It’s that time! After Daylight, your one-stop shop for satirical vampire comedy/drama with a splash of socially-aware snark (okay, maybe more than a splash) has been updating faithfully as a weekly webcomic since August of 2012. Now 100 hand-shaded pages are in the can, the grand plot arc of the first “season” is all wrapped up, and it’s time for it to sail out into the world in gorgeous print.

Great. So what’s After Daylight?

Well, you gotta understand. I’ve been writing vampire fiction on a professional basis since the late 90’s, and I still love the bloodthirsty little dears to death, but I can only take them so seriously anymore. As an author, I love the juiciness of a setting where humans must share the planet (or not) with other sentient, powerful beings. Who drink blood. But as a fan, I’ve gotten so tired of books and shows that drop all these intriguing hints about how that setting would work…aaaand then end up way too busy destroying the protagonists’ romance for the fourth time to really follow up on it. Not naming any names.

So I’ve taken that premise of “humans discover vampires! En masse!” and put my own tongue-mostly-in-cheek twist on it. And I’ve written in all those bloodsuckers I knew had to exist if there really were bloodsuckers, but for some reason we never see them. You know: the ones too busy working a crappy night job to stand around with perfect hair, moping existentially. The ones who think blood bank discards taste like rusty nails. The ones who listen to a little too much talk radio. The ones who actually reflect the incredible variety of a modern urban population. The ones who’re more scared of mortals than the mortals are of them.

We see much of this through the eyes of one “Cat” Bernstein, ex-folk-rocker turned undead retail drudge, but this series is all about strong ensemble cast. No matter what kind of vamps you like, I’ve probably got one for you! Volume 1 takes us through the ominous creeping dawn of Daylight — that’s the vampires’ unhappy nickname for this revelation — from its first deniable Internet leaks (and the inevitable LOLmacros) to the full monty of the inescapable spotlight.

Find out more information and support this project at Kickstarter.com!

Tags | horror-comedy, vampires