Oh, most people would do a week of vampire books in October, but I pick March. Whatever.

From Badger #44, "Blood Sucker, part two" Written by Mike Baron, pencils by Ron Lim, inks by Paul Abrams. I don't have part one, but suffice it to say, Badger, his boss the druid Ham, and pig vampire hunter Senator Bob Kasten fight vampires. Yeah, the Senator is an honest-to-goodness pig, which may be a commentary on a political figure, but also a vampire hunter, and he has a wooden leg, as part of the punchline to a terrible joke, but also because it's handy for a vampire hunter...

Anyway, I don't know if this had became the huge cliche that it eventually would, but Count Victor Velitnikoff mentions that Dracula died in 1978, and now he was king of the vampires. In a lot of vampire fiction, it became the standard for Dracula to either be a myth, misinformation perpetrated by Bram Stoker; or dead, making way for the writer's super-bad new and modern take on vampires.

In the same vein (boo!) later in the issue, Badger tries out holy water in a "battery-operated squirt Uzi," which I remember from 1989 or so; they never worked as well as you'd hope. Victor laughs it off: "I'm a new wave vampire! Do you think a priest praying over a glass of water is going to affect me!"

Victor turns out to be in Madison, Wisconsin; since he's after Badger's therapist, Daisy; since she's still a virgin. (It's not that uncommon, is it? Well, maybe...) While Badger, Ham, and the Senator hunt for Victor, he's putting the moves on Daisy, which goes pretty well until he bites her.

When Badger and Ham show up to rescue Daisy, Ham accidentally turns Daisy into a frog, and is subsequently overcome with grief; leaving Badger to fight Victor on his own. Although in Blade and Buffy we would see vampires exhibit all kinds of martial arts skills, Baron may be one of the first to have a vamp actually mention training:

As a book, Badger could be either pretty straight-faced, or a bit more broad and satirical, depending on how Baron wanted to play it. This is one of the more "funny" issues, and not every bit hits, but more hit than miss for me.