On the way to a showing of Ghost World in New York almost exactly six years ago, music journalist Gabe Soria started telling his friends, comics creator Jessica Abel and her husband, Matt Madden, about a goofy idea for a story of a young vampire who was stuck working the night shift at a crummy convenience store. Abel thought it sounded clever, and Madden made a note in his Palm Pilot.
This spring, that seed of an idea is finally emerging as the graphic novel Life Sucks (published by First Second), which puts a new spin on well-worn vampire mythology. Partnering on the script, Abel and Soria crafted a story that includes many of the tropes of vampire stories—blood sucking, weakness to sunlight, immortality—but uses them in unconventional ways.
"Vampires would always be rich," Soria said of the bloodsucker books and movies he grew up with. "There was never any sort of worry on their part about, like, how am I going to pay the note on my house? I thought, wouldn't it be weird to peek in on a vampire when he was starting out and when he had nothing?"
That mindset, so common to 20-somethings of all types, is what defines the book's protagonist, Dave. The mildly motivated Dave takes a job at a Los Angeles convenience store, only to be bitten by the store's owner, an old Eastern European vampire. In one of the book's many clever riffs, the owner is much closer to Carl, the odd-ball neighbor from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, than Bela Lugosi. Another is that the former vegetarian Dave can't bring himself to kill for blood, so he relies on buying donated bags of the red stuff. The narrative, always holding onto a sense of ennui, traces Dave's efforts to woo a goth girl, Rosa, who frequents his shop, and his struggle to find a foothold in his new (eternal) existence.
While most new vampiric incarnations either satirize the genre or modernize it—think Blade or Buffy —Life Sucks is something different, a character-driven story that deromanticizes the vampire lifestyle even while using it for comedic and dramatic effect. "We're not claiming to reinvent the wheel," Soria said. "We just wanted to do something that used the basic vampire mythology to explore a story about boredom and alienation, that day-to-day struggle to get by."
For Abel, the project was much closer to the mainstream than her previous books, such as La Perdida. Still, she said, the goal was to create a book that's accessible and humorous while remaining challenging and thoughtful. "I never want to sell out," she said. "I never want to write just pap. I want it to feel honest. Given the supernatural elements, I want it to ring true."
Putting the story together and seeing it published was something of a marathon for the writers. Abel, best known for her indie book Artbabe, initially followed up with Soria and said she wanted to write the project together. From there, they started holding regular writing sessions at cafes and each other's apartments. Working with another writer was new to both of them, though, and things didn't always go smoothly.
"It took forever to do the first version, because we didn't have our system down—we didn't know how to work together," Abel said. "The thing we eventually got to was, we would get together and have brainstorming sessions for larger arcs. Then we would break it down into sections and scenes, and we would each draft. Then we'd trade them, and then meet again and talk about them."
Despite the challenges, each said the partnership lends the book a well-rounded voice and perspective. "Jessica had a real feel for the interactions between the characters," said Soria. "The relationship between Dave and Rosa is so much from Jessica's insight—that uncertain world. I'm just kind of the dude perspective."
Once the script was finished, Abel and Soria began casting about for publishers. As the graphic novel scene hadn't exploded yet in the United States, they originally talked to a French publisher, but that deal fell through. Then, at a party, Abel brought up the idea to Mark Siegel, who was just starting the First Second comics imprint for Roaring Brook Press.
"Once First Second got under way, Jessica gave me this proposal for a vampire story that was closer in spirit to Clerks than to, say, Anne Rice—and we were off and running," Siegel said. "Ironically, I remember saying early on I wasn't interested in vampires. And here we are in spring '08 with two vampire titles in one season [Life Sucks and Little Vampire, by Joann Sfar]. In both cases, though, there are variations that take the genre to new places and a unique creative signature that distinguishes them."
With a publisher set for the project, Abel and Soria began looking for an artist, and Nick Abadzis connected them to Warren Pleece, who snapped up the job and set to work. Even though the book was well on its way to creation, Soria said it's still taken a monumental amount of patience to wait for its debut. "God, it took forever," he groaned, mentioning that since starting the book both he and Abel have had children and moved.
"It's been long and tortuous," Abel said. Life Sucks hits shelves on April 29, and Soria said a sequel is already in the planning stages. Soria is also currently beginning several other comics projects, including a "loser noir" set in New Orleans, where Soria and his family recently moved. Abel and Madden have a book on making comics, Drawing Words and Writing Pictures, coming out later this year from First Second, that is based on the cartooning classes Abel and Madden teach at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
