As DJ Bobo so bafflingly said "Vampires are alive!" Well, they're supposed to be "undead" really.... but they are EVERYWHERE these days! Twilight, Anne Rice novels, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, Underworld, the Camarilla. It seems bloodsuckers have never been more popular. What is it about the vampire mystique that people find so attractive? Is it the prospect of an eternity stalking crowded nightclubs dressed in leather and lacy frills in some sort of Goth fantasy afterlife? The notion that vampires lead a sort of alternative lifestyle of sexual fetishism? Is it their duplicitous nature, lurking along in a forever life with impunity from old age and disease? Or maybe it's just their physical prowess and the control they have over life and death? "Life Sucks" presents a different take on vampires altogether. Being a vampire actually kinda sucks. (Groan!)
Meet Dave, an ordinary twenty-something who takes a job in a convenience store to pay his way through college. Unfortunately for Dave the manager of the store is Lord Radu Arisztidescu, an overbearing Romanian vampire who "converts" his employees to the dark side to ensure their perpetual servitude. Otherwise, Dave is pretty much like you and me. He's broke. He's trapped in a dead end job he hates. He has a small circle of geeky friends. He's a couch potato who is hooked on Mexican soap operas. Oh, and he has super strength, hypnotic powers and frequently breaks in blood banks to steal sustenance (which he drinks out of V8 juice bottles). Dave's a nice guy so he refuses to kill. Dave's a bit of a schmuck. In short, the vampire lifestyle is not all it's cracked up to be.
Dave also has a secret crush: a cute Goth girl named Rosa. Predictably, as a Goth Rosa is fascinated by the allure of the fictional vampire lifestyle while oblivious to the fact that Dave is actually one. Naturally Dave also has a rival: Wes, a rich surfer dude who is also an employee of Lord Radu. Wes is a typical bully with seemingly little motivation, engaged in a constant war of "anything you can do I can do better" with Dave. So when Wes discovers Dave's crush on Rosa he uses all the powers at his disposal to try to woo her. Eventually this builds to a climax of the story that I won't say much about other than it left me feeling a bit uncomfortable.
"Life Sucks' is one part "Twilight", one part "Clerks". If you like that sort of thing, it's worth checking out. As for me, my interest in vampire peaked at the age of twelve when I considered Anne Rice's "Interview With a Vampire" to be a great novel. The artwork in "Life Sucks" is decent, particularly the colouring which is suitably dark without feeling oppressive. Everyone and everything in it looks suitably ordinary and completely relatable much like the characters and situations themselves, so in that sense Pleece nailed it. The story is cute and nice...so much so that it didn't really leave a lasting impression on me. I felt open to the premise and enjoyed the concept at first but the ending felt awkward , shifting quickly from something ugly back to cozy and nice again. Personally, if it's vampire comedy you want: just take a good, honest look at pretty much any of the "serious" vampire material out there. It's good for a laugh.
(Cover image is copyright of it's owner and used here solely for the purposes of review, natch!)
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