The Growth Model

This is my entry for 2019’s Jonathan Cape/Observer/Comica Graphic short story competition - A little darker than last year’s entry!

As it becomes clear that our planet is in the first stages of a full blown climate emergency, it is not uncommon to hear people discussing the Gaia theory - that earth is one enormous living entity capable of regulating itself through the ecological and weather systems that span its surface.

Whilst it’s possible to view climate change as an indiscriminate shake up of the norms we have become accustomed to as a species, it is also tempting to view it as the actions of a vengeful nature. The premise of this short story explores the idea that mother nature could be more of a cold and calculating agent in the plotting of our downfall.

Pitting the mores of everlasting growth under corporate capitalism against a creeping threat that combines the sentient systems of Skynet with the Eco-horror of the Triffids was a large idea to chew over in four pages, but I like to think of this as a prologue to a more expansive story that could be teased from this short.

View Full-Screen