After Life Comics

The year is 2099.  Clyde and Kevin are already underground.

However, before the 17×11 bunker became their only livable option and the ground-level periscope their only connection to the out of doors, Earth had not much changed since, what is now known as, the Intangibility Economy.  At least its human relations had not.  The year 2008 marked the second year of what would become a 54 year miniature Ice Age.  Each year saw marked decrease in the fight against global warming, as lower temperatures were considered the signs of the cure.  Yet, alternative fuel sources continued to rise as the cost of oil followed the same increasing trend.  The unique mix of cooler seas and colder weather, increased and unprotected production, and the boom in technological advance led to more people in less space with more possessions.

In 2049, Dr. Joseph C. Tanen achieved what was thought to be impossible: an energy efficiency rating of ninety-three percent on the newest line of nano-solar panels.  This breakthrough led to cheap, easily produced, energy efficient, environmentally safe travel — seemingly single-handedly solving the dependence on fossil fuels and the last of the worry of environmental safety.

The world quickly entered the Hyper-connected Era.  A latticework of asphalt super-highways and mag-lev oceanic bridges spanned both land and sea, connecting every city to every state to every territory to every country to every union to every continent all over the globe.  This tangible hyper-connectivity mirrorred the intangible hyper-connectivy of the world wide web during the Intangibility Economy.  Knowledge ran rampant, increased exponentially, and forged new bonds across a spectrum of personal, professional, and diplomatic relationships.

But, with this hyper-connection in both the intangible and, now, tangible world, shoulders began to rub too closely, and, as land became scarce, the race to claim, make livable, and colonize Antarctica became paramount.  The year 2060 marked the end of the (geologically speaking) rapid miniature Ice Age, which led to an explosion of environmental shift over the next ten years.  With the heat came tension, and with tension came anger.  Antarctica became that much more important.

In 2076, Dr. Tanen’s nano-solar panels failed.  The rapid rise of unchecked industry and production over the coarse of the miniture Ice Age, even with the switch to a nearly total nano-solar energy grid, had brought the ozone to nearly sixty percent of its former strength.  The balooning particulates trapped within the atmosphere only further magnified the increase in ultraviolet energy from the sun.  This rise in ultraviolet energy was unaccounted for and too great for Dr. Tanen’s nano-solar technology.  The already hyper-sensitive nano-conductors became overloaded, unable to either store nor output the collected energy, and quickly and completely fizzled.  As eighty-nine percent of the world’s transportation, both mass and personal, was tied to Dr. Tanen’s nano-solar technology, Earth, quite literally, stood still.

The first guerilla colonizations of Antarctica began that next year, in 2077.  By 2078, thirteen countries had laid claim to Antarctica.  By 2079, war erupted on the ice giant.  In 2081, Clyde and Kevin were born.

Their lives became synonymous with war.  Bunkers became standard in all housing.  Emergency procedures were covered at the start of each and every school year and at the end of each nights’ internet broadcasts.  But, as Clyde and Kevin had grown up together, through their entire schooling, with war as a constant, it wasn’t very exciting to them.  In fact, it was quite boring.

So, when they were seventeen, in the year 2098, when the first of the bombs started to drop in the continental United States, they were unimpressed.  For years prior, all they had seen were bombs dropped across the world by the last remaining contenders in the Ice War:  the United States of America and the Reform Republic of China.  And there are just so many ways a bomb can be delivered and explode.  A bomb was a bomb, an explosion a bore.

In 2099, Clyde and Kevin have moved south to the coast of Nevada.  Just two months before, their home town, just outside Seattle, fell victim to the first organized attack on the continental United States.  Fourteen cities were struck within two hours of each other.  Clyde and Kevin, able to reach their bunker in time, survived.  Their family, friends, life before did not manage so well.

Starting anew, two months later, Clyde and Kevin witness the live feed as the United States retaliates with a nuclear strike at the heart of China and China’s Antarctica stronghold.

Underground now, Clyde and Kevin bare witness again to the dropping of a bomb, a live feed of sorts, and to something different entirely — to what lies after life as they once knew it in what is now known as the Primitive Return, or, colloquially, the world gone completely, wholly to shit.

After Life Comics is

Brandon Lee Tenney: a writer born in Florida, living in Los Angeles, California.  With a knack for the written word and a love for film, comics, and science fiction, Brandon utilizes dramatic writing and the entrepreneurial venture that is the web to provide sustenance to his stomach and drink down his throat.

email at brandon@afterlifecomics.com

Nick Paparodis: an artist born and currently residing in Florida.  Usually found to be drawing on napkins and table cloths while out to dinner with anything from a crayon to a candle wick, Nick is an avid student of his craft and a one-man artistic force: providing sketches, inking, coloring, and lettering.

email at nick@afterlifecomics.com