Independent writer and creator Tristan Gibbon teams up with his friend and artist, Billy Jones, to bring the world a new fantastically gruesome and original graphic novel - Feaster.
A convenient alt-energy revolution causes the near extinction of humanity by regenerating flesh-eating creatures. Mike Feaster awakens suddenly in the wilderness, groggy and confused. To his horror he discovers that the nightmares that he remembers have come true. To survive and keep his consciousness he must subside off a steady diet of human beings. Resigned to his situation he tries to make the best of it and act as a force of deadly justice in the lawless overgrown ruins of society.
In order to make Feaster a reality, Tristan and Billy have listed this project on Kickstarter. With less than 10 days left, they have to raise about $1,000 still. We’re calling all horror graphic novel fans to take a look at this work and strongly encourage donating! Spread the word – pass the Kickstarter link on to your friends!
Tristan was also kind enough to answer a few questions I had for him primarily about Feaster.
BORIS: What subgenre of horror would you specifically classify this work as?
TRISTAN: Science-Fiction Horror. The story events begin in a recognizable modern-day where rising fuel costs hamper the average person and a burgeoning environmental crisis is swept under the rug by economic and political unrest. A new technology changes the way people live and then triggers the collapse of society.
More specifically within the category of Science-Fiction, I would call it a grotesque, psychological monster story with a good share of man-eating gore interspersed with vigilante justice as a philosophical justification/excuse to sustain the main character.
B: Have you completed the narrative story to your satisfaction or is that still a work in progress open to revision?
T: I have completed a sizable portion of the narrative. The portion I am submitting for publication anyway. I have gone over it and over it many times and am always tweaking this and changing that. It is very much still a work in progress and open to revision.
I had a few close friends read a draft a few major edits ago to look for any of those, ‘Well, why wouldn’t you just do x’ situations and plot-holes. At some point in the revision process you bring up the question, ‘Well, am I actually making it better or am I just making it different?’ I still feel that the changes I’m implementing are making it better. We’ll see how I feel next time around.
B: How many different issues and/or volumes do you aspire to publish?
T: I’m aiming to make Feaster into a three-part story with each ‘book’ split into volumes and, if necessary, those into chapters to be released serially. I’d rather release it in larger portions than your average comic book issue, but in the end I’m flexible and will do it however I must to make it work.
B: What are some of your inspirations for creating Feaster?
T: Oh jeez. So many. For starters I’ve always loved mythology, be it Greco-Roman, Norse, Egyptian, Celtic, Babylonian, what-have-you. I took a class on Russian fairy tales in college that I enjoyed. I borrow from and allude to a few myths including a reverse Beowulf-style one man invasion of a sleeping community by the main character, Mike Feaster. Frankenstein, for sure, where you have an articulate and very human-minded monster trying to figure out the meaning of his existence while possessing supernatural physical abilities. I’m a big fan of the imagery style of Guillermo del Toro, Pan’s Labyrinth especially. The creatures he does are fantastic. I love the grittiness of Blade Runner. It is a rare instance where I prefer the film to the book, however the philosophical question of the morality of killing highly human-like replicas for self-profit and Rick Deckard’s internal conflict feature more prominently in the book than the movie. I’m a big fan of Margaret Atwood, most recently the first two installments of the MaddAddam trilogy which depict a frighteningly plausible not-to0-distant future with a grim series of events. Stoker’s Dracula. The list goes on.
B: Who are some of your favorite graphic novelists?
T: I mean, you have to like Alan Moore. Watchmen was great as was V for Vendetta. Frank Miller is also good. I really like his Batman work. Same with Jeph Loeb. I like Jonathan Hickman’s solo work in The Nightly News. Robert Kirkman, of course. Although, I picked up Invincible before I started buying The Walking Dead. Recently, I’ve started to buy the volumes of Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa. These are mostly big names and I know there’s a lot of great stuff out there and I’m still working on getting deeper. Fables is next up on my to-read list. Got any good suggestions?
B: What’s your response to people who may say, ‘Uh, isn’t this just a zombie/infected story mixed with supernatural shit?’
T: Well, for starters there is no infection. The creatures in my story are not created by and built in numbers via contagion but by a single precipitating event affecting those who are susceptible. This way there is no plausible unified knowledgeable response which may bother some people about the logistics of the zombie epidemic. Everything everywhere goes to shit all at once with sprinting ravenous regenerating predatory monsters—run and hide, or be eaten, which brings up the second distinction.
The ‘eaters,’ as I have called them, are not the shambling unintelligent undead of the zombie genre. They can hunt in groups. At day, or at night. They do not decay like the undead but instead are strengthened or renewed each time they kill. Uncommonly, as in the case of Mike Feaster, they will even be such successful hunters that they begin to regain their higher brain function like their ability to think, reason, and have personality—even to be sympathetic.
Well, thank you so much Tristan for sharing some of your thoughts with Gores Truly! We hope that this project comes to fruition and also hope that the MurderHers will be able to review Feaster as soon as it finds its way into the horror comic world.
Readers, please join us as we help make this project a reality!
