Life Sucks by Jessica Abel, Gabe Soria & Warren Pleece

Romanian Lord Radu Arisztidescu, (vampire royalty in his country, but a seller of beer in ours) owns and operates the Last Stop quickie-mart. Keeping good help is hard, so Radu just bites himself a new undead employee when he needs a fresh pair of hands to unload the milk and rotate the hot dogs. Enter Dave, Lord Radu’s latest convenience store wage-slave, and reluctant vampire. Dave just can’t seem to get the hang of the bloodsucker-gig. He hates night shifts, and the sight and smell of fresh plasma makes him gag. So he spends his evenings ogling the hot Goth girls who frequent the nightclub next door, and snacking on Radu’s underground blood beer and beef jerky made out of you-don’t-want-to-know-what. He’s in love with a human Goth princess named Rosa, but between trying hide his pesky fang condition and fending off her other suitors, namely a studly vampire surfer named Wes and a bisexual human Goth named Alistair, Dave’s in over his hemoglobin. What’s a bat boy to do? Can Dave learn to overcome his Type-O revulsion in order to up his vampire strength so he can trounce muscle-bound Wes and win Rosa’s hand? Or is he doomed to an eternity of nursing his lonely heart while ringing up cigarettes and pulling Slurpees? It’s hard to believe that anyone could create anything new from the tired old vampire genre, but Abel (of La Perdida fame), Soria and Pleece have done it with this funny, sexy, scary graphic novel that is equal parts Clerks, Buffy, and Revenge of the Nerds. Although this GN has some moments of real fright, it’s mostly just real funny–especially when Dave’s master Lord Radu comes on the scene. How can you do anything but howl with laughter when Radu, sporting a Tom Selleck ‘stache and some serious chest hair says stuff like “Dave, Dave, Dave…vhat am I do viss you? I give you geeft of eternal life, I promote you to assistant manager, and ziss iss how you repay? By not punching out on break?” God, I love this GN.