'Animal Spirits' action-adventure comic
Updated: 3 days ago
Showcasing 'Animal Spirits', the most fun I've ever had making comics.
There's two reasons why I'm blogging about this: 1) Thought Bubble is approaching so I need to talk about work and not only create it; 2) I have only recently started pitching comics work to publishers so I need to talk about work and not only create it.
And so: This is a reflection on a comic I often overlook but had the most amount of fun creating: ANIMAL SPIRITS!
And the reason I overlook it, don't talk about it enough, don't promote it, etc, is precisely because it is a FUN comic, that was FUN to create. Like I just got in my sandbox and played around until I had something coherent. Anything beyond that playfulness feels like it kills it.
But, it's worth taking stock of it as a 'good thing I did' - and something that might warrant more than 'it's good dumb fun' as a sales pitch both at comics fairs and to (maybe?) publishers. Here's some pages from across the two books:
So what is it?? Well, to answer that question, I gotta go high brow and low brow.
High Brow:
Animal Spirits (noun) (pl): The human, psychological and emotional factors that can coalesce, gather pace, and influence economies on a vast scale.
A term coined by Nobel prize-winning economists George Akerloff and Robert Schiller in their 2009 book, ‘Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism.’
A vital piece of post-2008 (ie post crash) economic theory which moves past the neoclassical economics popular till then, which hold a static, technocratic and purely quantitative, (arguably) complacent ‘end of history’ way of thinking that is largely blind to its own biases.
Animal Spirits describe the psychology and dynamism present in our ways of collective ways of viewing the world and its human systems (like the money system and economics).
Low Brow:
'Animal Spirits': The title of my surreal adventure story where our heroes the Animal Spirits (mostly a pack of enchanted sled dogs; but also a bionic shark and a One Punch Penguin) go on an epic journey to the Frozen North to destroy the Great North Base created by the corrupt humans.
They confront populist politicians, strongmen, sh*t super-forecasting robot-strategists, a band of mutants and a vampiric wellness guru.
For the beginning setting think The Little Mermaid, but all the mermaids are sharks. Combine that with Iron Man, but the exoskeleton is a giant crab. And then, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Usagi Yojimbo, but the talking animals are all samurai sled-dogs. Then, mix in lots of pop culture, slapstick violence, and a panoply of antagonists who are confronted one-by-one like video game bosses (or the anime 'Ninja Scroll'). Finally, a confrontation and a big reveal that is a bit like 'The Thing' in that it is a shape shifter and it's in an isolated and frozen Arctic base type setting.
Animal Spirits 1 and 2 are available at Thought Bubble this year.
If you are a publisher looking for a complete version (super low res!) email me via illustration@petermorey.com for a password for this these password-protected download links.
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