PRESS RELEASE
Lucha libre legend Vampiro has spent 2024 drawing sell-out crowds to arenas across Mexico for his in-ring retirement tour. As he winds down a 4 decade-long career competing in the squared circle, his life outside of arenas has been heating up. With a podcast that averages over 1 million views a week across social media, the launch of a spoken word tour and the debut of his new comic book series, Vampiro: Rockabilly Apocalypse from Masked Republic Comics & Massive Publishing, the most successful non-Hispanic in the history of lucha libre may be leaving the ring in Mexico, but not the spotlight.
The debut issue of the series, which was released in comic book shops across the U.S. on October 16th, has been receiving rave reviews and drawing comparisons to horror and sci-fi classics including “From Dusk Till Dawn,” “Army of Darkness” and “They Live.” “Vampiro: Rockabilly Apocalypse is like an early 90s action horror blockbuster,” Ricardo Serrano Denis of Comics Beat declared in a headline for the website. Professor Frederick Luis Aldama, Eisner award-winning scholar and author of The Cinema of Robert Rodriguez said, “With the raw, relentless energy of a Rodriguez Grindhouse flick, Vampiro: Rockabilly Apocalypse this high-octane, genre-bending comic smashes the boundaries of storytelling, delivering a full-throttle ride that’ll have you rethinking everything you thought you knew about comics.”
Today, Trioscope, the studio behind Netflix’s “The Liberator,” George R. R. Martin’s “Night of the Cooters,” and upcoming action thriller feature “Takeover” and lucha libre powerhouse Masked Republic announced a production pact to develop the Vampiro: Rockabilly Apocalypse for television.
“Trioscope’s core mission is to unlock the world’s great untold stories. From the moment we first saw Vampiro, we knew it was a world that Trioscope would be the perfect medium for, and we cannot wait to bring Vampiro to life on screen.” Trioscope’s president, Brandon Barr, said.
“While the mission for Masked Republic Comics is always firstly great storytelling and visuals on the printed page, we could not be more excited to have piqued the interest of Trioscope Studios with this series,” Vampiro: Rockabilly Apocalypse co-creator and imprint co-publisher Kevin Kleinrock said. ‘We have a great partner in print distribution with Massive Publishing and now we have an incredible partner in developing the series from the page to the screen in Trioscope. Every single production of theirs has brought something new and fresh to filmmaking, and we are looking forward to rolling up our sleeves and working with their incredible team to innovate comic book adaptation.”
Garnering critical acclaim, year-end comic book industry balloting has seen Vampiro: Rockabilly Apocalypse #1 nominated as Best Debut Issue and Michael Kingston as Best Writer for the series by multiple podcasts and websites.
Vampiro: Rockabilly Apocalypse #1 is available now on Massive Publishing website: https://massivepublishing.com/collections/vampiro-rockabilly-apocalypse . Issue two will be available this Wednesday, December 4 at local comic book shops and Massive website!
