Spotlight on Abyssal Albion
A Mythos inspired post-apocalypse eldritch survival horror. Now there's a pitch.
It’s a scorcher today.
I don’t function well in the heat. My poor, pale flesh is particularly susceptible to being eroded by daylight at the best of times, and I try to avoid reminders that we are all just consciousnesses inhabiting bags of blood and bones for as long as they function as an organism.
Memento Mori, obvs.
But you don’t have to keep going on about it. I don’t know about you but burning the top layer of my skin just goes to remind me that even the sun is out to get me.
When things are (marginally) cooler in the evenings, my dog and I will go for a walk in some nearby woods. It’s shaded there, and quite peaceful. We go Into the Woods to confront our fears, as the fairy tales and John Yorke put it. I just want to get out of the sun.
The first comic of Abyssal Albion opens with two survivors hiding out in the woods, and in the first few pages too. Unlike my dog walk (hopefully) this comic goes straight into confronting the woods-dwellers with Eldritch horror. It’s a dense, fast comic, utilising mythos lore to propel the story forwards. The use of an infamous two letter word (“Ia!”) exclaimed by a cultist in the first few page’s hints at the scale of the backstory, a very satisfying bit of worldbuilding tailored to acolytes.
Abyssal Albion is an independently produced comic, now raising funds for its third chapter on Kickstarter. I’ll freely volunteer that this is not a paid advertisement by any means – I saw the project, liked the project and backed the project – choosing physical edition of the first three issues. I got in touch with the writer Thomas J Campbell asking if he’d be up for sending a digital copy of the first issue (originally released around November 2020) over in advance to write some words about it before the campaign ends.
(It's an independent cosmic horror narrative across England. My interest could be reasonably considered vested.)
It’s a good comic, and I hope anyone on the fence will take this as a sign to offer a pledge. Wayne Lowden, the artist, tells the story in a lean, sharp style – black and white visuals with punk sensibilities that wouldn’t be out of place in 2000AD. What stood out to me was the emotional geography of the characters – each character is visually succinct, and Lowden’s art is able to render their feelings and responses clearly, grounding the high concept work in grounded characters. There are freaky visuals across the first issue, and the current Kickstarter campaign promises that things are only going to get weirder. I love weird, but it’s even better when it comes from characters we understand.
The campain pitches the series as an Eldritch Survival Horror. Survival Horror invites comparisons to The Walking Dead, or recent arcs of Boom Comic’s Once and Future, but it’s the integration of the horror cosmic into the genre that sets it up as something wholly unique. Lovecraft’s writing and traditional cosmic horror tropes position the apocalypse as something looming, something inevitable and something to dread. Abyssal Albion positions the apocalypse as backstory. Things have already gone up shub’s creek before the story starts and the story instead asks a very potent question. It’s something I’ve been wondering a lot lately, as the weather heats up and things seem to get increasingly worse in so many cruel and unusual ways. How do we survive in the face of unknowable devastation?
The campaign for the third issue of Abyssal Albion ends in five days. It’s currently fully funded, so it’s definitely going ahead – this is just a chance to jump in and catch up with the story. Perks include bundles of all three issues, prints and digital editions. If you’re here, I think you’ll enjoy it.
You should check out the campaign video if nothing else, it’s genuinely unnerving.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tjcampbell/abyssal-albion-1-3-apocthulhulyptic-survival-horror
Organising Chaos
Things are ticking away behind the scenes with England’s Dreaming, as is always the way. I solved a story question in my sleep last week. I don’t think I could stop it even if I wanted to.
What is notable is that I’ve actually talked through the intended arc for the short films of the cycle with a close actor friend. It was the first time I’ve spoken it out loud, and as a close collaborator, this guy’s response was always going to be important. He’s going to be in the films, with the current plan to make a debut in the second – he’ll be playing an established character in the mythos, and between the two of us I think we’ve come up with a really interesting way to approach him.
If this is your first induction to the England’s Dreaming project, I’ve written an overview here – and as ever, the fastest way to get updates is to subscribe.
We’re editing White Magick for Beginners currently. Alex, my editor, prefaces every first rough cut with an emphasis that it’s rough, unfocused, and pretty rubbish. It’s part of the process – lay it all out and start refining it into what it needs to be. It’s never not harrowing to see though, and I ended up needing talking down. A reminder that this has happened with every film we’ve made always helps me get back into the right frame of mind and ready to make it the best film it can be.
I really enjoyed writing about Abyssal Albion. With England’s Dreaming being kept under a veil currently, it feels like a good chance to reach out to other cosmic horror creators to spotlight and share their work. With this kind of art there’s no competition – the first thing you do when you finish a good book is look for the next one, so good work helps us all. If you have something coming up that you’d like to get more eyes on, reply to this email and we can have a chat.
Just cos the work’s scary, doesn’t mean we need to be.
- Tom
London