A GREENOCK writer who is planning to pen a comic book set in Scotland's west coast in the aftermath of a major collapse has launched a crowdfunding campaign.
The comic centres around Euan Morton, a washed-up and troubled conman who preys on frightened people with ‘fake charms and protection rituals.’
Its author David Barclay, 35, says the story takes inspiration from Scottish mythology and the unique type of horror that comes with it.
Daivd said: “Euan investigates Scottish myths and old stories like cat-sìth, banshees the Sidhe.
"He didn’t actually believe in these things, but he ends up coming across his first threat in the first issue and realises this stuff is real.”
Euan’s first foe in the series is the Sidhe from Celtic folklore, creatures David says are more concerned with keeping order than sowing chaos.
The project can be found on Kickstarter by searching: SAORSA - A Supernatural-Noir Comic of Post-Collapse Scotland
He added: “In Scottish folklore, very rarely is any of it big, scary monsters.
"It's things that come in and make you assess yourself and what you're doing in the world, rather than just coming and attacking you.
“The Sidhe reflect yourself back to you. Scottish mythology and folklore is really tied to the land. So, they have these laws that the land has to follow, and if humans don't follow those laws, the Sidhe appears and they correct it.
"It might look evil, but it's just trying to correct the laws that humans broke on the land."
David says many people will find their own lives reflected in the comic as the main character comes to terms with grief, declining infrastructure and falling trust in politics.
He said: “It’s set in a world where the millennium bug actually happened, and everything shut down.
"When it all came back everyone had lost faith in systems and governments.
"It’s the end of the world but it happens slowly, rather than quickly. It slowly fractures over time, because people just don't trust the systems in place anymore.
“I was thinking about idea of national trauma and the thing that came to me all the time was the docks shutting. My granda used to tell me about it all the time.
“Everybody was working, everybody was enjoying life, there was loads of opportunity.
"Then they shut and nothing ended straight away but you can see it now. You see how big an impact that had on the community and everybody in it, and you've still got all the desolate places that just can’t get repurposed.”
The project has a fundraising goal of £2,500 and currently sits just shy of £500. The deadline for funding is March 5 this year.
David has already completed the script, and the funding will go towards production costs including artwork and printing.
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