atrocityland

so umm...who are the characters in the strangers universe? are you gonna make a webcomic? or write a graphic novel?

This is something I get asked a lot, and the answer is…there are no characters. There is an underlying narrative however which is not clear right now, but will become apparent over the course of expanding the Strangers bestiary. There is a “storyline”, there are events, but they are not character-based.

I don’t usually talk about the underlying meaning of the things I write/draw/etc because I like people to find themes for themselves, but, one thing I am trying to create with the Strangers world is something which is both familiar and foreign at once. To establish human characters would detract from the connection between the reader and the world itself; it would make it about the people and their storylines, and not about the ‘big picture’.

The norm in narrative writing is to create storylines via prose and with core characters, with a central plot thread and a clear crisis-conflict-resolution structure; but I want to think outside the box a little in terms of how narrative presents itself. Right now, Strangers is still starting. But I’m hoping that when I’m finished, it won’t be “just” a bestiary, because the full storyline takes it past the end of mankind’s reign on this earth, and that’s an aspect I’m really looking forward to exploring once I get into the upper Stranger numbers (in the #200-#300 range). Whether I can achieve this goal remains to be seen, but I am giving it a shot.