Ladies and Gentlemen, the second comic in the One Human, Being series – Priority Green is here! I’ll be releasing one every week from now on, with alternative covers and a few tweaks 🙂
I went through all the script of this one with the intention of really overhauling it, but you know what, in the end I only changed about 5 speech bubbles – turns out that though Bob is a bit ‘preachy’, it’s at least consistent with where the comic goes, and he kinda needs to be like this.
I’m finding reading through, it’s quite nice knowing where a series goes – in terms of overall plot but also character development. Seeing where they go as people. One Human, Being was a series I wanted to be created completely subconsciously, just to see where it went – unusually I didn’t plan it nor write out the full script, I literally just setup each scene and saw where it took me. And I’m really glad I did, I think that often works well for creative projects, where you let the art/medium kinda flow and just see what happens. Then check-in now and then and see what you notice about your own creation – that can work well with everything from creative writing (like write as fast as you can, zero judgement) to oil painting to music production! Art’s in us all, we just have to find the ways that work for us (my way is boobies).
There’s a lot to be said for the opposite approach too, of course; planning everything out and making sure the plot works and stuff, but yeah, in this case I made One Human, Being as a complete exercise in the autonomy of my subconscious and I’m honestly really proud of the series overall because it seriously goes places I had NOT expected.
I feel like this second comic is probably a low point in the series – it’s not a bad comic per se, it just needs to do some world-building, and I suppose I was kicking about for getting under the skin of the characters …
Though it’s not my favourite comic in the series, it turns out that one of the most important/formative parts of the series is to be found here – page 16/17 – Steph says of space, ‘It’s all DARK’, and her optimistic sister Jen chips in ‘with twinkles’. Turns out that is the master arc of the entire series and I wrote the rest of the arc with this discussion in mind, because I was really struck by the naturalness with which Steph seemed to focus on the darkness – something no doubt all humans can relate to, sometimes. I certainly do.
In fact I think this can be a sign of our adolescence; our propensity to polarise things. I think maturity is more about nuance and paradox; and some people never get there. The steps to maturity are, after all, necessarily immature, and we love to pretend we’re grown-ups with all the answers. It is after this ‘adolescent’ moment of Steph’s that we begin to explore her darker side, and it is through this struggle we discover her freedom; eventually encompassing both light and shade …
… so yeah. The series goes places I hadn’t planned. Honestly proud of where it goes.
(+ I’ve been having fun rebuilding the covers …)
Download comic 2, read it, share it, enjoy 🙂
[Got some thoughts? As always, you can leave feedback anonymously if you’d prefer 🙂 ]
