Wanted, Kick-Ass, Kingsman, Old Man Logan, and so many more: there's no question that writer Mark Millar has played a key role in bringing some of the most iconic comic book characters and storylines to life on the paneled page and the big screen in recent decades, and he looks to continue this impressive streak by infusing his keen creativity into the blood-soaked realm of vampires with his new three-issue comic book series Vatican City!
Written by Mark Millar with artwork, letters, colors, and covers by Per Berg (as well as a variant cover by John McCrea with colors by John Kalisz), Vatican City introduces a version of our world that's overrun by a vicious vampire apocalypse, where the only remaining survivors are the 2,000 tourists who are safe behind the holy walls of the Vatican... for now.
With the first issue of Vatican City sinking its teeth into comic shop shelves on April 9th via Dark Horse Comics, Daily Dead caught up with Mark Millar in an exclusive Q&A to discuss his new comic book series, including how he came up with an intriguing "Assault on Precinct 13 meets Nosferatu" approach to vampires, how his lifelong fascination with the Vatican informed the authentic setting of this series, pairing his prose with the exciting visual style of artist Per Berg, and the film he considers to be a near-perfect vampire movie that inspired the intelligent and cunning bloodsuckers readers can find lurking within the pages of Vatican City this spring!
Below, you can read our full Q&A with Mark Millar, and to learn more about Vatican City, visit Dark Horse's official website:
Thank you very much for taking the time to answer questions for us, Mark, and congratulations on your upcoming comic book series Vatican City, which pits two thousand tourists against a vampire apocalypse brimming with bloodthirsty tenacity outside the walls of Vatican City. How did you initially come up with the idea for this series?
Mark Millar: I took my wife to the Vatican on one of our first dates. She isn’t even a Catholic so she must have thought it was an odd choice. But when we were getting a tour, I made a joke about how the Vatican has to be the safest place in a vampire attack because it’s covered, top to bottom, with crucifixes and holy relics. I think the idea just always stayed with me and I built it up in my head as this siege movie and comic book with vampires having taken over the whole world and 900 human beings left behind the huge walls with a limited food supply. The vampires can’t get in, but the people can’t leave. It’s Assault on Precinct 13 meets Nosferatu!
From Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Nosferatu to Near Dark and 30 Days of Night, we’ve seen many different takes on bloodsuckers over the years. What types of vampires can readers expect to encounter within the pages of Vatican City?
Mark Millar: Every decade has their own vampire phenomenon. Like the concept itself, the genre just never dies and just when we think it’s over, a Buffy or a Twilight appears and millions of new people get into it. It’s incredibly enduring. I like the sophisticated vampires we see in Gothic mythology, but I LOVE the Kathryn Bigelow kind of vampires we got in Near Dark. Romantic vampire is all well and good, but the ones who want to rip you apart and just basically see humans as cattle are terrifying. Much more than zombies, because they have an ancient intelligence. They can’t just outrun us. They can also OUTSMART us and that’s what this book is about—the vampires all plotting in the shadows for years and one night just making their move to sit at the top of the food chain again.
For Vatican City, you’ve teamed up with artist Per Berg, who also handled the coloring and lettering for this series. What is it about Per’s unique visual style that made him the perfect artist to pair with your prose for this story?
Mark Millar: I love comic book art. I’ve been a fan my entire life and I have this incredible collection of original art. There’s almost no one I’m unfamiliar with certainly going back to the ’30s, and I spend my tea-breaks just looking for new artists I’ve never seen before. I stumbled on Per's work by chance when he was working on a couple of different really interesting projects and I’d never, ever seen anything like him before. There’s a manga aspect to his work, a European influence (particularly his inks and colours), but there’s Sin City era Frank Miller in there too, and he just gave me something I’d never seen before, which was incredibly exciting. He’s something special and I can’t wait for people to see this. I think it’s one of the best drawn comics I’ve ever seen.
The setting of Vatican City is its own vital character in this series and plays a huge role in how the events unfold. As a practicing Catholic, were you already familiar with the layout and traditions of Vatican City, or was there still a lot of research involved to authentically portray that historic part of the world?
Mark Millar: I have a funny relationship with research. One of my pals is writing a novel and he’s done about eight years of research before he even starts, and I told him he needs to write something else first. If he needs to do that much research, the novel isn't cooked yet. So I tend to work on things I’ve researched for a lifetime. I’ve always been fascinated by the Vatican and have been reading about it and watching lectures and videos and listening to podcasts about its incredible history and ancient origins for most of my life. So I find stories kind of explode out of me fully formed because my subconscious will have been thinking about them for a long time. That said, I had to check maps while I was writing because I wanted to make sure the characters walked into the correct room when they turned left or right. Per has also been carefully researching and picked up a couple of things I missed.
Do you have any favorite vampire stories—in literature, film, television, or video games—that inspired or influenced you while writing Vatican City?
Mark Millar: I kind of love them all. I really see value in everything, even if it’s just a scene, but I think Near Dark is as close to perfect as a vampire movie could be. But I love the casual realism of something like Romero’s Martin, the original Let the Right One In and Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn. Steve Norrington’s first Blade is as good as the brilliant sequel too. That first five minutes in the nightclub is the best opening to any Marvel movie, I think.
From Wanted and Kick-Ass to Kingsman and Old Man Logan, your written work has often been adapted for film, and your latest comic book series seems like it would also translate well to the screen. Do you envision Vatican City becoming a film or TV series in the future?
Mark Millar: Actually, I work in-house at Netflix since I sold my company, and although the first 17 franchises I created were comic books before being adapted into movies or TV, everything I’ve done at Netflix has been on staff and created as a movie or a show, later translated into a comic. So it’s the only way around at the moment. We planned this as a 90-minute movie, but sometimes I really want to make a comic of something too, and that’s what happened here. I couldn’t un-see it as a graphic novel once I’d seen Per’s art.
Vatican City is initially being released as a three-issue comic book series, but do you have plans to continue this story beyond the third issue if given the opportunity?
Mark Millar: No, no. This has a very definite conclusion.
What has it been like to work with the team at Dark Horse Comics to help bring Vatican City to undead life?
Mark Millar: Brilliant. They’re lovely people. We moved the Millarworld catalogue there a year or so back and it’s been a terrific set-up. They’re great to work with.
Ultimately, what do you hope readers take away from Vatican City?
Mark Millar: I like doing stuff people haven’t seen before. That’s our job as writers, to find new kinks in something where every avenue seems to have been explored. I got excited about this and couldn’t wait to get started every morning. My friends who have read the now-finished book felt the same way reading. So hopefully it’s all as contagious as the anaerobic blood disorder in the story itself.
What advice would you give to comic book writers who are just getting started?
Mark Millar: Get your book online. It’s an amazing opportunity these past 25 years to reach an international audience and something special will be found within 24 hours. When I was starting out in my teens, we had to send submissions everywhere and hope someone looked at them, seeing value in your work as a writer or an artist. But now you can send your work to the phones of your potential readers and get a deal if your pages chime with the public. We all do sample work for free when we’re sending in submissions, but now you can get together with an artist and send them to the whole world.
In addition to Vatican City #1 sinking its teeth into comic shop shelves on April 9th, do you have any other upcoming projects that you can tease for our readers?
Mark Millar: Yes, very much so. In the comic book world, we have Vatican City in April and then in May we have Huck, which is the sequel to the most warm-hearted series I’ve ever done. It’s like a Frank Capra movie as a comic, a simple man on the spectrum who has weird abilities and just tries to do one nice thing for people every day. It goes to crazy places, but is very different from the kind of thing people generally expect of me. But before that, at the end of April, John Romita Jr. and I have a big announcement on the 22nd of the month. He and I did Wolverine and Kick-Ass together, so this is going to be special. Keep an eye out!
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Visit Dark Horse's official website to learn more about Vatican City, and we also have the official press release with additional details as well as a look at the chilling cover art for the first issue!
Press Release: Dark Horse Comics presents a gripping new vampire survival saga in Vatican City. This comic series is a brand-new Dark Horse title from the library of Mark Millar and provides a fresh take on the genre of vampire survival horror. Written by Millar (The Magic Order) with art, colors, letters, and covers by Per Berg (Machete Squad). Fans can also collect two variant covers, including a black and white variant by Per Berg and a variant by John McCrea (Dead Eyes, Blue Book) and colors by John Kalisz (Garbage Man).
The world has been overrun by a vampire apocalypse and every man, woman, and child is dead. Everyone except for the two thousand tourists is safe behind the walls and holy relics of Vatican City.
But as the vampires gather in their millions outside, how long can the survivors hold out? Because the monsters can wait forever.
"I've had this idea for years, Assault on Precinct 13 with vampires, tourists and staff safe behind the holy relics in The Vatican while the rest of the world outside has been taken down by the forces of darkness," says writer Mark Millar. "I wrote it into The Magic Order as a little subplot in volume 3, but really wanted to flesh it out and tell the whole story. Vatican City is my big chance. Most exciting of all for me is getting to work with Per Berg. I've admired his work for two or three years now and have been itching to get together with him on a project, but this has just surpassed all expectations. It's the maddest thing I've ever written. You're going to love it."
Vatican City #1 (of 3) will arrive in comic shops on April 9, 2025, and is available for pre-order at your local comic shop for $5.99.
Be sure to follow Dark Horse Comics on social media and check our website, www.darkhorse.com, for more news, announcements, and updates!
Vatican City #1: The world has been overrun by a vampire apocalypse, every man, woman and child dead except the two thousand tourists safe behind the walls and holy relics of Vatican City.
But as the vampires gather in their millions outside, how long can they hold out? Because the monsters can wait forever.
• Three issue series.
CREATORS
Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Per Berg
Colorist: Per Berg
Letterer: Per Berg
Cover Artist: Per Berg
Genre: Horror, Fantasy, Media Tie-InPublication Date: April 09, 2025
Format: FC, 40 pages; Miniseries
Price: $5.99
Age range: 18+
UPC: 7 61568 01368 9 00111"
Cover Art by Per Berg:
Variant Cover by Per Berg:
Variant Cover by John McCrea:
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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