Our Vampires Are Different/Web Comics

"Helix: If I were a scientist out to prove Global Warming was man made, I could throw this one fact out as data scatter.
 * Axe Cop has the unique "sun vampires" (which can fly to the sun), including a hideously deformed, batlike "half-vampire man, half-vampire baby"...as well as "vampire wizard ninja brothers from the moon."
 * In Freefall, Helix, Sam Starfall's robotic sidekick, tries to make an assessment, following which freaks out, tries to get Sam's attention about what troubles him, but Sam is less afraid of their sentient wolf being a vampire than this panic waking her up in a bad mood, quickly sets him straight and uses biometry demonstrating that she's, obviously, quite alive.

Sam: Now, now. Let's not make this decision as if our funding depended on it."

"No, not really, but it was a monster that used to be human, hypnotized young women and sucked blood out of their necks. It doesn't matter what I say. You two are going to hear "vampire"."
 * Irritability parodied the concept with Scary Larry.
 * There are three different types of vampire in Clan of the Cats, each stemming more or less independently from a single 'parent' (Lilith, Dracula and Kern), none of which are quite the same as the legends.
 * Triquetra Cats has three unrelated species grouped under the "vampire", each with different characteristics and weaknesses. One is basically a blood-drinking animal.
 * In Pandect, a vampire is one name for the soulless creature formed when a human and an Ace conceive a child. They are basically killing machines which can change form and kill with a bite to the throat, but other than that they do not have the stereotypical traits (and weaknesses) of classical vampires. As one character notes, humans gave them the "vampire" name, not Aces.
 * The vampires in Dan and Mabs Furry Adventures are different in that they are long extinct. As they were only one of many species that preyed on non-magical Beings, they'd often fall victim to stronger predators. They would also burst in to flames when in contact with sunlight, further dropping their numbers. As the last few remaining Vampires met to discuss how to avoid extinction, a dragon accidentally stepped on them.
 * In Last Res 0 rt, vampires are a subset of the Dead Inside/Djinn-si, a catch-all term for creatures who have altered their souls after birth, and are even sometimes referred to as "Life Djinn". Unlike other types of Dead Inside, vampires must be deliberately transformed and are capable of concealing their "condition", and are often thought of as unable to travel in space and limited strictly to the human species. Of course, both of these stereotypes are proven blatantly false by.
 * They also can recover from stakes (or bullets) to the heart, transform into zombie-like creatures when stressed, and often have some form of Psychic Powers (such as telepathy or reversing time).
 * The vampires in the Boys Love webcomic Arcana differ in the fact that if they drink Harpy blood they will die. Also, it seems that when changed into a vampire, the victim will acquire some of its attackers traits. In Vincent's case, . Finally, some of the vampires seem to harbor feelings of guilt and self-hate over their conditions (beliving they're monsters/unworthy of love). Other then that, the vampires in this story host the traditional traits (sunlight intolerance, bloodlust, etc.)
 * 8-Bit Theater took the modern Goth-Vampire trope to its (patho)logical extreme -- Vilbert Von Vampire is an angst-ridden teen Goth who writes aching poetry and enjoys live-action role-playing. He appeared to show no weakness to the sun, and the group's attempts to violently murder him with knives (as per their usual idiom) were foiled when it was shown that he had a resistance to such weapons -- leading the group to drive an entire armoire through his heart. Of course, this only served to anger his Father, the fiend of Earth, Lich. (His mother appeared to be a fairly normal human woman -- well, normal for the 8-Bit universe, anyway.)
 * From The Princess Planet, this.
 * In El Goonish Shive, Susan resorts to 'vampire' to describe to two people she's with a monster she encountered.

"Look at this mess. All this blood and sunlight is stirring bright feelings within. You often fantasize about being a true rainbow drinker from your literature. It would be a life of darting between the shadows, of persecution and being misunderstood. And of ROMANCE. You would drink heavily from its multicolored well, and the hemospectrum would be your wine list preceding the great feast of passion.
 * The Adventures of Dr. McNinja hasn't gone into any detail regarding vampire abilities, but the vampire society is certainly different. On the one hand, Sebastian's coven secretly runs The Red Cross, while behind the scenes they're Anne Rice-style goth vampires cranked Up to Eleven. As for Dracula, he's pretty much identical to Bela Lugosi's version of the Count, only living on a Moon Base. With a Moon Laser.
 * One has to wonder if the writers of Captain Britain and M13 read The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, because Marvel's Dracula also has a moon base.
 * Gore, from The Life Of Riley, was a housemate to the Bobs, and like to watch the game while feeding. Later he Took a Level In Badass, and proceeded to run interference for an infiltration team while carrying paintball cannons so huge humans couldn't wield them, and wound up at the end of the story arc immune to sunlight thanks to the newfound power of his succubi ex-girlfriend. The last time you saw Gore, he was fast, strong, unkillable, and had moved his heart to prevent staking from working. His opponent was curious about where such a young vampire gained a lot of tricks that should have taken him a few thousand years to learn, whereupon Gore revealed his powers were taught to him by . It's sad that a combination of Real Life and internet douchebaggery took this awesome comic down.
 * In Charby the Vampirate (see here), there are "elites", a sub-race of vampires who are unkillable in any of the conventional ways (or unconventional).
 * Tristram's species in Earthsong. Green skinned, among other things. On his planet there were two species--his vampire-like species, and a more human-like species that were treated like livestock, with the males used as beasts of burden and the females used to drink blood from. Tristram was part of a group that rebelled against the idea of drinking blood from the other race and committed the serious taboo of feeding upon wild animals, but at one point he was locked in a room with a girl and purposefully starved by his fellow vampires until he couldn't help but feed.
 * The title character of Digger is attacked by vampiric squash. Now that really is "different". Strangely enough, they were based on an actual legend from the Balkans, which claims that if vegetables are left in the ground too long they turn vampiric.
 * Thunderstruck actually ignores Rule 3: its vampires need blood (particularly when they have just been created), they spread like a virus, and they have all the traditional weaknesses. However, they are not Badass, but pathetic, weak, coweled creatures that cannot cope with the modern world.
 * Vampirates is a cute webcomic featuring... vampiric pirates. It's set in a world where vampires seem to be relatively accepted and can survive off of fresh blood, bagged blood, or special drugs given by the government. Sunlight doesn't seem to affect them, and they can loose large quantities of blood but survive.
 * Actually the drugs don't sustain the vampires. They help surpress a vampire's hunger. See here.
 * Geist Panic has a vampire being a pathetic misfit. It seems vampirism is a horribly debilitating blood disease.
 * The vampires of Sam and Fuzzy are very different from most depictions of vampires. 1) They appear to be living beings, not a species of The Undead. 2) Sunlight doesn't bother them. 3) Their bites turn people into werewolves, not more vampires. 4) Their hearts and lungs are found inside their heads, making a stake through the chest ineffective (their chests contain 17 appendixes). 5) They're very socially awkward and believe Stalking Is Love, which most people they try it on don't. They can however, be taught how to integrate themselves into human society by disabusing them of the misconceptions about vampires. The Golden Rule they need to be taught is that "vampirism does not make stalking attractive".
 * Despite being Made of Iron, they also don't appear to be particularly stronger than scrawny humans making it quite easy to detain them.
 * Amaranthe from Not Quite Daily Comic prefers the term "person with defunctory impairment" and rationalizes some of the common vampire traits.
 * Liz from Blip. In addition to the usual (blood-sucking, weakness to sunlight, Living Shadow and Super Smoke powers) she has Rubber Man powers, the ability to hover, and Laser Guided Amnesia-inducing breath.
 * Also, she is not afraid of crosses. Nope, not even Love Crosses.
 * Vampire bats in Kevin and Kell, despite being living creatures like everyone else, are analogous to vampires in folklore: they are stigmatized, many of the vampire beliefs get dumped on them (such as the ones about garlic, shapeshifting, and mirrors), and are considered the ultimate scourge on society.
 * Last Blood explains that there are many myths about vampires - some true and some false. Most notable was that he was being reflected in the principal's glasses, and that he was just outside in the sun for a spell. However, their main difference is that a blood-starved vampire turns into an infectious zombie, leading into Our Zombies Are Different.
 * Vampires in A Loonatics Tale are numerous and varied-many unique species actually run in family lines. Not all of them can "turn" their victims, but those that do typically transform them not into vampires like themselves, but into a vanilla religion-and-garlic-averse vampire (with the exception of the aquatic mermaid vampire, which turns it's victims into a seadweller like itself). There are also catacomb vampires, which come about when a black cat jumps over a grave and are bloated corpses which are otherwise indistinguishable from their original living selves, and blood bag vampires, which should become catacomb vampires, but decomposition has set in too far when the cat comes along, forcing them to spend the first 13 years of their vampiric lives reconstituting into catacomb vampires.
 * Scandinavia and The World focuses on the personifications of national stereotypes. Word of God states: "Romanians have two stereotypes; vampires, and thieving gypsies. Therefore, Romania is a vampire who would rather steal your wallet than your blood. Yes, I'm aware this makes me a horrible person."
 * In Homestuck, troll legend describes vampires known as "rainbow drinkers" who enjoy daylight and wear colorful clothes. Trolls themselves usually wear dark clothes and can't stand the sun. The name makes more sense when one considers the fact that trolls have their position in society determined by the color of their blood. Kanaya Maryam, as one of the exceedingly rare diurnal trolls, spends her days in her home surrounded by the (also diurnal) undead reading Paranormal Romance novels about rainbow drinkers.
 * In Homestuck, troll legend describes vampires known as "rainbow drinkers" who enjoy daylight and wear colorful clothes. Trolls themselves usually wear dark clothes and can't stand the sun. The name makes more sense when one considers the fact that trolls have their position in society determined by the color of their blood. Kanaya Maryam, as one of the exceedingly rare diurnal trolls, spends her days in her home surrounded by the (also diurnal) undead reading Paranormal Romance novels about rainbow drinkers.

Surely it couldn't hurt. While no one is looking..."

"For quite awhile now, people withchromatically challenged wardrobes have enjoyed emulating the noble mosquito, leech and hagfish."
 * Later . Rainbow Drinkers don't sparkle, they glow, and they still have the incredible VAMPIRE SPEED from Problem Sleuth.
 * Foreshadowed by the Halloween Episode of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, from which a quote was used to accompany . are you next?
 * Eerie Cuties: Most of them drink blood. One eats chocolate.
 * Lampshaded in School Bites when a newly turned Charlotte (a.k.a Cherri) meats Professor E who informs her that there are many different types of vampires. So far theres the very pale skinned vampires who have bat wings and pointed ears (like Cherri), regular human looking vampires (Professor E), the green skinned Nosferatu looking types (Imp), vampires with black angel wings (no seriously), fairy type vampires (though only one has been seen so far) and were-types (which so far have been cat girls).
 * Brock of the Undead mostly chronicles the title character sensation of vampirism after being turned. Vampires in this one can float without bat wings, gain pointy ears when showcasing their monsterous side, sometimes stuck in socks since they tend to Wall Crawl and shoes leave footprints, partially transform parts of their body into bat form and can be nice or evil depending on the master.
 * The vampires in Orange Marmalade have been living in society (legally, everybody "knows" about them - racism is involved) and are watered down versions of the typical vampire, due to only drinking pig blood. They can go out in sunlight, they do have fangs (though these get filed down by most vampires), they have extra-fast healing abilities, they're sensitive to the cold and they aren't able to eat any food except pig (meaning Ma-ri has to throw her lunch up everyday at school).
 * The Kingfisher includes the concept of vampire families with different powers. In The Kingfisher each family is founded by a progenitor. This is a person who became a vampire naturally upon dying, which seems to happen mainly to insane criminals, persecuted and executed by a community. When a progenitor turns someone into a vampire, that victim gains some of the powers and quirks associated with the progenitor, though is considerably less powerful.
 * Shifters is a Web Comic with Vampires heavily integrated into the plot.
 * In the Shifters Universe Vampires are not truly Undead.
 * Explained in the "Original Run" issue "Blood Bonds" here and here.
 * Lampshaded in this strip from Sluggy Freelance; the vampires which Muffin the Vampire Baker fought were completely different from the Lysinda Circle vampires, which only made things confusing when Sam, a LC vamp, showed up in Hell Mouth.
 * The strip later introduced the Vrykolakas Circle vampires, which are substantially different from the Lysinda Circle. Lysinda vampires can't enter houses without being invited, but Vrykolakas vampires can. A person drained to death by a Vrykolakas vampire becomes a new one and retains no independent will or shred of humanity, whereas Lysinda vampires can only be made via a special ritual, and they keep their individuality and can even betray their superiors if they choose. A Vrykolakas vampire can be turned to dust if staked through the heart, whereas a Lysinda vampire just shrivels up and stops moving, but immediately comes back to life if the stake is pulled out.
 * Riff, being Jewish, can burn vampires with his Star of David.
 * What's New With Phil and Dixie had an issue on vampires: