I am not the creator of RetroGenesis.

Erique Watson pitched the idea. He is a young family man working long hours and serving as my agent. We only see each other for training, as we belong to Modern Agonistics and beat the shit out of each other with regularity. He had this idea but not the time to write it and thought it was something that he could sell or license as a comic. He had liked Planet Buzzkill, and, noting that I seem prolific in the subgenre of horror-comic last-day-on-earth science-fiction, suggested it as an easy write.

The process has worked like this.

1. Erique sketched the concept

2. James suggested a Baltimore setting to limit research requirements

3. Erique decided to tell the story one day at a time, with 6 days of destruction mirroring the 6 days of God’s creation, as a kind of ‘earth’s revenge on humanity’ triggered by information technology

4. James suggested the title RetroGenesis, which we agreed on as a working title, and which seems to have stuck

5. Erique sketched out a survivor path—essentially the apocalyptic plot at street level, stating that he wanted, ‘real regular people—fucked up Baltimore people, maybe—not Hollywood templates, hero cops…,’ and the rest of the inbred inhabitants of the apocalyptic survival genre.

6. James was detailed to generate survivor characters and narrate their initial survival attempts along the plot line suggested by Erique. These characters are The Hipster Bitch, The Autistic Mute ‘Janitor X’, The Stripper, The Crackhead Pizza Delivery Guy, The Naked Deaf Manwhore, numbering 5, falling 2 characters short of the cast envisioned by Erique for the final scene of Day 1.

7. Erique decided on using a consulting firm, or ‘think tank’ as a perspective window for the reader once the initial characters had been introduced.

8. James introduced 5 members of the original 7 person think tank. With 1 survivor of the immediate event and 2 named, but not yet introduced, members of the think tank not yet addressed, James awaits Erique’s answer to the following question: “Does Jenny Jorgenson live or die? I need to write that scene before returning to the other five characters and introducing the other two think tank people

9. Erique has already sketched the last scene and the epilogue.

10. As soon as James gets the ruling on Jenny from Erique he will write the remainder of the novella.

11. 6 of the remaining 8 scenes will be posted online throughout April. The book will be available in May as a novella from Nerd Church and as part of a three-novella collection titled RoadKilling from PunchBuggy Books.

If RetroGenesis appeals to you, check out Planet Buzzkill, available for free online and in print through the links below.