The Fears We Explore

Everyone has their own set of concerns, worries, fears about themselves and their environment, past, present and future. Creators are no different.

So it is only natural that at least some elements of those fears and concerns and worries we have are explored one way or another in the works we create, in this case, webcomics.

There are already several discussions about the hyped up genres of stories that ebb and flow along with what historically is taking place in society at any given moment- from the absolutely blatantly clear propaganda comics to the more subtle, symbolic stories (both in comics and in film) that also go parallel to whatever humanity is afraid of or worries over as a whole.

Thus we got monster movies and comics in post-atomic bomb era, aliens and body snatchers in communist-fear era and zombies in terrorist/refugee/immigrant wave-fearing era that we’re going through right now.

But I also think that the same happens not only in the subject matter, but in the way that subject matter is handled, and this reflects the creator’s personal fears and worries and concerns, rather than society’s as a whole.

For example, my country Greece has been going through 7 years of economic carpet-bombing in what very likely will be later noted in history as the first economic world war, or The Great Recession, as it is already being tagged in peer-reviewed journals that explore its ramifications. So during that time when it first struck, I was not just inspired, but compelled to create a story about my country under occupation- and Without Moonlight was born.

But the way I have chosen to explore and handle the story in Without Moonlight (a very basic McGuffin yarn with several cloak and dagger elements) is not very typical. My goal is not to just narrate a “good guys vs. bad guys” story, or even a story of how the underdog wins in a fight with the big bad; what I am looking for in WM is the fragmented uncertainty of day-to-day living; the several different levels of trust and betrayal within the midst of what in a heroic film would constitute “the good guy side” and the sheer roots and motivations of extremism in “the bad guy side”.

I am seeking to explore and show the ugliness of that past era, but also the ugliness of this current era that I am living through. Current, modern day Greece resonates in the scorching memories of the older one.

In that process, what is soothing to me as a creator living in a different era under what feels in the vast majority of Greeks as another occupation, is that the occupation in my story was overturned in the end; and so I can explore my fears and concerns there with more ease, even though it's still hurtful.

And I know that if the crisis and the cumulative memorandums, with all the devastation they have brought and the drastic, unfair impacts inflicted on the population here had not ever happened, I might never have handled such painful material in such a painful, unforgiving manner.

But I am exploring my own fears and concerns, and so this is the way I just have to take.

What about you?
Do you see any of the issues that trouble you explored in your comics, from existential to practical?