The book imagines a world where a ruinous war has wiped the Earth of technology, leaving the survivors to placate their needs through biological enhancement. The graphic novel is centered around Camille, a trans fugitive and Master Sergeant Carver, a previously blind soldier with biotech eyes who works for the organization hunting Camille down.
The story is an adaptation of a short story Sable wrote for the Atlantic Council’s Art of The Future, a program that has writers and directors work with the US military to try and imagine what the future of warfare will look like. Sable expressed his excitement about bringing the story to a new medium, saying “Most of my excitement comes from the work artist Kristian Donaldson has done literally bringing our vision of post-cyberpunk future to three-dimensional life. I’ve never seen comic art like this before!”
Donaldson’s art used a catalogue of 3D models that he’s been assembling for the past five years to build a digital toolbox for the project. He described the method as “the equivalent of shooting a film and having all your sets built out, and all your actors in costume,” elaborating that “every building, every room, every chair, gun, car, and helicopter has been sourced and built and put together to make ‘shots’ with a free camera in virtual space.”
Sable commented that “While ‘The Dark’ deals with themes of transhumanism, at the heart it’s a very human story.” He said “Master Sergeant Carver is a wounded cyber-warrior, forced to hunt fugitives in order to keep the bio-engineered implants the government gave him. Camille is that fugitive, a trans biopunk who appears to have stolen data from the NSA’s biocomputer. There’s plenty of action, but Carver and Camille’s relationship is what drives this unique story. I’m excited for the world to share their triumphs and tragedies with us.”
The project has been consulted on by transgender writer May Rude, who explained “cyberpunk and themes of bio-engineering have always been favorites of queer and trans people and to see a trans woman starring in a story about that has been great.” She added that “Camille is a complicated and fun character who I think a lot of readers, especially trans readers will enjoy and relate to.”
The series releases digitally on comiXology, and all other Amazon-owned reading services, on October 2nd.
