It begins as your typical sapphic, young-adult romance. Set in a high school, you have the shy girl, Poe, and the new girl, Jolie, who spend their senior year casually flirting but never really connecting until, near the end of the year, Poe decides to follow Jolie home after a volleyball game and confront her once and for all.

This is where the storyline varies from the norm. While trailing Jolie and working up her nerve to speak, Poe is attacked and dragged into the bushes by two men. Fearing robbery -- or worse -- Poe does not expect to be bitten ... but the men, it turns out, are vampires. Hungry vampires.

Jolie suddenly appears and intervenes, wooden stake in hand, proving to be a Buffy (vampire slayer) in training, with her tutor-in-supernatural-carnage, her Uncle William, in tow. Alas, after dispatching the two vampires, Jolie realizes that Poe has been bitten and has inadvertently swallowed vampire blood and so, with Poe's transition assured, dispatches her with a stake to the heart.

Or so she believes. Jolie's heart wasn't in it, and she botched the job. Poe wakes up, fully turned, in her coffin. After digging her way out, she vows revenge on the girl who killed her ... but is stopped before interrupting her own memorial service by yet another local vamp, who takes Poe back to their nest to meet the resident master -- or, in this case, mistress. Ediva, the head vampire, runs a small group of bloodsuckers who operate more like a family than a gang and, while they're not adverse to the occasional murder, they rarely kill their victims. And they take care of each other like a family would.

With the revelation of not one but two vampire hunters in their community, Ediva leads her flock to a new nest in a beachfront town. But, while Poe finds herself enjoying her new lifestyle and growing fond of her new friends and family, she nurses an undying hatred for Jolie, who she believes was overly hasty in staking her, and she wants revenge. She wants to torture her former crush, then kill her.

Then the nest learns that someone in their former hunting grounds is turning an unusually high number of vampires, all of whom are swiftly killed by the young hunter. Although hunters are sworn to protect humans, the vampires decide that Jolie and Uncle William must be working with a rogue vampire to create a stable of undead targets, since killing them builds a hunter's power. Why a vampire would do such a thing, they're not sure.

That leads the nest to return to Poe's hometown, somehow taking on the role of heroes, to protect the townsfolk from the murderous hunters. As far as Poe is concerned, it's the perfect excuse for her to take the vengeance she's been desiring.

There's even a training montage for Poe, a sequence that surely would make Giles proud.

Bite Me, despite the hackneyed title, is a clever tale that turns the modern vampire/vampire slayer dynamic on its head. Writer Jennifer Dugan has a knack for strong characterization, and illustrator Kit Seaton brings the story to life with appealing artwork that, despite being set mostly at night, manages to be dynamic and colorful.

It's a fairly quick read, although -- at more than 200 pages -- it's a fairly substantial graphic novel. Readers who enjoy their vampires with a little teen romance should enjoy it.