I was just reading a draft of one of Dominick’s serial’s that is quite bizarre. I have the first two issues. This is clearly a spinoff of Vampire State. Fencemen is set in New Orleans in 2141, in a world overrun by zombies. As bad as the zombies are its better to be in zombie plagued regions than in New York and Seattle, which are ruled by the vampires. I’m thinking maybe that the zombie regions in this universe are a metaphor for suburbia.

The two lead characters in Fencemen are Travis Mars and Jack Morris. They work as fencemen, the working stiffs who have to raise and maintain the fencing that is erected to contain the zombie hordes. I think the zombies in Fencemen have a supernatural origin, which fits with the classic ‘Stoker vampire aristocracy’ of Vampire State. The zombies also have some kind of physical preservation aspect that is not typical of the genre.

Part One introduces the reader to the fencemen trade right out of the gate. By the end of Part Two some of the back story is being filled in. The story hook laid for Part Three involves a visiting vampire. Dominick takes this opportunity to discuss the fact that—if vampires did live among us as suggested in the vast body of vampire fiction—that certain mortals would develop vampire fetishes, just like some among us are obsessively loyal to celebrities and politicians.

Dominick’s ‘vampire-zombie apocalypse’ setting involves the politicizing of vampires and the casting of the victim pool as serfs, rebellious working class people, and reactionary cultists. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest, that if he does werewolves, that they should be equivalent to our homeless population—panhandlers from hell Dom!

Thanks for the peek.