Alan Ball, the creator of Six Feet Under, has a new series launching this September. True Blood is based on author Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire Mysteries books, and details the coexistence of vampires and humans in a small Louisiana town after a synthetic blood substitute hits the market.

As seems to be de rigeur any more, there are a couple of viral sites associated with the series. BloodCopy is a blog which purports to detail the integration of vampires into human society. Tru Blood is a “marketing” site for the synthetic blood. It’s cute; the site is aimed at the young, hip vampire demographic and even includes a Type Finder to determine the blood type you’ll like best. (I’m Type A, the “Cultivated Aesthete.”)

I enjoyed Six Feet Under…well…let me rephrase that: I enjoyed the first two seasons of Six Feet Under and then watched the other three seasons out of some twisted sense of responsibility (did those people ever do anything but whine?), so I’ll be interested to see what HBO does with vampires.