Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

Boots!

Where would we be without boos?

Where would we be without good?

No, Zendiburg.

It's a rhetorical question, sir,

but where would we need without books?

From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today I'm very excited.

I have a guest, Victorian Nelson.

She has written a book called Gothica, and at last someone has written a book that explains to me the video games, the horror novels, all of the comic books and graphic novels, the Hellboys. You know, I've been there for Chris Ware or Art Spiegelman, but this is the superhero stuff.

And she sees it as a reading of the culture and what it's like to be alive and young and what it's like to be scared.

And it's the most exciting work of criticism I've read maybe in 15 years.

So here she is.

How did you start?

I mean, you're the queen of the Gothic.

Well, I think all true passionate writing kind of comes out of your own deep interests. And as a child,

I know I always, always, always, always loved ghost stories. I didn't get to read horror comics

when I was a kid because my parents belonged to that generation that believed that Dr. Vertam knew what he was talking about and you shouldn't expose your children to violent comics. So my brother and I read Donald Duck and we read classics illustrated comics and that was kind of our fair. But I discovered ghost stories and loved them and still love them very much.

I will say, just to be totally honest, that I don't care for vampires or zombies.

Zombies make me very anxious.

Vampires, I don't really thrill to, but as I got deeper and deeper and deeper into this question of the supernatural, and it's very peculiar

...