Virus Sapien
Who is the zombie now?
Sorry about the wait, team! Parts of this story were quite challenging to write!
This was partly because from a certain point of view, this comic imagines a world where the conspiracies of anti vaxxers finally come true, and I wanted to navigate that idea carefully. In fact, it amused me to realise that if they were indeed finally on the side of right, they would probably come out against their own position!
Combined with the concept that most of our fellow humans are little more than automatons, it’s kind of a f*ked up collection of thoughts really, but I guess that’s how I roll.
Finally, normally I would draw art that carefully illustrated the narrative - which, given the tricky ideas I sometimes play with, makes things easier to digest.
This time I experimented with something a bit different, showing the main character on the run, while she “narrates” over the top. To be honest, I’m not certain it works - it makes a complex story a little harder to follow, but it was fun to try.
Let me know your thoughts!
Comments (4)
I also got a little mixed up on which group was supposed to be which — but likely because I struggle with going against the idea of infection=bad. Anyway, this reminds me a bit of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, which touches on an ancient metavirus in the human brain, in a way.
Yeah it was a twisty one this one, but an interesting experiment for me. I honestly think I needed more panels to make it work, but I got too excited by the concept not to have a go 😅
This was a really neat concept. I found panels 3 & 4 a little confusing to follow. The pronouns got me mixed up and I had to read it a couple of times to understand. Really cool idea though; one I could imagine in longer form media. Like following the adventures of The Awoken as they try to survive.
I wondered about that, so thanks for those thoughts, they confirm what I suspected. And yeah, I think this would work better in long form, I was juggling too many concepts at once I think! 🤣