Insomniacs Helpline

In an un-named southern town in America, Avril is stuck working in a 24 hour gas station. She realizes that half her customers only come in for a chat, that she is the only ear that will listen to the sleepless in town. As the temperature soars, and the number of insomniacs soars with it, she decides to pack in her job, and set up a phone line, a kind of exchange where the town people can talk at 4 in the morning. She and her girlfriend, Lili the female Elvis Impersonator calm and reassure a host of social inadequates and potential psychopaths while sweltering in the heat, only a rusty fan to help them breathe. The office from which they run the exchange has also become a little sanctuary for Avril’s sister and a bored taxi driver. But this is really the story of three households….a little girl with a terrible fear, a drunken writer with THE BLOCK and a curious couple being bugged by the FBI. Each are told in a quite distinctive voice, And each are illustrated quite differently. Where the story of Avril and her Helpline is visually set out in a traditional comic book style, the three stories splash across the page unexpectedly and increase in chaos as the four characters are driven a little mad through lack of sleep. Insomniacs Helpline is a tale of people coping (sometimes badly). It is peculiar and comical, and at times a little desperate. And it was written at four in the morning with shaky hands.