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We Are All Monsters – A Cadaver's Confession

By Matt Hardy

When we first announced Cadavers people made assumptions.

Some thought it was a horror comic – certainly it's called Cadavers and our characters are named after recognisable horror concepts – Poltergeist, Bogeyman, Doppelgänger etc. We also based our cast of character's powers and abilities on the traditional folk-lore associated with those supernatural entities.

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Some people thought it was a Superhero comic – certainly Edward Bentley's clean, animation style art and our line-up of freakish outcasts has elements of a team like the X-Men or Suicide Squad.

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Some people thought we were taking our group of misfits on a Dirty Dozen type / Mission Impossible style story – and yes it is about an infiltration squad attempting a kidnapping and possible assassination – so elements of that type of story are present.

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But no-one expected the story to be about immigration.

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By portraying the Cadavers as refugees from a parallel dimension stranded in the fictional country of Altrasania – we got to add a real-life backdrop of discrimination and persecution to our characters and their world.

We have done our best not to preach any conclusions – instead we have just tried to reflect some of what we see in the world. Are the Cadaver's unfairly treated? Are they dangerous? Do they want to be part of society? And Is society right to be concerned about them?

Many of the Cadavers themselves are criminals, a possible side-effect of the economic situation they find themselves in, and they may be dangerous. But, is that danger an innate hatred or agenda or is it fostered into being by society's treatment of them? We know these are serious questions and this is at heart a fun romp about superpowered ghouls – but we still wanted our cast to reflect the world as we think it would impact on them. This is one of the reasons why sections of the story are set in a local bar, allowing us to see the Cadavers as they appear to their friends, with their guard down and not living in fear of the outside world.

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At the end of the day we wanted to tell a story about people – flawed, troubled people put in a bad situation forced to make bad choices just to survive. Tell a story where everyone recognises that the monster they see in the mirror is not just on the outside.

Also we don't want to draw too many conclusions about our cast just yet – this is a thriller and there will be character revelations and plot twists to come.

You could argue the Cadavers nemesis, Marckus North, is painted solely as the quintessential villain in our story. Certainly reviewers of the book have evoked comparisons with Ted Turner and Donald Trump, especially with some of Trump's recent anti-immigration rhetoric echoing very closely Marckus North's own political stance. Again North is a character whose motives we will examine further, but in the first issue we do acknowledge that North himself believes he is acting in the best interests of his country and its people.

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Cadavers Book 1: Doppelgänger introduces our cast, lays out the Cadaver's society and backstory and follows the etherial Doppelgänger as he seeks to confront Marckus North. We end on a cliffhanger, with North apparently dead but many unanswered questions about exactly what took place.

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Cadavers Book 2: Poltergeist is currently on Kickstarter – www.kickstarter.com/projects/153289885/cadavers-2-poltergeist. Taking place simultaneously with Book 1 – this second issue touches on the same set of events from the viewpoint of the volatile Cadaver known as Poltergeist, as he takes a less subtle route to Marckus North. Book 2 expands further on the abilities and personalities of our cast and delves deeper into the concepts raised by the world they find themselves thrown into. And we chuck in a bunch of jokes and quite a disturbing amount of violence. Book 2 is where we have some real fun.

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At the end of the day Cadavers is a story about how we're all monsters to some degree, whether it be on the surface or not, and how society gives us imperfect choices. So, although the assumptions of spooky horror, superhero tropes and anti-hero monsters were all correct – we hope we have something a little more thoughtful for you as well.

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Rich JohnstonAbout Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne, Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from Blacks on Dean Street, shops at Piranha Comics. Father of two. Political cartoonist.
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