Manayunk bookstore hosts meet-and-greet with vampire artist Louis Pesci

It’s been four years since a drunk driver slammed into the driver’s side of Louis Pecsi’s parked car and nearly killed him.

The last thing he remembers from that day is the sound of screeching metal. He awoke in a stretcher to paramedics standing over him, asking him questions he couldn’t remember the answers to, like his name and address. 

He had to learn how to read again. He can only cover 20 pages in the time it used to take him to read 100. But 46-year-old Pecsi says the accident taught him to be grateful for every day he’s alive.Pecsi, 46, of Deptford, New Jersey, turned to illustrating his own vampire story to cope with the trauma. The ultimate result of Pecsi’s creative therapy is 2009’s graphic novel “Nosferatu the Untold Origins.”

Pesci will promote the book at the Spiral Bookcase in Manayunk on Friday at 6:30 p.m. “Nosferatu the Untold Origin” tells the backstory of an iconic vampire of the same name, who first frightened audiences in the 1922 silent film “Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens” by F.W. Murnae. Pecsi’s interpretation shows the transformation of a 15th century crusader to the ghastly vampire Nosferatu. The story features some 300 of Pecsi’s original digital paintings, which he meticulously drew on the three-by-four-inch touchscreen of an electronic tablet for the first-time in his lifelong artistic career. “It took me years to draw it as digital,” says Pecsi. “But I’ve always been good at drawing on a small scale. I used to draw really good pictures on matchbooks for my friends in high school.”Pecsi says he can instantly add and manipulate a new layer in digital painting, while a single layer of oil takes about seven days to dry before a new layer can be added. “I used to have an absolute hatred and phobia of computers,” says Pecsi. “Now I realize they don’t replace talent, but they open up all these avenues for creativity.”Pecsi has since upgraded his digital canvas to a new 17-inch screen on which he’ll be drawing his next projects – a sequel to “Nosferatu the Untold Origins” and illustrations of Edgar Allen Poe’s work. 

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“I dreamt that the ghost of Edgar Allen Poe visited me and said he really liked my work,” says Pecsi. “I’m using that as my inspiration.” For more information on Louis Pecsi visit www.NosferatuOrigins.com

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