Jenna is a quiet, hard-working teen from Echo Park who, after losing her job, becomes a “partier-for-hire.” Putting on a costume and playing someone else nightly, she gets sucked into the world of the LA nightlife. There, she meets Mac, a suburban kid who works the parties as a server and Pouri, a Taiwanese “parachute kid” who lives and breathes the party scene, and soon the three are mixed up in lies, blackmail, and kidnapping as all their well-laid plans spin wildly out of control.

This is the world of Poseurs, the new graphic novel published by Image Comics and now available in comics shops nationwide. The story was written by Deborah Vankin, a reporter for the LA Times who has spent the last twelve years of her life living in and reporting on LA.

“The whole idea of Poseurs is that not everything is what it seems. The city isn’t what it seems. A tattoo parlor is an underground speakeasy. Things that are seemingly ugly on the surface, like the bone dry LA River, are actually beautiful in their own way. The characters aren’t as they seem, even to themselves, until the very end,” says Vankin.

Vankin relies heavily on the varied texture of the different areas of LA throughout the book, which is told in the style of a memoir. Each character gets a chance to talk about their LA and as they do, the city itself becomes a character in what Vankin has called a “party noir” tale.“This story could never have taken place anywhere else,” said Vankin. “The city was my inspiration. I always meant consciously as I was writing the book, for the city of LA to be the fourth main character. It’s such a diverse and richly textured city that’s often misunderstood, and that goes along with the themes of Poseurs.”

The book was written during Vankin’s time as the Editor-in-Chief at Metromix, one of LA's local nightlife publications, and she used a lot of what she saw there as inspiration for the colorful scenes, outfits and situations the three teens find themselves in throughout the story. Though their experiences were fiction, she said, their situations were drawn from reality.

“I used my experience in the nightlife world more as a backdrop than anything else,” said Vankin of the wildly elaborate parties the characters attend. “It was just such a naturally colorful, provocative, richly textured world that I was covering. So I have been to splashy premiere parties and art openings in downtown warehouses and book parties in the hills and performance art parties in tents with trapeze artists and midgets serving hors d’oeuvres. I have been to things like that so I just used that as a launching pad and then I took it one step farther and fictionalized it.”

Though the book took Vankin about a year to write and artist Rick Mays another to draw, the project as a whole has been waiting even longer for its moment in the spotlight. Vankin originally wrote the book for the ill-fated DC/Minx line. But once the imprint folded, Poseurs was without a home. Luckily, Image publisher Eric Stephenson was on the lookout.

“I knew Jim Rugg and David Hahn, who had books at Minx, so I contacted them and asked what was going on with their respective projects once DC shut the line down,” said Stephenson. “I think it was Jim that mentioned Deborah's book and suggested I get in touch with her. She and I had a brief conversation after that and then she sent me the material, which I loved, and then it was just a case of working things out with DC, which her literary agent, the wonderful Seth Fishman handled. And that sounds relatively simple, but in actuality, it took a few years to put all this together. Deborah and Seth were incredibly persistent, though, and I'm happy that we're finally going to have this book in people's hands.”

One of the main problems that the Minx line suffered from was a difficulty placing Young Adult graphic novels like Poseurs into the market in a way that would appeal to the YA readers. Not only are graphic novels not a regular staple of the YA section, but also, a majority of today’s Young Adult books are aimed at young women, a segment that hasn't always been targeted by the comic book industry. But Stephenson said he feels that placement isn’t the problem so much as content, and he’s looking forward to Poseurs bridging the gap.

“The vast majority of what's coming out these days is aimed at an older audience. I think the main appeal of Poseurs is that it's not only intended for younger readers, but also, it's looking beyond the typically male comics readership. Anyone looking for a great book to put into the hands of a young woman curious about graphic novels need look no further than Poseurs.”

Vankin is already working on a sequel to the book that picks up with the characters a year later and has them facing “whole new set of double entendres.”

Image is working on other YA projects as well in David Hahn’s The Allnighter, also picked up from Minx, and Mark Andrew Smith’s Gladstone’s School for World Conquers. Poseurs is available in comics shops now and bookstores April 6, 2011. The 152 page, black and white book will be available for $16.99.