The recent Vampire-Con in Hollywood featured Vampirella’s Ball as the closing event. Comic book vampire Vampirella celebrated her 40th anniversary at the vampire convention, so I think it seemed only right to name the closing party after her. We have video coverage of the whole convention coming up soon, but the portraits we shot are exclusively from Vampirella’s Ball.

Forrest Black and I of course photographed Countess Lotti and Wendi Mirabella, the successful event mavens who made the whole weekend happen. Nella, who won the Vampirella look-alike contest kicks off our Vampire-Con photo gallery. We shot event MCs Count Smokula and the delicious Scarlet Rose (who also played a prostitute on my favorite Western of all time Deadwood.) You will find longtime friend of Blue Blood editor Pam Keesey in our portraits from the event. Other luminaries you will spot include gothic musician Andra Dare, horror actor Stephen Wozniak, and more.

I have to confess that the awesomest bit of our vampiric shooting adventure was most unexpected in context. This guy comes up to where the Blue Blood location studio is set up and he has kind of a long capsule intro. In Los Angeles, it is really really really a good idea to be able to state in a brief paragraph, while shaking hands, who you are and what you do and why who you are meeting should care. I suck at this on my own behalf. But I’m listening to this particular VIP guest of the convention give me his capsule intro and I am just racking my brain for where I recognize him from. At Blue Blood HQ, we sometimes call the frantic race to place someone as “work/TV/housemate of many years”. He has tremendous personal magnetism, piercing blue eyes, and the loudest blue shirt in the building, complete with rhinestones. So I’m mentally running through the face directory from the many conventions for internet professionals I have attended, spoken at, and exhibited at in my work for SpookyCash. No idea.

Finally he says his name and I’m just like OMG! Dennis Hof! If you’ve been living in a cave for the past gajillion years, Dennis Hof is the charismatic owner of Nevada’s best known legal brothel the Bunny Ranch. Forrest Black says that Dennis Hof is clearly a vampire because it just makes sense and, if Forrest were a vampire, he would definitely wear that shirt. Dennis Hof tells me that the Bunny Ranch can accommodate vampire roleplay for patrons. The two extremely sexy girls he has with him are a blonde Hayden Brooks and a brunette Phoenix James.

Dennis Hof says that Phoenix James is from Transylvania. I feel like a Transylvanian hooker is pretty much the ultimate accessory to bring to a vampire ball. Her bio says she grew up in Bucharest, but that is still Romania and close enough for rock and roll. And vampires.

The new season of AMC’s Mad Men starts this Sunday. I will be at Vampire-Con, so I’ll be TiVoing it, but I’m looking forward to this new season of one of my favorite shows. Pre-season rumor has it that this time out, Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner has in store more drinking, more gender relations of both the sexual and social issue variety, and will start off a couple more years into the 1960’s.

We’ve got a beautiful Mad Men promo photo gallery for your viewing pleasure here. The colors of past seasons were a bit different from these and I can’t say whether the new season will fully match prior seasons or evolve. I love the look here, though, and one of the most impressive things about Mad Men is the hyper real look and feel. The show’s costuming is convincingly period, but somehow makes each time it covers look more fabulous and glamorous and beautiful than it probably looked at the time. The lighting and color palette is always just gorgeous and makes this one of the few shows I always TiVo at Best Quality, so I don’t miss a bit of the look and feel.

Over on the AMC site, they also have a MadMen Yourself avatar creator. The image above is the one I did for myself. There was no option for iced latte, as it would have been an anachronism in 60’s Madison Avenue, so I opted for a hot coffee. There was no option for purple hair, but I was able to select stripes.

It is no secret that I love the vampire genre. I received Honors at Wesleyan University for my thesis on vampire legends as a paradigm for aggressive human sexuality. And I would like the record to show that I will be speaking on exactly that topic this weekend at Vampire Con in Hollywood. I’ll be taking part in the panel programming Sunday afternoon, after the movie nights, and before Vampirella’s Ball (more on this in a moment.) I’m excited that Wendi Mirabella and Lotti Pharriss Knowles have put Vampire-Con together.

The panel I am on is called Hot-Blooded: Vampires & Sexuality and is at 1pm at the Henry Fonda Theater on Hollywood Blvd. It will be moderated by David J. Skal, Author of Hollywood Gothic and V Is For Vampire: The A-Z Guide Of Everything Undead. I’m especially excited that Pam Keesey, who I’m looking forward to catching up with will be on the panel. She is the editor of multiple anthologies of lesbian vampire tales, Women Who Run with the Werewolves: Tales of Blood, Lust, and Metamorphosis, and Vamps: An Illustrated History of the Femme Fatale. Pam Keesey has a very engaging personality, has published yours truly, and once gave me a tour of Forrest Ackerman’s memorabilia collection. Other panelists are Hal Bodner, author of Bite Club: A West Hollywood Vampire Tale, filmmaker Fred Olen Ray from The Lair, actress Celeste Yarnall, best known at a vamp convention for her role in The Velvet Vampire, but who has appeared in everything from Melrose Place to Star Trek, and best-selling author, comic book writer, and filmmaker Donald F. Glut who recently directed the Elizabeth Bathory-inspired movie Blood Scarab. And we’ll be talking about vampire sex.

That evening, at the same venue, from 8:30pm to 1am, there will be Vampirella’s Ball. The music will be provided by DJ Xian and DJ Gary Calamar, music supervisor of HBO’s True Blood and KCRW radio DJ. Vampire Con describes the appropriate attire saying, “Costumes are thoroughly encouraged – Vampires, Victorian, Edwardian, Steampunk, Bohemian, Tribal, Gypsy.”

Forrest Black and I will have a location studio set up to photograph people involved in the event, revelers who most exemplify the themes of the event, and our close personal friends (i.e. not everyone, but photographic subjects best for doing press coverage on Vampire Con.) If we know you from online, please come find us on the roof Sunday night (or at my panel during the day) and say hello and where we know you from. I’m looking forward to running into tons of cool people at this event. Our favorite photos from the evening will of course appear here on BlueBlood.net.