Vampire Comic ‘Night of the Cadillacs’ Launching Female-Led Spinoff

The vampire comic Night of the Cadillacs was plotted out years ago on bar napkins around California’s San Fernando Valley. So it’s fitting that the new spinoff, Lip Stick Cliqa, has its roots in the Valley, too.

Night of the Cadillacs co-creator Sean E Demott was driving around, and pulled into Galaxy Comics, a comic shop in the Valley he’d never before visited. He wanted to see if it carried Night of the Cadillacs, the 2021 book centering on star-crossed lovers, with a member of a supernatural gang breaking away from his crew to go on the run with a human young woman.

Inside the store, Kayden Phoenix was signing copies of her book A la Brava, which stars a Latina superhero team. “I was like, ‘Who are you and what are these cool books you’ve created ?,’” recalls Demott. “I spent a few months pitching her our crazy project and we were fortunate enough to collaborate with her.”

The result of that collaboration is Lip Stick Cliqa, a three-part series that centers on an all-female Vampire chola gang in the midst of a turf battle in which they must defend their neighborhood and avenge their family’s honor. The action leaves blood in its wake. Lip Stick Cliqa hails from Execution Posse, a publishing and IP holding company that styles itself as a punk rock Marvel.

“They had a clear vision of the Lip Stick Cliqa and fully supported me in honoring my Chicana culture,” says Phoenix, who wrote all three issues.

The book, which has art from Gershon Villamor, is planned for a summer launch. Execution Posse says it intends to create a film from the property. (It has already filmed an adaptation of one of its other comics, Trim Season.)

Says Phoenix: “This was a perfect project to follow up on after A La Brava because it was an opportunity to uphold my cultural traditions — and show street culture authentically — through a new genre that I haven’t explored before.”