Origins of a slacker vampire

Long ago I sat on the floor of a dilapidated craftsman duplex on a dark street that ended abruptly at the precipice of the Hollywood freeway. In the house was a band, the Geraldine Fibbers, a band that was well-known around LA, known for its twisted punk-country sound and Carla Bozulich’s extraordinary voice, known, like so many other bands, to be independently releasing their records. Until that day. That day they’d decided to sign with a label, they told us, but they didn’t want to say who it was until they’d gone in and signed the contracts.

They told us this only after a while, and I think after a few beers.* They told us this because we were there to interview them for Fizz Magazine, me, inexperienced and really quite clueless, and Gabe Soria, who had done this band interviewing thing before and came prepared, with questions, he’d actually written down — in advance.

Today, the San Francisco Chronicle reviewed Life Sucks, a slacker vampire comic from First Second written by Gabe Soria and Jessica Abel, drawn by Warren Pleece.

Gabe Soria wrote a comic? Cool!

I had to make sure it was the same Gabe Soria, though. And I found evidence that seems to indicate it must be. In this interview, he provides a list of songs his slacker protagonist might listen to: two CDs by the band Possum Dixon, another Fizz fave (was Gabe there for that Possum Dixon interview, when the guitar player told us how to smuggle drugs into jail?), and one CD by none other than the Geraldine Fibbers.

Congrats to Gabe Soria on Life Sucks! And for being the one who’s getting interviewed these days. I bet it doesn’t take as much prep work.

* Although if you read the interview as it ran in Fizz Magazine, it starts with the news of picking a label — which was Virgin, by the way — but I recall lots of small talk and hanging out before we ever got there. The magic of editing.

About the author

I like sitting in Jack Webb's booth.