With the new year incoming, Comics Experience is excited to welcome new works by Creator’s Workshop members! Dallas Casavant’s cheeky romantic comedy about a very thirsty vampire, The V-Card hits your local comic book store in January courtesy of Atlantic Press. For digital comics fans, issue one of a planned four is also available on comiXology right now!
Dallas originally wrote and produced the first two issues of the series alongside artist Nick Johnson and letterer Sean Rinehart before completing the last two with a successful Kickstarter campaign. The V-Card chronicles the stresses of a virgin vampire who could really go for a few drops of blood after 380 years of immortality… only to wind up falling for a vampire killer’s daughter.
Oops.
“[I got the idea] after watching a terrible movie, with a soon-to-be ex-girlfriend, I began the time-honored tradition of tearing it apart. She became annoyed and cut me off. ‘You think you can write a better story?!'” Dallas says.
“On the spot, I said, “Alright. A Vampire chases a hot girl into an abandoned church, hypnotised her and lays her on the altar. He goes in to bite her and we hear a loud POP! We zoom out to see a nerdy Vampire with a blowup doll deflating in his arms and it’s called The 400-Year-Old Virgin.” She was silent, considering what I said. She raised an eyebrow. ‘Actually, that’s pretty good!'”
For Dallas, this moment wasn’t just an opportunity to spin a bit of improv into a funny story. It also provided him a chance to collaborate with some exciting talents he met along the way.
He says, “I loooovvvved working with my team! I can’t explain how good it feels, just to be able to see the roughs, from my artist, Nick Johnson or see where Comics Experience alum Sean Rinehart places the speech balloons. Collaborating together and watching them bring my story to life, with passion and smarts, was one of the thrills of my life!”
The V-Card also owes its development to the many different free resources Comics Experience offers to both members and non-members. Dallas credits the Make Comics podcast, the Comic Book Script Archive, and the blog (awww!) with guiding him through the ins and outs of putting words into fingers and keyboards. He also received a mentorship from our founder and CEO Andy Schmidt!
“I already had my script done when I had Andy mentor me, but he did give me some tips on how the story could have been even tighter,” Dallas says. “These same tips have already been used in future projects. Andy also got me teamed up with the best letterer, Sean Rinehart!”
If you want to check out the story in a different format before you have a chance to download or purchase, Dallas has also uploaded a V-Card motion comic!