Posted in: Comics | Tagged: herd, kickstarter

The Complexity Of Inspiration

Geoff Richards writes,

I'm often asked about where the inspiration for Herd came from. Wait, let me rewind that a little for you. I write a comic called Herd, with issue 2 currently at pre-launch over at Kickstarter. On the surface it's a story of Stone Age vampires and their relationship with the Homo-Sapiens living alongside them at the time. It looks very traditional and is full of action and brutality.

As I was saying, people often ask me about the inspiration behind Herd and I find it a difficult question to provide a simple answer to. I'm not sure that I can pull apart the different strands of inspiration, they all seem to be tied in an unfathomable knot. I think about my work as a climate scientist, the broader science books that I read, the fact that we live in an unusual period of politics and how all of those things relate to the fiction that I consume across various mediums. They have all inspired me to write Herd. All of them.

"All of these aspects of my life", doesn't provide a very satisfying answer though. How do they influence the story? What is it about politics that inspired me to write about blood sucking monsters? It simply doesn't make sense… But, of course, it does. Societies fall when a perfect storm of disaster presents itself and Herd is about the fall of the greatest Stone Age society of all – Homo-Vampyrus.

I'm going to take these aspects one at a time and explore how the world we live in created the mental space for Herd to exist. Here's a simple fact; climate is changing. I'm not here to convince you of the role humans have played in this change, just that it is changing and that this change will bring societal challenges. Whilst difficult to quantify, migration as a result of sea-level rise may number in the millions (Nature Article). This is the kind of work I do for my day job and I'm fascinated by the way that societies respond when exposed to external pressures. This is a major influence on the stories I like to write. What happens to the structure of society when you squeeze?

This brings us nicely to politics. Again, I'm not here to tell you that one side is right and the other is wrong. What I do want to talk about is how when the U.K. felt like it was being squeezed, politics changed. I'm led to believe the same is true of the United States. The European Migrant Crisis (Wikipedia Article) presented Euro-Sceptic parties a great opportunity to push their politics to the forefront of the discussion. A year after it had begun, the U.K. had voted to leave the European Union.

Both the U.K. and the United States currently have leaders that can only be described as "Charismatic". You may hate them, you may love them. Regardless, they inspire a genuine support through force of personality. My gut feel is that when societies are squeezed, we see the rise of charismatic leaders. Look through history, it happens. It doesn't always turn out great. This is another huge influence on my writing, the rise of the Charismatic Leader.

So there we have the starting point for Herd. Charismatic leaders and a society being squeezed by external factors. Where the hell did the Vampires come from? At the time I was thinking about this story, I was reading "Sapiens" by Yuval Noah Harari (A wonderful book). It really made me think about a time when Homo-Sapiens would have shared the Earth with several Homo species. All trying to survive together. It wasn't a huge leap for me to end up with Homo-Vampyrus. This also gave me the perfect "squeeze", overexploitation of their natural resources… the Sapiens.

This is how I started writing Herd, but there is one final influence I have to mention. Herd is brutal and bloody and vicious. You may not even notice all of the influences I have just spoken about. This is the influence of, for me, one of the great storytellers of all time – George. A. Romero. His films contain intelligent commentary on society. He shined a light on the way people are and how they respond to "squeeze". He did all of this, whilst dragging us through a visceral, zombie-filled romp and it is wonderful. He is my storytelling inspiration.

If all of this sounds interesting to you, then please head over to our Kickstarter pre-launch and follow along: Kickstarter Pre-Launch. As a special reward for Bleeding Cool readers who back a physical reward, simply use the code ROMERO in the message field and you will receive a special set of Zombie Vampyrus stickers to celebrate the great man.

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