Writer: Jessica Abel and Gabe Soria
Artist: Warren Pleece
Publisher: First Second (Roaring Book Press)

Life Sucks.

Especially for Dave Miller. You see, Dave is stuck working the night shift at a convenience store. His boss is a bit of a hardass, the cute Goth girl he has a crush on is dating his psychotic surfer-nemesis Wes, he has no money, no life, and has only an eternity of the same to look forward to.

Oh yeah, Dave is also a vampire.

So is Wes, Dave’s boss and Dave’s best friend Jerome.

Dave refuses to suck the blood of humans, and thus doesn’t have the supernatural powers of most vampires (superstrength, turning to mist, hypnotic eyes, etc). This makes him an easy target to be pushed around by his Master, Radu, an old-school vamp from Romania, and for Wes, his “brother” who also calls Radu “Master.” Radu makes Dave work in the convenience store he owns, and Dave falls head over heels for Rosa, a local Goth girl who frequents the store. Along with his friend Jerome, Dave tries his hardest to win Rosa’s heart, and the respect of the people around him.

I have read a LOT of graphic novels in my time, and Life Sucks positively screams to be made into a movie. Jessica Abel and Gabe Soria have written a story that is set in a world that is one part Clerks, one part Buffy, one part Garden State, and all parts funny. It’s a pre-made romantic comedy that not only ups the stakes (no pun intended) of the genre, but of Vampire lore itself. I love how the vampric powers are handled, and the scene in which Rosa tells Dave of her longing to be a vampire, and Dave’s subsequent defense of the mortal life is wonderfully written.

Warren Pleece provides the art in Life Sucks, and the only complaint I have about it is that some of his nighttime panels are a bit to dark. There are a couple of scenes that take place in a club, which is somewhat naturally dark, but the way it’s printed makes it a bit hard to tell what’s going on. Aside from that, which arguably Pleece had no control over, I thought that the art moved the story along at exactly the right pace, and lent itself perfectly to the tone of the book.

I was lucky enough to stumble across Life Sucks by accident. Hopefully someone in the movie industry will do the same. Life Sucks is one of those books that is perfectly laid out as-is to be a movie, but until principle photography begins, the graphic novel will have to do. So, go get it. Life Sucks is not a book to be missed.

-JM

Buy “Life Sucks” and other Graphic Novels at Things From Another World!

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 23rd, 2008 at 12:05 am and is filed under Indie Book of The Week, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.