Lost Anne Rice Vampire Comic Book Turns Up 30 Years Later

So why did the final issue of Queen of the Damned never come out? Innovation Comics went into bankruptcy because of the big “comics crunch” of the mid-’90s. This rapid decline in comic book sales, largely due to the ’90s speculator boom, led to the demise of many publishers. This happened just before the final issue of Queen of the Damned went to print in 1994.

In a pre-Internet era, fans had no idea what had happened. All they knew was that the last chapter of Rice’s comic book trilogy never arrived. But now, over three decades later, the completed art for the final issue went up for auction. It seems one buyer bought them all. Most pages were posted on Comic Art Fans, giving fans a first look at the final issue.

All of this makes us wonder why someone just can’t license those old comics and reprint them? Innovation did collect The Vampire Lestat, and it goes for a lot on eBay these days. But their adaptation of Interview with the Vampire never received a collected edition. Now that the artwork for Queen of the Damned is out there, it would be amazing if an existing comic book company somehow got the rights, and reprinted all three. With renewed interest in Rice’s undead thanks to the various AMC series, now would be a perfect time to introduce fans of the show to the only way we visualized Lestat and company before they ever graced any screen, be it big or small.