And here it is, the first appearance of everyone’s favorite vampire (or at least my favorite vampire) Count Cyanide. The Count was a character I came up with during Alegbra class in my Freshman year of high school, many years after creating Ribcage and the original main characters. His place in the story fluctuated throughout the many incarnations of Ribcage’s world, and he was never a very prominent character. In fact, in the version I was working on just before Grimstone, he was extremely minor, and much more fearsome looking. I did a total redesign on the Count, in both appearance and personality, for Grimstone. He’s much closer to the original character now and quickly became the number two character in the strip, not only in terms of prominence, but also in terms of my adoration for the character. He’s my favorite to draw and one of my favorites to write. And he quickly became much more than I ever imagined he would be.

The joke is inspired by an old Ray-Bans commercial where a bunch of vampires prevent themselves from being toasted by the rising sun by wearing the sunglasses, except for one that forgot his and gets blasted to smithereens.

Commentary written in 2006.