Kill the Freshman: A YA Graphic Novel That’s Part Mean Girls, Part DBZ!

Hey, folks, my name is Alex Langley; you may know me from the gaming section of Nerdspan. Let’s flip our chairs around and sit in them backwards so we can jam a bit about Kill the Freshman, my new young adult graphic novel.

KILL THE FRESHMAN SYNOPSIS:
In junior high Vi may have been a nerdy outcast, but now that she’s a freshman, she’s going to get popular or die trying. Literally.
At the Gracewood Academy of Queens and Patriarchs, ancient magical mumbo-jumbo gives superhuman powers to students willing to take the ID cards (and lives) of their classmates. Underclassmen are the unwilling prey in this jungle, only safe from each other, and in certain parts of the school.
When Vi nearly dies courtesy of some sophomores, her motor mouth lands her a friendship with Allison Meadows, Gracewood’s apex senior, and into a student election that’s like The Hunger Games with gossip. Everyone is a target during the election— the weirdos in journalism (who Vi secretly kinda likes), Allison (who Vi secretly kinda fears), and even Vi herself (who Vi secretly kinda loathes). To save her newfound friends, this fast-talking freshman will risk everything she cares about most: being popular, being herself, and being alive (in that order).

            Kill the Freshman was born out of my experiences in high school (to some extent. Nobody in my high school had super powers that I know of), and because I want to see more stories featuring protagonists other than the strong-jawed white hetero males that dominate popular culture. (That’s right, Marvel films, there are more types of people out there than white dudes named Chris). I love stories with strong female protagonists, and, while we do get the occasional The Girl Who Would be King or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, tales about women as individuals and women as groups are sadly lacking.

So, after spending many sleepless nights hammering out this story in the glowing embers of my brain furnace, I tried to publish Kill the Freshman through traditional routes, ie, the comics industry, which is so dead-set on sticking to their guns and doing what they’ve always done that it’s friggin’ hard to get anything new through. But, as Neil Gaiman said, “all the old rules are crumbling”. The publishing game has changed, which is why I turned to Kickstarter; thanks to the magic of crowd-funding (and the countless generous souls who backed my project with their bucks), Kill the Freshman is here and available for your eyeballs, so if you’re interested, go check it out!

If you have a blog, a podcast, or just want to jam about writing and geekery, please feel free to hit me up! You can reach me via any of the following channels:

Twitter: @rocketllama

Tumblr: Kill the Freshman

E-mail: KillthefreshmancomicATyahoo.com

AUTHOR BIO:
Alex Langley can control gravity, swim at over eight-hundred miles per second, and has a dangerous, borderline nuclear passion for writing. He’s the author of The Geek Handbook, The Geek Handbook 2.0, and Geek Lust, all by Krause Publications, and a co-contributor to Star Wars Psychology: Dark Side of the Mind. He is the writer/creator of the young adult graphic novel Kill the Freshman, writes about retro & modern gaming for Arcadesushi.com, edits content for geek girl/web celebrity @actionchick Katrina Hill at actionflickchick.com, and is the head editor of Nerdspan.com’s gaming section as well as being co-creator of the webseries Geeks and Gamers Anonymous. He has over 20,000 followers on twitter, and has been a speaker on panels at conventions, including Wonder-Con, and San Diego Comic-Con International. His published works also include academic papers, and he likes your hair like that.