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It's a dark and stormy night, and you aren't sure which fork to use at Lord Eldritch's candlelit dinner for 13—who you gonna call? The elegant gothic lady with impeccable manners, of course! Well, Jillian Venters, aka the Lady of the Manners and proprietress of the Gothic Charm School, may not get many questions about silverware, but we're positive she'd know what to do in that situation.

Long before we first reviewed her site in 2003, she'd been dispensing acclaimed etiquette advice to velvet-clad denizens of the night. Recently, we left our calling card at her door and were soon welcomed into Jilli's virtual parlor to chat about politeness, romance, cupcakes, and the Crow.

Why did you start writing an etiquette column for goths?

It all started when I went to dinner with a friend who was starting up a goth webzine. He asked me to write some sort of monthly column for the site, and I said "Oooh, like a gothic finishing school! I could lecture people about bad eyeliner and getting upset about people staring at you when you look like you've escaped from a Tim Burton movie!"

How did you become the Lady of the Manners? Were you always the most polite person among your gothic friends?

Ha! I don't think I've always been the most polite person among my gothic friends, but I know that I've always been aware of people's reactions to me and how I respond to them. I've never understood the appeal of being rude to people just because you can. It's much more fun to shock people by behaving impeccably.

Do you find that goths have special etiquette needs that other people don't?

Goths have ... not special etiquette needs, but slightly different etiquette needs than other people. Things like planning a goth wedding, goth club etiquette, or how to deal with tourists wanting to take your picture because you look "so different!" Non-goths don't usually have to deal with people randomly asking them if they're witches, vampires, or if they know that it isn't Halloween yet.

Are the questions you get from teenagers or adults or both?

Both. I get a fair amount of mail from "ElderGoths" in their 30s and 40s, asking for advice on being a goth and negotiating the corporate world or how do they get people to believe that they are goths who ARE in their 30s and 40s, that it's not just a teenage phase. I also get a steady trickle of thank you notes from parents who have stumbled across my site and found it reassuring.

What's the most frequently asked question or most common theme to the questions?

The most common theme to the questions I get is "My parents won't let me be a goth! They don't understand meeeee!" I get at least one letter like that a week. I know it's the topic I write about the most.

I always worry that the kids who write to me with that particular refrain are hoping for some sort of magical fix-it from me, that I'll be able to tell them something that will make their parents change their minds instantly.

Sadly, it doesn't work like that; I always tell the kids that the first step is to sit down and talk to their parents. Try to find out what they don't like about their child being a goth, and try to assuage their fears. (Of course, this is where I also always suggest that the kidlings point their parents at the Gothic Charm School site, but I don't know how many of them do that.)

What's been the oddest question—that you have or haven't answered on the site?

The oddest question was probably the one from the reader who was being treated rather shabbily by their friends because the friends were Real Vampires and the reader was not. The reader wanted to know how they should react to their friends.

It was one of my favorite questions because it was such a perfect example of the clichés people believe about goths; that we really do think we're eldritch creatures of the night.

The oddest question that I haven't answered was a letter asking about gothic sexual habits and did I have pictures? Sorry, Gothic Charm School is not That Kind of Web Site.

Love and romance questions seem to come up often—is that a particularly tricky issue for goths or just for everyone?

I think that love and romance can certainly be tricky for everyone, but that goths have an extra layer of expectations about the whole thing. If you're a goth, you're probably of a more romantic nature than most people. Goths want everything to be elaborate and decadent, festooned with black lace and artfully sprinkled with red rose petals. Which is delightful, but that sometimes leads to heightened expectations that no one can realistically live up to.

Plus there's that great gothic cliché of sitting in your darkened room, writing poems of forlorn heartbreak and deathless love; that cliché lives in every goth's head, even if we don't act on it.

You've gotten a number of questions about online interactions. How do you think the Internet has changed etiquette? Are people ruder online?

I don't think people are ruder online, necessarily. I think being online has just given people a wider arena for being rude. It's easy to be rude or cruel to people you will probably never meet face to face.

Not only are the cues of tone of voice and body language not there, but I suspect that for a lot of people, online interactions are happening in a solipsistic little bubble. That they secretly think they're the only real person, so why should they care about other people's feelings? Needless to say, I don't agree with that viewpoint at all.

When we first reviewed your site for Picks, it had a slightly different name. Can you tell us why you changed it?

Oh goodness. The site was changed from Gothic Miss Manners to Gothic Charm School because it turned out that I was infringing on someone else's trademarks and intellectual property. That infringement was completely inadvertent and unintentional; the person in question is someone I look up to and admire immensely.

So when the question of infringement was brought to my attention, I promptly came up with a new name for my writings and sweet-talked a friend into doing a site re-design for me.

Describe your personal gothic fashion style for those not lucky enough to be sitting across from the Lady of the Manners at this interview.

I've lately taken to calling it Cupcake Gothic, which is a more succinct explanation than "Whimsical Gothic NeoVictorian. With knee-length petticoats." I wear frilly knee-length skirts with lots of petticoats, Victorian-esque ruffly lace blouses and black fitted jackets, and a top hat of some sort on most days. And yes, I go to work dressed like that every day.

The main colors in my wardrobe are black, light pink, and black-and-white stripes. My collections of petticoats, stripy tights, and top hats are not-so-slowly taking over my house.

Who made the cartoon pictures of the Lady of the Manners on the site?

My husband, Pete Venters. He's a professional artist and is better known for the artwork he's done over the past 14 years for the collectible trading card game "Magic: the Gathering."

Pete does all the designs and art associated with the Gothic Charm School site and merchandise and is very patient when I start waving my hands excitedly and exclaiming "Oooh, swirly bats! I need more swirly bats!"

Where did the term "snarklings" come from? Is it naughty or nice?

"Snarklings" came from me trying to find a pet name that meant someone snarky; it's a combination of snark and darling. It's not really naughty or nice, but more mischievously affectionate in nature.

We noticed quite a few columns end with Lady of the Manners going off for ice cream. What's your favorite flavor?

At the moment, it's Green & Black's Dark Chocolate ice cream, which is made with bittersweet chocolate and is fantastic. I'm also quite fond of lavender or rose ice cream.

OK, so what's the deal with "friends don't let friends dress like the Crow"? Explain it for the uninitiated.

Well, you see ... there was this comic called "The Crow," and the main character had a very striking look. He looked like a scary Pierrot clown with a white face, a black-painted smile, and black triangles above and below his eyes. The comic itself was about lost love and revenge, has become a goth classic, and was turned into a pretty good movie (with some kind of dreadful sequels).

The problem is, the character of the Crow has become so iconic that dressing like him has become a shorthand for "I'm Dark and Spooky and Tormented!" Which, if you have to proclaim those things that loudly, means you are trying too hard. Not to mention that very few people look good in Crow makeup; most people look silly or look like they're trying to dress up as a scary mime.

"Friends don't let friends dress like the Crow" just seemed like good advice.

We promise not to paint our faces with eyeliner, and whenever we have dark and dramatic etiquette issues, we'll come back to your finishing school. Thanks, Lady!

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