Profile 6: Max the Vampire Skellington
Full Name: Maximillion Von Tesh
Age: 113
Favorite Food: Blood, duh
Theme Song: Bat Out of Hell by Meatloaf
Abilities: Vampiric summoning, flight, hypnotism.
History: Max was a normal vampire prince in the late 1800's when the House of Dracula fell. It splintered the vampire community and many famous houses fled around the world for safety. Max's family was one of them, only at some point during the trip his coffin was lost and found by hunters. They staked poor young Max and his father, in his grief, had him buried in the small town of Serling where they stayed for a while before buying land in the South to live.
Max was dead for a hundred years until Zindy's spell raised his, Billy and Oltan's souls from the afterlife. When he revived, at first he was surprised by his appearance, but his thirst for vengeance on the human world was red hot. So he summons up an army of vampires and you already read the story. There's not as much backstory to this guy really, his story is only just beginning in earnest now.
Creator's Notes: Max was cooked up at some point during the 2018 revival attempt of the comic. I thought Billy should have his own Vegeta/Shadow the Hedgehog/Zero/You Get It. I didn't really have a crystal vision for the character just yet though.
I'm a big fan of the Inverse of the Hero character. Venom has always been a favorite of mine with how they worked as a dark mirror to Spider-Man. I wanted that kind of dynamic for Billy because, in my opinion, these types of characters can bring out the best in our hero. It can also lead to a pretty compelling new character on their own.
With this in mind, Max was one of the easier characters to come up with. A more monstrous form of Billy made sense. I really wanted someone who was Billy's total opposite. He's not very friendly, he's got a sour attitude and very dry, macabre humor. Yet he's still a kid in many ways and you will see he has a good side to him as well.
It wasn't until some random doodling, as usual for my ideas, that I came up with the first visual. I wanted to draw Billy with fangs as if he ever got bitten by a vampire and it somehow turned him. I liked the visual with the almost tusk like fangs and kept it in mind for Max. Applying the design to him, early on, he was just going to be like Billy with fangs. I think he may have had sharp shoulders, but even then it was a pretty lazy attempt at an inverse of the character.
It was during the 2023 attempt and success at getting the comic off the ground that I finally came up with a proper design for Max. Looking at Billy, I realized the character is very round. Even his eyes often have soft edges to them. So for an inverse, the obvious idea was to go sharper. So initially he was so sharp that his body was just a big triangle. Along with the sharp feet and clawed hands he now has. It was during the point I was drawing the character ads last year that I tweaked his design just a little more.
Rather than have an entirely sharp pointed triangle body, I decided in the moment to draw him with a more curved badge like shape for his body. I'm not sure why, it just came to me while drawing that bit of art to show off the character. I really liked it and so that design stuck. Although you can see in the third page I was still going off the original triangle design. I left it in because I thought it fit the kind of SD take on the character for that panel.
Another important angle to Max was how he introduced the Vampire Lore of our world. I have a plan for a separate story that will explore that deeper, including how the House of Dracula fell and what the splintering really meant for the vampires of the world. It's a fun story and I look forward to sharing it some day.
Max introduces that the world of vampires is fractured. While it wasn't my intention, I like to think his summoning was the first time vampires from various factions have met up in a while. There's more to the vampires than we really got to see in their debut. I tried to distinguish them a little in that while most are shadowy figures you got some punk vampires and classic types as well.
I'm saving it for another article on this site but I do plan to explain in depth the various vampire factions and how they all relate. Keeping things simple for now, Max is from a pretty important family of vampires. He knows magic that most vampires don't, hence his summoning spell and has a lot more tricks up his sleeve than we've shown.
After Max returns he'll slowly become a more regular member of the group. He may not always be around but Billy really is his only acquaintance at first. Vampires are sociable creatures.
Max is now here and he's here to stay. I've got a lot in store for this vampire so look forward to it and keep reading to see when he returns!
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