Dead Sea There’s something under the waves in new comic
Climate change and the ecological impact of humanity’s presence on the planet are never far from the headlines. Surface Tension, a new five- issue, creator- owned series from writer/ artist Jason Gunn asks: if somebody had the power to change the world would things get better? Or would it just go horribly wrong?
“I wanted to make a story about something – the debate about saving the planet,” Gunn tells Red Alert. “Nothing is clear- cut in real life and I really wanted to get that across in the story, among all the action and the monsters!”
Set amid a small island community one year after a mysterious sea sickness caused 99% of the world’s population to walk out into the oceans and never return, two of the infected emerge from the waves with blue skin and no memory of who they are or where they’ve been. Meanwhile biologists Megumi Suzuki and Eric Gravinsky discover an object capable of cleaning the world’s waters – something that could save or destroy mankind.
“The islanders don’t have any real understanding of how the sickness works,” Gunn explains. “As the memories of the two survivors return we start to learn more about how this event originated and what it means for us. The first issue is quite a small snapshot, but it starts opening up as every issue is released. The mystery is unlocked issue by issue.”
With a colourful art style and creature design influenced by the films of Hayao Miyazaki, Gunn was keen to distance his tale from the doom and gloom of other eco- pocalypse stories. “One thing I was very mindful of with the story was not to make it too hippyish or too depressing, because I wanted to do something that actually was quite hopeful about the future, among all the destruction that was going on in the story.”
“It can be done well and it can be done shit. The best CGI has you forgetting its CGI, and accepting the visual as whatever it is supposed to be. Like props. No one has an issue with ‘ props’ in film, do they?” Don’t slag off CGI in front of Duncan Jones.
Surface Tension is released by Titan on 27 May.