By RICKY J. DUARTE
Mention Vampiro to any seasoned pro wrestling superfan and you’re bound to get the same response – something between a smile and a nod of admiration, perhaps backed by a twinge of fear behind their eyes. The legendary grappler’s career spanned four decades during which he held coveted titles while working in the industry’s biggest promotions, including WCW, All Japan Pro Wrestling, TNA, CMLL and Lucha Libre AAA (where he has become the director of talent). Born Ian Richard Hodgkinson, the Canadian wrestler found stardom in the Mexican wrestling style of Lucha Libre in which he has since become a key figure. To say he has taken a bite out of and left his mark on professional wrestling is an understatement. Vampiro is an icon.
Classic Vampiro in action!
As he retires from the ring, Vampiro is setting his sights on new terrifying endeavors, including an upcoming scripted podcast/radio show promoting alternative music and investigating the real world of the paranormal (a subject Vampiro has plenty of experience with). The show also features a new evolution of his iconic persona, one that also happens to be the subject of an all-new comic book from Masked Republic Comics – VAMPIRO: ROCKABILLY APOCALYPSE.
VAMPIRO: ROCKABILLY APOCALYPSE #1 alternate cover by Julio A. Guerra
Masked Republic Comics has released several wrestling-related series. However, the approach to this particular story is a far cry from chokeslams and powerbombs, portraying Vampiro as an eternally damned rock-n-roll god fighting to save the world from an impending apocalypse. He’s joined by podcaster/investigator-turned-sidekick Everett Holden and getaway-driving-badass-luchadora Estrella Nocturna.
RUE MORGUE caught up with Vampiro and the comic book’s creator, Kevin Kleinrock (Masked Republic), and writer Michael Kingston (Headlocked) to discuss the quick-witted, action-packed comic as well as mental health and its correlation to fandom – specifically at the intersection of horror and pro wrestling. (They also kindly shared two ass-kicking pages from the upcoming second issue of the series! See below.)
Michael Kingston (co-creator and writer), Kevin Roditeli (co-publisher, Massive Comics), Vampiro and Kevin Kleinrock (co-creator and Executive Producer) at SDCC.
How did the three of you come together?
Kevin Kleinrock: The first time I met Vampiro was probably 1998 or ’99, and he had just finished wrestling in Anaheim, and he was a bloody fucking mess. From there, we [started] to work together in, like 2000 or so, I think. Or 2001. Then when I had an opportunity to do a wrestling series for MTV called Wrestling Society X that I created, which was a merge of punk rock and pro wrestling. I had to bring in Vampiro as the star and as one of our producers at my side. We really bonded over that, and we’ve shared a similar vision for not just things in wrestling,but entertainment in general.
We actually thought about trying to do a comic book series back then in 2007, and it just didn’t work out. So, it’s something that’s always been a goal of mine … to do a comic book series with Vamp. But Masked Republic was in a very different place now than it was back in 2007. [It’s] a much bigger company with a lot more going on. And I’ve always wanted to develop something with Michael Kingston. I backed all of his Headlocked comics from the start on Kickstarter, and we’ve been sharing a booth at San Diego ComiCon for quite some time. But [for] our other comics, which have all been in the Luchaverse, we wanted to have Hispanic writers and Hispanic artists. So, we were just trying to find the right project. And then, it popped into my head that we’ve got Vampiro here, who is – I would say without argument – the biggest non-Hispanic star of Lucha Libre ever. And I thought, you know what? That seems like a good opportunity. I asked Michael to give me a hit for a story, and I’ll let him take it from there…
Michael Kingston: For me, I’ve been making wrestling comics forever, and I’ve also been a fan of comics and movies and such, like everybody else. There’s always been ideas in my head that don’t fit into what I was doing that I wanted to do at some point if I had the opportunity. And then, Kevin asked me to pitch him a story, and I had a little weird stuff percolating in my brain … I was like, let’s put some of this in the air, and then try to bring Vamp’s personality into it and just make a fun kind of grindhouse, midnight movie marathon kind of a story.
Vampiro, how involved were you in the look and feel of your likeness on the page?
Vampiro: I think it’s not too far from the truth. I don’t think I sat down and was asked, “How do I want this to look?” When Kevin brought it up to me, and he explained to me about Michael and explained to me about everything, I was at a point in my life – this is going to sound a little off – I was studying a lot of magick, and I just had to give in. There was a process in magick – one of the rituals I was doing – and I was trying to better something. When Kevin came, it was just like, “Let it go. Trust it. See what happens.” I was doing a lot of things with the quantum field and all this kind of stuff, and I just put 100% trust in Kevin, and it came out. I was like, “Holy fuck! It’s better looking than I am!” … The dolls, the comics, you know, he’s got it right on the money. Jesus Christ, it’s unbelievable!
VAMPIRO: ROCKABILLY APOCALYPSE #1 cover by Rafael Gallur
KK: I’ve known Vamp for decades now. And I think that what’s hard a lot of times; You’re taking these real-life luchadors and putting them in this fantasy world [and still trying to] maintain some sense of who they really are. Part of my background is writing wrestling promos for people, not necessarily for Vamp, but for people. So, I’m really good at getting into their heads and trying to portray that character.
I didn’t know what Michael’s take on that was going to be, but when I read that first script, I was like, “You’ve never met Vampiro, but holy shit! You have captured his wit and his dry one-liners.” The character, I thought, was so good and had so much of the actual Vampiro in it that it blew away my expectations. And I think when Vamp finally saw the finished product, his trust in us was delivered.
V: [Amicably] Yeah, that’s it… Making me out to be an asshole. And it’s on the money, brother. I love it.
An asshole with heart, though! Michael, you’ve worked with a ton of wrestlers, bringing their ring personas to the page. Do you have a specific approach to making that transition?
MK: You’ve just got to find the essence of the person. I think people have their bits to them that are part of their real-life persona that don’t necessarily always factor into their characters so much, but it’s part of who they are. And, you really want [it to] feel like that person, right? You have to get that sort of the meat of who they are as a person. Then, I just think you got to dial it up a little bit, especially if you’re doing comics. There’s no sense in doing anything half-assed, right? The comic book page is meant for embellishment and exaggeration and all of that, so a lot of it is just trying to understand the person or the people you’re working with.
Why do you think so many horror fans are also wrestling fans? There’s such a correlation there between the two.
V: [Laughing] We all have fucking mental health problems! Anybody who does something like this – creates – steps outside the box, right? In my case, I’m 57 years old, and I cannot live outside of this persona. What else am I going to do at this stage in my life? And a lot of people look at somebody who’s tattooed, who’s a little bit older, who’s still living and doing that – whether it’s on radio, podcasting, television, wrestling, still… or playing rock ‘n’ roll – that’s somebody who’s kind of a misfit, you know? Like on the outside of things. I don’t look at it like that. I just look at it like, “I just don’t fit in your world.” So that whole rebellion thing from being a teenager and you started listening to alternative rock ‘n’ roll and things like that, it carries over. So you’ve got a lot of people who like wrestling. And if that’s looked down on the same way as somebody who liked alternative music, especially back before the internet when you tried to find the fucking Misfits cassette and then you finally had it; You had to fight because you just put hair gel in your hair … That was enough to set the fucking tone for the day.
I believe that there’s such a handful of people that, when punk rock started to come out a little bit more public – at the end of The Clash, then into hardcore – I think for me, the whole thing was Rancid. That era of punk rock. And especially Rancid. That opened the door for a lot of kids to step up. So, it’s okay to collect comics. It’s okay to like pro wrestling. It’s okay to be a fucking whatever. Like, fuck yeah. It all fits. You know, we all like wrestling. The dots are connected.
KK: I think that, whether it’s wrestling and anime, wrestling and horror, wrestling and comic books, you have an audience who’s looking to be entertained and to step into these fantasy worlds. I think liking horror movies has kind of always been a cool, trendy thing. Not necessarily trendy, but cool and acceptable. Let me say that. I think being that nerd who read comic books, being that nerd who watched wrestling… who didn’t necessarily have the cool factor. In 2024, we live in a world where nerd culture has become mainstream. People are not afraid to like what they like and be public about it, so you get a lot of people who like whatever subgenre of entertainment they. I mean, there’s a huge horror film and horror comic crossover.
Vampiro contemplates the past, present and future
There’s a much larger wrestling audience than people realize. And I think a lot of time it takes that coming out through other media for people to realize how many people truly love pro wrestling or love a particular wrestler, and I think that we have an opportunity here, where we’re seeing people come out and meet Vampiro, and it’s not just because they’re lucha libre fans. Oh, they watched him on WCW. Oh, they listen to his podcast that gets a million, two million views a week on social media – and it’s in Spanish, and it’s a whole different audience than his American or his English-speaking fan base. And now, we’ve opened up a whole new audience in comic fans.
We see a lot of people who maybe haven’t thought about Vampiro since the WCW days because they don’t follow wrestling today – and they don’t follow lucha libre, but they’re like, “Oh, I fucking remember that guy, and I thought he was cool. And I like comics and I like horror!” So we’re starting to see those fans come out of the woodwork as well.
Can we expect Vampiro to bust out any wrestling holds in the comic anytime soon?
MK: Up to issue #5, we don’t have any yet. There is a move or two, but not necessarily performed by Vamp.
V: What they’re doing – what we’re all doing – [is trying] to be as far away from wrestling as possible. Not because I dislike wrestling, of course not. But there’s so much more in that, now that I’m retiring from wrestling, I’m more busy than I’ve ever been in my life. And I love having mental health. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You know, with the memory issues and all that kind of shit… I feel like a 15-year-old. I’m doing all these insane projects. And my life has changed so much, you know? Kevin’s a huge part of it. His comics [are] everything to me. And it’s giving me a new lease on life. So much so that I’ve changed, and it’s just making me want to live more.
I don’t want it to be lumped in as another wrestler trying to hang on to what he did. Wrestling was a period in time in the evolution of being a vampire. To me, being a vampire goes with my philosophies on magick and rituals and all these kinds of weird things that I do. Kevin is really good at managing my mental health, meaning he knows when to talk to me about wrestling and when not to. He explains it to me in a way that it’s not going to make me want to jump out of a fucking window. I love wrestling; I just didn’t like the politics behind it.
So, I’m hoping that this comic [explains] how I got to be this rock ‘n’ roll vampire. My big influence in life was Evel Knievel because you knew the fucking guy was going to crash. That’s why I became a pro wrestler. I don’t give a shit about winning. I want to know how hard I could hit the fucking wall and get up and say, “Do it again!” I really like that.
I think that people who like wrestling want that roller derby or demolition derby thing because they know people are just going to get fucked up, and it’s by choice. People who do self-harm and all that kind of shit, with mental health, they watch this because that’s an outlet for them, too. So that’s why we connect so much.
VAMPIRO: ROCKABILLY APOCALYPSE #2 is coming soon to blow you away
If it wasn’t for Kevin, I would have thrown my career. I’ve already thrown it pretty fucking far down the water hole. But Kevin saved Vampiro, and he saved me as a person so many times over the last 20 years. It’s unbelievable. So all that’s going to come out in the personality in the comic book. I had to be that guy in real life to do this. I hope it’s not just another wrestling-oriented bullshit comic. This means so much more to me – and to many people.
MK: I think there’s a line you got to walk, right? I mean, there’s a line where if you do it wrong, like it’s real cheesy, and I feel like we stayed off off of that line. I mean, the response has been incredible so far – I think we’re making something really cool. But I think there’s definitely a way where you can make it really hack, just like the old WCW comics they did back in the day. In my head, anyway, there would be probably no wrestling in this.
KK: I think that all the comics that we do for Masked Republic Comics are not wrestling comics. They are actually an adventure-horror that just happened to star luchadors. The only reference whatsoever to anything wrestling-related in issue 1, and really this first arc, is his sidekick/getaway driver/luchadora, Estrella Nocturna. There’s nothing about Vampiro in this comic thus far that has to do with wrestling.
He’s a vampire, right? So we can live in any era. We can go back to the ’90s. We can go to the ’80s. We can go to other eras… Maybe when he was wrestling. And even if we go to those eras, we’re not going to talk about the wrestling. We’re going to talk about what happened at night. What was going on with Vampiro, the rock ‘n’ roll god in those eras? I think that the fact that there is zero reference to wrestling whatsoever in the book is a plus.
MK: It’s definitely been my favorite thing to work on. I’m in the middle of seven projects right now, and every time I get to click on a script for VAMPIRO, I get a little bit of joy. It’s some “work-fun” to work on.
V: Do you remember the TV show with David Carradine, Kung Fu? Well, Iggy Pop, Evel Knievel [and] that TV show is VAMPIRO. He left the temple; The guy’s a vampire; He’s by himself; he goes from fucking city to city; town to town – wherever it is – walking. So, I took all that, this whole thing about David Carradine in that Kung Fu series [as a] tool, That was me. You got to go and live these experiences to find your real way to get a higher level of consciousness. So that’s how I put this all together on my end, and then, these guys got to decipher that. How the fuck they do that? I don’t know, but whatever it is they take, I would like half of it, please. The philosophy of terror is such a big part of my life, and I can’t wait to get back to my roots.
VAMPIRO: ROCKABILLY APOCALYPSE, #1 is available now. Issue #2 drops on November 27, 2024. In the meantime, enjoy an EXCLUSIVE LOOK at TWO of the exciting new issue’s pages below!
