With an appearance on the New York Times bestseller list, there’s little doubt that Fred Van Lente is a breakout talent in the comic book industry. His work on titles such as Incredible Hercules and MODOK’s 11 have garnered him numerous awards and critical acclaim, and he’s also the creative talent behind the undead adventures of Marvel Zombies 3 & 4. In fact, Mr. Van Lente’s career as a writer has been filled with multiple forays into the world of horror. Recently, he was kind enough to speak with Eerie Books about his career, creative influences, and the general state of horror.

Eerie Books: When did you realize that you wanted to write for a living?

Fred Van Lente: It’s tough to pinpoint an exact moment. I don’t really remember a time when I didn’t want to be a storyteller in some fashion or another. I started college as a film major, but quickly got frustrated with all the technology involved — I’m all thumbs when it comes to that stuff. Fortunately, I became buddies with the illustrators who were studying to become comics artists, and some of them — Steve Ellis, Ryan Dunlavey — became my more significant collaborators. So that’s how I wound up a comics writer … I fell in with a bad crowd!

Eerie Books: Creatively speaking, who are your biggest influences?

Fred Van Lente: The early Marvel crew — Lee, Kirby, Ditko — and more recently, Grant Morrison, Priest. Kafka, Poe, Stephen King, I’d say. Raymond Chandler is a huge influence, both his writing about writings as well as his novels and stories. Flannery O’Connor. Shirley Jackson. Tim Powers, the great historical fantasy writer. Alan Moore, of course. These are the people who made me go, “I wanna do that” when I was young and impressionable.

EB: When writing for the horror genre, do you listen to any specific songs to get the creative juices flowing?

FVL: I do. I actually have an entire “Horrors!” playlist on my iTunes. I’ll have to warn you, my music taste is underdeveloped to the point of being Neanderthal. Some highlights–

“Waking with the Ghost” — White Stripes

“Grim, Grinning Ghosts” which is the song that plays when you go through Walt Disney World’s Haunted House

“Devil in Disguise” – Elvis

A jazz version of Bach’s Toccata in D-Minor performed by Dave Matthews.

The Danny Elfman theme from “Nightbreed” — underrated score for a pretty weak movie (sorry, Barker fans)

“I’ve Got a Fang” – They Might Be Giants

“Halloween” – Aqua (great cheesy pop band from … Sweden? Norway? One of them cold countries.)

Highlights from two other great film scores, “Aliens” (James Horner) and “Dead Again” (Patrick Doyle).

“D for Dangerous” – Rev. Horton Heat

And some more stuff I’m way too embarrassed to type here.

EB: Your short story “Don’t Even Blink” was included as one of the 26 original works in Kolchak: The Night Stalker Chronicles. What can fans of Kolchak expect from this story?

FVL: Kolchak gets a job as a pool reporter for the United Nations, but when the Secretariat gets locked down with a killer that apparently has the ability of teleportation, he has to go back to his monster-busting ways.

EB: Despite only running on television for one season, why do you think Kolchak: The Night Stalker continues to maintain such a loyal following?

FVL: Darren McGavin’s performance throughout the movies and the TV shows is quite endearing; it’s hard not to love that character.

EB: In 1997, Chaosium published your Call of Cthulhu sourcebook entitled The New Orleans Guidebook. As a writer, did developing a role-playing supplement hold any unique challenges?

FVL: I was an avid RPGer throughout my teens and twenties. I loved the research involved. That was my first published book. I researched in the library at the University of Pittsburgh, where I was a graduate student at the time. It was a strange experience because I wrote it in 1995 and it didn’t come out until two years later. For a young kid that was an agonizing wait! But I had a thrill of pride once I had my comp copies in my hand, of course.

However, Chaosium never fully paid me for it, so please don’t buy it, except at a used bookstore or something. And if you ever see any of those guys tell them I still plan on sending some big dudes over to their house, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

EB: In 2000, you co-created a satirical Cthulhu mythos mini-comic with Steve Ellis titled Why We’re Here (featuring such classic lines as “God is a blind retard?”). How did this come about, and what was the reaction?

FVL: People really enjoy it, it was just this fun thing Steve and I decided to do to bring to the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland, which is a show we would go to every year. We had begun a tradition of satirizing different types of comics the year before with RIGHTWING, which was “What if the GOP published a super hero comic?” Then next year, we did the Jack Chick-style religious track. When I put it on-line it got featured on Boing-Boing, I think, and got a zillion hits. I still get fan mail about it! It’s fun stuff, and very gratifying.

Then, the next year, artist Ryan Dunlavey and I were going, and I got the idea to do a comic that you’d find packaged with an action figure — this time, the gag was that it was a Freidrich Nietzsche action figure. And from that story the series I first got wildly known for, ACTION PHILOSOPHERS, was born, believe it or not.

Incidentally, you can read both WHY WE’RE HERE and RIGHTWING for free at my website — just click them links there.

EB: Have you ever been tempted to hang out at airports or bus depots and distribute copies of Why We’re Here?

FVL: Me personally, no, but I have actually given permission for folks to mass photocopy it and hand them out as phony evangelicals at, like, horror conventions before.

EB: Were you a big fan of horror growing up? If so, what were some of your favorite horror movies, books or comics?

FVL: I was. What really hooked me was Stoker’s DRACULA, which I think I read when I was about ten. I loved the realism and the attention to detail combined with the supernatural elements. When I was a teenager I got bitten by the low-budget horror movie bug. Romero and Cronenberg were my big faves.

EB: In the pages of Marvel Zombies 4, you got a chance to write supernatural characters such as Dormammu, Morbius, Daimon Hellstrom and Werewolf by Night. Are there any supernatural/horror-themed characters you’re still aching to work on?

FVL: I wouldn’t mind doing an ongoing MARVEL ZOMBIES/MIDNIGHT SONS series, starring the monster squad from MZ4.

EB: Do you follow new horror movies and books, or do you tend to gravitate more towards works from your childhood?

FVL: I should, but I don’t. Fortunately, one of my closest friends from college, and someone who now lives in New York City and I still hang out with constantly, is MONSTER ISLAND/13 BULLETS author David Wellington, and he’s locked into that world. He keeps me pretty up-to-date.

EB: What can fans expect from Fred Van Lente in the foreseeable future?

FVL: Well, I’m writing an arc of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN in August that brings back The Chameleon and Mary Jane Watson.

And speaking of monsters, my She-Hulk serial begins in the back of INCREDIBLE HULK #600, this July.

A

nd horror fans should be pleased by an upcoming announcement for September…

EB: Thanks so much for agreeing to do this interview. Any final words of wisdom for our readers?

FVL: Do not pour sulfuric acid on your genitals. Believe me. Not worth it.

Click here for a complete list of the works of Fred Van Lente.