She Bites Getting Viral Campaign at New York Comic Con 2021
Scout Comics have launched a viral campaign for She Bites, formerly known as The Vampire's Babysitter, which is...well, it's exactly what it sounds like. In the new comic, which comes from writer Heather Hale, a 134-year-old vampire trapped in the body of a nine-year-old girl puts out an ad for a babysitter. The idea, really, is to get someone who can serve as her adult face to the rest of the world, which is a scenario rife with comic and dramatic potential. To that end, there are "blood-stained" flyers posted somewhere on the streets of New York, advertising just such a babysitting job. If fans find a flyer and answer the call, they will be rewarded with a super-secret limited-edition variant cover of the premiere issue She Bites for free.
She Bites was the Grand Prize Winner of the 2020 Script2Comic Contest, a screenplay contest where the winning scripts get made into comics series. Scout Comics, one of the sponsors of the contest, is publishing She Bites which will release in February of 2022 through Lunar, Diamond and Simon & Schuster. The book is written and lettered by creator Heather Hale, with art by Diigii Daguna.
The premise: It's 1997 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A 134-year-old vampire, in the body of a 9-year-old girl, is squatting in a run-down basement apartment. She is Elsie Baker, and she can't even buy her own cigarettes because adults won't take her seriously. In order to move among the normal undetected, she must find a willing human to act as her babysitter.
Enter Brenda Zelinski, a depressed 18-year-old who was rejected from her dream college and is stuck in her hometown with no plans and no hope. All Brenda wants is a quick pay-day so she can afford to fly to Scotland and jump off a cliff to end her miserable life in grand fashion.
Together, these two lost souls form an unlikely friendship around their mutual disdain for literally everyone else.
The viral flyers will be posted around Javits center and near iconic local comic shops St. Mark's in Brooklyn and Forbidden Planet near Union Square. Scavenger hunters can find these posters, pull the tab and call the number. If they listen to the message and then bring the tab to the SCOUT comics Booth at NYCC (booth #2637 ) or St. Marks Comics/Forbidden Planet, they can receive a limited edition ashcan featuring the first appearance of the characters for free. Fans can also follow @shebitescomic on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for additional clues about where flyers can be found. A limited number of the secret 'ash can' will also be on sale at during the show at the Scout Comics Booth #2637 for fans not quite up for hunting down the flyer.
Heather Hale will be signing at the Scout Comics Booth #2637 at New York Comic-Con on Thursday, October 7th at 2 p.m. ET, Saturday October 9th at 5 p.m. ET, and Sunday October 10th at 4 p.m. ET. She will also be appearing at St. Mark's Comics at 51 35th St in Brooklyn at 8 PM on Saturday October 9th with other Scout creators including James Haick (The Mall, Solar Flare), David Byrne (Stake) and Don Handfield (Unikorn, The Mall, The Source).