All in Black & White Interview with Angelique Trouvere - 2007

Welcome to our newest interview at All In Black & White For 75 Cents! As I've said before, one of the most fun things doing these blogs is getting the chance to talk to the people who were personally involved with these great comics and magazines.

And one of the nicest people I've "met" online is Angelique Trouvere, who as most of you will remember was famous for her amazing self-made costumes(and her even-more amazing ability to fill them out) and become real-life versions of characters like Vampirella(left), Satana, and Red Sonja.

Even though Angelique had just finished an exhaustively wide-ranging interview with Richard Ardnt over at enjolrasworld, she generously agreed to talk to me:

All In Black and White: Had you seen many comic books before discovering Vampirella?

Angelique Trouvere: As a kid, I read Superman, Superboy, Lois Lane, some Disney & Classics Illustrated. Later, I found EC's, Mad, Conan the Barbarian and underground comics of the late '60's like Cheech Wizard, R. Crumb, Zap, & my fav: the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers--it was funny and had a very cool cat named Fat Freddy's Cat in it.

B/W: What was it like, discovering Vampirella and Warrens for the first time and then being in them so soon afterwards?

AT: Nothing prepared me for my first encounter with Vampirella! The overall look of the comic magazine was breathtaking as well and the stories intriguing but it was Vampi herself(drawn by Jose Gonzales) that captured my imagination and heart.

I started collecting everything I could find on her(I still have 3 of the original Warren 6-foot posters of her). I was into costumes and once I discovered comicCons and their masquerades, I decided to recreate her costume. In my interview at enjolrasworld, I go into detail about my whole Vampi experience and how it brought me to the attention of Warren writers, Gerry Boudreau & Anthony Tollin as well as editor, Bill DuBay. It was so incredibly exciting to be included in the article that Gerry was writing about the 1973 Seuling ComicCon that I appeared at as Vampirella. When I saw it in Vampi #29 I was beside myself with joy!

B/W: Warren Publications was clearly supportive of your efforts, running pics of you in their magazines. Did Marvel ever talk to you, or show you that same kind of interest?
AT: James Warren did not care for me at all and did not support me in any way as far as promoting me in his magazines. It was the efforts of Boudreau & DuBay that allowed me to share in the article in Vampi #29.

As for Marvel, Tony Isabella told me during our talks for the interview that he did try to get Marvel to do some sort of pictorial of me as Satana but no dice. As far as I know, the only coverage I ever got from Marvel was either in the letters column of one of their Conan magazines when they used a picture of me as Satana & my friend, Kris Lundy as the 1st appearance of Red Sonja, or in The Savage Sword of Conan #29(?) that carried the whole "Red Sonja & the Wizard Show" drawn by Frank Thorne and had added mini bios & pics of each of the Sonjas.

B/W: Judging by most of your costumes, you seemed drawn to the tougher comic book heroines, like Vampi and Red Sonja, as opposed to, say, Supergirl or the Invisible Girl--more "traditional"(and passive) female comic book characters. Was that how you saw yourself?

AT: Definitely! I also preferred more challenging costumes to recreate. When I met artist, George Perez at a masquerade, he told me that a friend had told him that I refused to recreate the Scarlet Witch--which he was drawing at the time--because her costume was too simple.

Perez said that upon hearing that he decided that one day he would create a challenging costume that I would have to make and he did! It was Princess Kori (aka: Starfire) of the Teen Titans and I had that costume on my "to do" list but my life got side tracked and I sadly never got to do it.

B/W: How were you able to successfully fend off what had to be hordes of...er, overly-excited comic book fanboys at conventions?

AT: Really never had any problems with fanboys--maybe it was the sword...?

B/W: Have you always been comfortable performing, or was it something you slowly got used to?

AT: Always :) I've been a ham since I was a baby!

B/W: What did you enjoy more, the making of the costumes or the performing in them?

AT: While I enjoy the challenge of making a costume, performing is a lot easier.

B/W: I'm sure constructing costumes yourself took an enormous amount of patience and concentration. Did you enjoy that process, or was it just a means to getting to perform in them, which was the fun part?

AT: It's hard to say. Sometimes a costume would develop a glitch that would cause no end of headaches to complete. Others were great fun because I was making them with a friend. Sometimes I would be very focused on the project and found it very exciting when I completed a section. Blackadder & Queenie were like that because I had never attempted to do such a complex historically accurate pair of costumes before. I was always amazed to see each part was working out and the better it looked, the more excited I got.

As for the performing part, many times, I wasn't sure what exactly I would do until I was in costume and ready to head down to the masquerade. Although I had a general idea of what I'd like to do--it depended on the character of course.

Red Sonja was a sword-wielding warrioress and Daggit was so cute, all I had to do was walk out(on all fours), sit & twirl those ears to entertain the audience. When I became part of Kris Curling's "Doctors in the House" comedy group, then performance became more emphasized.

In fact, Kris & his co authors wrote a special piece just for me as the daggit. It was based on the early Wild Kingdom TV show and featured some hysterical slapstick between a very frustrated Jim Fowler and a wild "Bush Daggit". In one scene I was pulled across stage riding a skateboard to escape Jim! (It was called "Hunting the Wild Bush Daggit")

B/W: If you were still making and dressing up in costumes today, are there any contemporary heroines you'd try? Lara Croft, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spider-Woman?

AT: Most of the current heroines are not that interesting costume-wise. I think I've gotten a bit burned out. But that doesn't mean I can't be inspired again someday. One of the last ones I did some years back was Elvira because she's fun to do.

B/W: Have you kept up with many of the people you met in comics?

AT: Thanks to both the internet and my interview, I have been in touch a lot more of my old comic con friends.

B/W: What's a Library Technician? Do the people you work with have any idea there are pictures of you (almost)dressed as Vampirella and Red Sonja around, in print? :)

AT: "Librarians: the original search engine." :) A Library Technician is another word for Library Assistant or Associate--which means that I can do many of the specialized services that librarians can offer like catalogue books, locate books & articles, request same from other libraries, etc. But I don't have a Masters degree in Library Science which expands the abilities of the librarian.

As for my coworkers knowing about my other life: only the really cool ones know.


It was soooo much fun talking to Angelique, her enthusiasm for the comics and her love for what she was doing is contagious, even all these years later. I thank her very much for taking the time to talk to me, she's a real sweetheart. Thanks Angelique!
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So with this interview with the awesome Angelique, we're ending what I'll oh-so-trendily call "Season One" of All In Black & White For 75 Cents. When I first started the blog, I had a few hundred b/w mags and I knew over time I'd go through them all. I've bought some more over time, as well(and had some sent to me) but I knew I wanted to hit a pause at some point, and that's where we're at now.

I'm going to take a two-week break from posting here, but when we come back on Monday, December 10, we'll kick off a two-week extravaganza where we'll be talking about nothing but first issues and/or magazines that have never been discussed before here on the blog. I've got some cool stuff, some long overdue stuff, and some just plain weird stuff on tap and it oughta be a lot of fun. (I also want to work on the format a little bit--a few more graphics, and maybe a little more in-depth examinations of certain important issues.)

So thanks for checking out my humble little blog, and please stay tuned, the best is yet to come. See you December 10!