We Absolutely Need A Vampire Huntress Legend Television or Movie Series for The Culture
Why Brining the Popular Book Series to the Small Screen is Long Overdue
When I watched Chlöe’s debut video, Have Mercy I thought-“She would make a perfect Damali Richards!” At the time I know I was the only person in the world to think this. How do I know? I Googled it - Duh! Seriously I actually did Google.
Chlöe Bailey is a triple threat, an accomplished vocalist, dancer and actress. A brilliant artist, who embraces her sexuality, beauty and natural locs as proudly as Damali Richards was said to have done in A Vampire Huntress Legend Series. Like Damali she can captivate an audience. A quick peruse of her Instagram one can see that Chlöe literally “slays”every look she is assigned and looks like she would be able to slay. This is rule 101 of being an action hero & vampire slayer.
For those who may not know, A Vampire Huntress Legend Series are twelve books written by Philadelphia based prolific author L.A. Banks. The series delved into the sci-fi / supernatural / horror genre. Before she passed in 2011, Banks wrote several different series of novels within this genre.
The first novel in A Vampire Huntress Series, Minion introduces readers to the main protagonist, Damali Richards a 20 year old black woman who is a revered neo-soul hip-hop spoken word artist by day and a fearsome vampire slayer by night.
Damali’s origin story can be categorized with Batman’s, however, what makes Damali’s grittier and more realistic is she was orphaned without an inheritance and without a guardian and placed in the foster care system in the inner-city. The series as a whole centers on the struggle of good versus evil. Emphasizing how one must choose good over and over again. Brace yourself the series is also sexy, with a hefty mixture of romance & erotica.
If A Vampire Huntress Legend was brought to the small screen, the second question is who would play Damali’s friend/love-interest, infamous Bad Boy Carlos Rivera. For this I would ask others to weigh in, but Jacob Scipio, who played Armando Aretas in Bad Boys for Life comes to mind.
There are so many women authors who like Banks penned fantastic book series during the late 90’s and early 2000’s in similar genres. Unlike Banks, their books were turned into blockbuster films seemingly as soon as the ink on them dried. The question remains, why haven't L.A. Banks fantasy novels made it to the small screen yet? Especially, with so many streaming platforms that could allow the series to cultivate.
Recent success of The CW’s Black Lightning, HBO Max’s Watchmen & Love Craft Country and Disney’s Luke Cage & Black Panther, prove audiences support television and films in the fantasy, sci-fi, supernatural genres. It also shows audiences will flock to watch stories about super heroes & saviors told from the African Diaspora, Pan-Africanism and Multi-Cultural perspectives.
L.A. Banks is an author whose works we should consciously seek to curate. Her work should not be allowed to fade into the background. She has created phenomenal pieces of fiction which continue to impact readers from across the globe. It would be nice to see her work expanded to television and film in an effort to further exhibit the value of diversity in the genres she centered her work around.
