Highs and lows

Slate has set out to answer a question I've been wondering about myself: what's with all the recent articles proclaiming vampires some kind of "new craze"? Haven't they been a consistent craze? (There's certainly been a steady vampire-story presence throughout my lifetime.) Anyway, two Slate writers have mapped the ebb and flow of vamp popularity since the 1960s in their Garlic Years Timeline.