vampi, Buffy, and the demonic aspects of Andrew Lloyd Webber.
      by Tara O'Shea

While the depiction of witches in the Buffyverse has been alternately embraced and decried by the pagan community, Sniegoski is very firm about the production's dedication to getting it "right," particularly in terms of the differences between the fantasy witches of folklore, fairy tales, and series such as Bewitched and Charmed and the real-world religion of Wicca and modern paganism.

The monstrous Monster Book.

"Those guys are very concerned with the Wiccan community's feelings about it. When we were talking about that as a section of the book, they actually went out of their way to say 'Now, remember, make it a point to say that when you're talking about movies that have witches as villains, and comic books that have witches as villains, you're talking about the fictionalized witch. The evil, hook-nosed, black cat on her shoulder [witch].'

Because of his background in comics, Sniegoski was charged with a great deal of the comic book research for the media history sections of the book, and says he owes a huge debt to his childhood comics book store's owner, Tim Cole of Cole's Comics in Lynn, Massachusetts.

"This guy's a throwback to the 1970s. That's when I first started shopping in his store. I was in elementary school. I go every week. Same store! Same store since elementary school. He's moved a couple of times. But he's still going. As a matter of fact, I thanked them in The Monster Book -- the guys down at Cole's comics. And Cole is this ridiculous reference book of nonsense. You know, like EC stuff and some of the really obscure publishers that popped up when DC was getting hot, like AC and stuff like that -- all had supernatural characters. And I felt it wasn't fair, talking about supernatural characters doing this book, and you can't ignore these characters that had been around for years -- yeah, they're not around now. But at the time, they had a year's run. There's 12 issues of Nemesis, or whatever the hell Nemesis was. I used to hang around in the store, and saw everything. So it was like "What was that guy? What was that guy's name?" "Oh yeah, that was Nemesis, who blah blah blah blah."

Did you learn a lot of stuff you didn't know before, working on this project?

"Oh. Like you wouldn't believe. I mean, I was hitting websites, and books -- My reference books really come into play. They were used heavily. Some of the sections evolved. Bisette would take a category that Chris and I felt was very cut and dried, and suddenly there would be 40 sub-categories. He was ridiculous. Chris would be expecting 100, 125 pages from him on a section, and he would get 300. He can't help himself. He's just got so much knowledge in his skull, that it has to come out. He even says it -- "I can't stop! I'm just doing what I feel, to do this right..."

When asked what monster scared him as a kid, he has to ponder.

"That's a tough one. I was obsessed with [Universal movie monsters], and the thing was, it didn't scare me. I think my fears were more connected to just bizarre childhood stuff; getting left in the store by myself, or getting on the wrong bus. Frankenstein, the Mummy -- I loved them. It's interesting, because you compare something like Buffy now to what I grew up with -- and again, it didn't scare me, but I just loved it -- is Kolchak: The Nightstalker."

"The first time we saw the movie, it did scare the crap out of me, now that I think about it. I was in second grade at the time of the first Nightstalker movie, and it really scared me because it was a different take on vampires. Because it wasn't the guy with the cape with the red lining, with the widow's peak, and stuff like that. It didn't fit my mental interpretation of Lugosi, that I saw in the Famous Monsters magazines and all that. It took it, and made it something that was very uncomfortable."

Kolchak the Nightstalker and his trusty Mr. Pointy.

The idea that the guy walking down the street could be a bloodsucking member of the undead is key to the success of both Buffy, and its spin-off Angel. In that vein, next on his plate is an original Angel novel, Soul Trade, due out in May 2001.

"The Angel novel came about as a result of The Monster Book. I mean, the fact that we all did what we were supposed to do for Lisa [Clancy, Pocket Books Buffy/Angel tie-in editor] on time, and very under budget. For me, in terms of getting the stuff to her when she wanted it, I think that's when I think the relationship developed."

"Chris is a cheerleader for his friends. He's been after me for years. 'You gotta do a book. You gotta do a novel. The lines are gonna dry up and blow away. You gotta do a book,' and I had always had an intention of doing it, I just had never gotten around to it."

How difficult was the transition from writing comics to writing a novel?

"It's like a drill in my brain. I'm awful. I'm awful. Point of View... 'Cause Chris is, like, 'Who's point of view is this? You're jumping all over the place...' Primarily what I've written since 1992 is comics. I started out with short stories, and it's a tough shift, going from short stories to comics. And then I started doing so much comics that the prose stuff kinda atrophied."

But it came back quick?

"..."

You're working on it?

"I'm working on it," he laughs. "Two hundred and seventy-some pages into a book, and I'm 'working on it.' It's almost as if, I mean... I'll word it this way, but I don't really mean it this way... it's almost as if it's a trick. It's kinda like, I accepted that I'd do this Angel book and suddenly I'm turning in pitches. 'What am I doing, turning in pitches for? I don't really want to do this stuff.' and then suddenly, the pitch is approved in, like, a day. It's insane. I guess they really liked it. I made sure before I accepted anything that she was gonna give me enough time that I felt was enough time for me to do. Which normally, she doesn't do -- but I think she likes me. I got five months, when normally people only get three."

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