Life Sucks by Jessica Abel, Warren Pleece, and Gabe Soria
If there is a universal truth about being a teenager, it’s that the age presents a challenge in juggling tradition and rebellion. A kid often finds himself swept up in the bullying march of all that came before, while trying to cling to some vestige of modern individuality. Even the nicest teenagers try to differentiate themselves from their parents — and the generation before — and it’s really the nice kids that have the hardest jobs. What if you don’t want to entirely push out that past, you just want to be a little different, a little yourself? What if you don’t want to offend your parents, you just want them to lay off a bit?
What if the tight grip of the history is an actual physical condition that binds you to it, that you must adhere to no matter how you feel? That’s the premise of “Life Sucks,” the graphic novel from Jessica Abel, Gabe Soria and Warren Pleece. That tug from the past that’s keeping the kids in line? Vampirism.
Dave’s a young vampire who works in a convenience store. His boss is the man who made him a vampire and we are quick to learn that this is how vampires hire employees for dead-end service jobs — that is, this is how they get them to stay on the job. A bite on the neck is like a work contract. Dave’s trying as hard as he can to shrug off his condition — for instance he refuses to drink blood and prefers plasma, essentially making him a vegetarian vampire — but there are some things he can’t escape. For instance, he can’t go out in the daytime, which relegates his work hours to the graveyard shift.
It’s this set-up that puts him into the position to meet and fall for Rosa, a feisty Goth girl, and the rival for her affections, Wes, a surfer boy jerk and the previous vampire employed at the convenience store. Just as important as the love story, though, are the examinations of perception and reality in regard to the supernatural — that is, the make believe. Just as much as young people have a tendency to want to push away the past, they also take hold of some parts and romanticize them. In the lifestyle of Goths, the imagery and folklore of vampires is a key fantasy element to their shared social interaction, but as Abel and Soria make plain again and again, it’s a perception that is built around a romanticism for a way of life that is different from the one they are in. As presented in “Life Sucks,” vampires have not remained, stuck in some Transylvanian time warp infested with candelabras for their lighting while they seduce women — rather, they sit in basements under fluorescent lighting, grumbling and playing poker like any other person passing their time.
Or they hold jobs in convenience stores that they hate — and when they feel like they have no future, they’re stricken by the realization that future means an eternity.
As Dave himself says, “Unlife blows.”
Though Rosa looks at being a vampire as a dream escape from the drudgery of ordinariness, the message of the story is that everyone is pretty much the same. Everyone has problems in their lives — and the more life you have, the more problems you’re going to have to contend with. The supernatural, as it turns out, is not a cure-all for having to deal with the issues and circumstances brought about by just being in the world around other people.
