Birdwatching From Mars, a forthcoming dark comic book series written by Barry Napier

Thanks to the generosity of Barry Napier, a dark speculative fiction author who writes stories he wouldn’t want his grandmother to read, you can get a look inside Birdwatching From Mars, a forthcoming comic book series written by Napier and illustrated by a team of artists. Here’s a working synopsis of Birdwatching From Mars, taken directly from Napier’s blog, Ghosts in (Parentheses):

It’s been six years since the asteroid struck Earth. It seemed to have come out of nowhere and by the time the scrambling defenses of the world even noticed it, there was nothing they could do. This seemed odd, seeing as how the asteroid was roughly the size of California.

In the panic of the world, each nation handled things their own way. In America, a lottery was held; 3,000 people were randomly selected to live in government operated military bunkers–one beneath Utah and one beneath Virginia. These people survived the impact and, while still alive, are left to live their lives confined to these underground hideaways.

Over their heads, a few scattered survivors roam the landscape. They are beaten, starving, half-mad. A great deal of those that survived the impact became infected with... something... something that has turned them into ravenous monsters that hunt the uninfected. And beyond this horror there is something else; a new creature walks the Earth, beasts that were not part of Earth prior to the impact. The survivors have no idea what to think of these creatures or of the infected humans, but the leaders in the underground compounds are beginning to piece things together.

And they have started to look skyward, towards the heavens, towards our red neighboring planet. Mars, it seems, shares a very similar history with Earth. It is also a planet full of mystery and horrors that astronomers never discovered.

It’s a shame that the secret operation to transport the world’s elite population to a secret base on Mars was not privy to that information. Because as the survivors of Earth fight their own battles, there is a very bloody situation developing on Mars... one that will forever link the two planets in a gruesome inescapable history.

Although the release date is a bit fuzzy, Napier says that Issue #1 is 22 pages long. Stay tuned for more info or follow developments yourself on the Birdwatching from Mars blog!

Pictured: Part of a page from Birdwatching from Mars. Script by Barry Napier. Inks by Keith Draws. Colours by Ryan Burt.