AfterShock Comics has announced a new series that will be a part of the start of what should be an excellent new year with I Breathed A Body, which is set for a January 20th, 2021 debut. Priced at $4.99 for the first issue, it comes from writer Zac Thompson – who has several series under his belt with the publisher, and artist Andy MacDonald. This actually marks Thompson’s seventh book with them, which I think is the most of any writer so far with AfterShock. Joining them on the book is Triona Farrell with the color design while Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou will handle the lettering for it. MacDonald and Farrell will handle the main cover while Trevor Henderson is providing an incentive cover.
“I Breathed A Body is a supernatural horror book set in Silicon Valley about the voyeurism of violence. Thanks to social media, we’ve become prepared to see death and despair at any moment. Modern social networks are a relentless barrage of provocative content designed to keep us outraged, engaged, and fearful. This book is an indictment of the Big Tech companies who engender and profit from this vitriolic environment.
Modern content culture deals in excess of everything. Violence, sex, depravity. We’ll consume anything that’s fed to us by our influencer idols. I Breathed A Body will lay bare the intimate psychology behind creating depraved content. The story follows social media manager, Anne Stewart who gave up her previous life to work for the most popular influencer in the world, Mylo Caliban. He’s an ultra-famous prankster and general shithead (think the Paul brothers), but Anne doesn’t mind making content with the kid. Until one night where everything changes. Mylo uploads something so vile and shocking that it threatens to change the world forever. This act throws Anne into the impossible position of planning and creating violent content in the pursuit of “viral videos”. And with each upload, things keep escalating.
Before coming to comics, I worked with YouTube influencers for years. I was a video producer creating content and attempting to leverage the labyrinthine algorithms that keep viewers engaged. Since then, the landscape of social media has changed for the worse. Fear takes precedence over all other emotions. We live in shocking times. Outrage drives engagement. Engagement drives profit and the question of the moral cost of this system has never been more important. This age of “content” is inherently appalling. This series will explore the ramifications of our collective moral outrage, its role in society, how/if it can affect change, and what it means to worship content above all else. If nothing is famous for longer than five minutes, does anything matter anymore?”
Plot Concept: A science fiction horror series about social media, big tech, and influencer culture.
It’s The Social Network meets Hellraiser. When the world’s biggest influencer posts something irredeemably horrific online, the world changes in an instant. Now it’s up to his social media manager, Anne Stewart, to fan the flames of outrage and create a sensationalist campaign that rewrites the rules of “banned content.” Thus begins a carnival of lust, revulsion, desire, and disgust – all for viral videos.
