This interview was originally written for Huffington Post.

Before the first issue of American Vampire hit newsstands, I had a chance to talk to its creator, Scott Snyder and bring Huffington Post readers a preview of the book. I had read the first issue of the book, but I had no idea where it was heading. Since that last time, six more issues of the book have been released and the first collection has come out in hardcover this week.

American Vampire has turned out to be one of the smartest and most fun books to read, and it’s one that I look forward to eagerly every month. In fact, the first volume shot to number 1 on the hardcover list of the New York Times Graphic Books list just last week.

To commemorate the release of the first trade in hardcover by Snyder and Stephen King, I had a chance to talk to Snyder again and we spoke about the book and why it would appeal to readers of Huffington Post, even if they might not ordinarily be comic readers.

The book itself offers readers a look at eras through the history of the new strain of American vampires. The first trade takes place in two distinct eras, the wild west (written by King), and the silent film era of the ’20s. (The latest story arc is occurs around the building of the Hoover Dam in Las Vegas during the Depression.)

“For anyone who hasn’t read it yet, the concept is that we try and imagine vampires as these physiological creatures that every once in a while randomly mutate when the bloodline hits someone new from somewhere new. And so there’s this secret genealogical tree to vampirism with all these different species and the classic species we know is the European breed, the pale, anemic, nocturnal, stake-through-the-heart kind, is just one species among many. For reasons that are secret in the series, they become the dominant species, so the series focuses specifically on this new breed of vampire that’s born in the American west in the 1880s and the bloodline mutates and this outlaw named Skinner Sweet becomes infected. He becomes a new kind of vampire with new powers. He has different claws, different fangs, different abilities, different weaknesses. And the general conflict in the series is how all these vampires who came before him don’t know how to kill him and we follow his bloodline through different decades in American history through the lens of vampirism and we explore what, as Americans, makes us heroic and monstrous at different points in history. It also tells kind of a dark, twisted, popcorn story all at once. And the first trade collects the first five issues, my story and Stephen King’s story.”

When asked about why Huffington Post readers would identify with the book, Snyder told me, “Without giving too much of a political opinion through the decades, we try and look at both sides of what makes the American character something to be admired and something to be feared. And we try also to include a healthy dose of history and of cultural information about that time period. We explore it and have fun with it and at the same time to think. One of the things I love about the Huffington Post is that, yeah, it has political inclinations that appeal to me, but on top of that, it’s really good about publishing stories that aren’t entirely from one side and can be contradictory and make you think. And a they have a very healthy dose of humor and entertainment and I’m hoping that we fit relatively well with [Huffington Post readers].”

Having read the book, I can attest to the sense of place and culture the book provides. The last issue I read felt a clever mix between a horror novel and Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. The Depression is in full swing and we’re treated with a look at one of the few places thriving, the very vampiric city of Las Vegas, and the struggles of a small-town lawman with all the hallmarks of a Tom Joad character.

The issues contained in the first collected edition have the same horror feeling, but as if it was playing out in an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. This is writing of high literary quality in the pages of a horror comic book.

This is the way vampires should be done. If you’re reading any comic right now, this one might be the most illuminating as far as the American spirit through our recent history is concerned.

In addition to his writing duties on American Vampire, Snyder is also going to be starting as the regular writer on Detective Comics, one of the flagship (and oldest running) titles in the Batman universe. I would advise getting to a comic book store and asking for them to hold you a copy. If you want to learn more about his coming tenure on Batman, be sure to head over to Big Shiny Robot! and read about that portion of the interview there.

You can also listen to our whole conversation by clicking over to iTunes.

And again, you can order the first volume of American Vampire, it’s available now.