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In the upcoming horror comic Human Remains, there's a new breed of monster hunting people - and they find us by our strongest emotions, good or bad. Strong love, strong hate, strong fear - it's all an appetizer to these new terrors.
Series co-creator/writer Peter Milligan came up with this story during the pandemic, but as he explains it, Human Remains isn't influenced by the pandemic as much as it was the safety precautions taken in light of it.
"London England, last summer. It was during the first lockdown and my wife and I were walking in Kenwood Park, North London, enjoying the one period of outside exercise we were allowed per day. I watched the people around me, all keeping their distance from each other, all – at least all who had had any sense - somewhat wary," Milligan says.
"I was struck by how strange this all was. And I thought about all the things that had recently been so natural that we now could not do. All the touching, socializing, kissing, close-up talking. All that everyday human stuff.
"It seemed the virus was stripping us of some of the essential qualities of what it was to be human," the writer continues. "A thought struck me, how much can you strip away from what it is to be human…before you stop being human?"
Set up as a sort of A Quiet Place but replacing sound with emotion as the way the monsters hunt, Human Remains imagines a world where you shouldn't laugh, you shouldn't cry, and you shouldn't love - not if you want to survive, that is.
"Human Remains is about love, really," series co-creator/writer Sally Cantirino says. "It's about mistakes, bad decisions, and both intentional and unintended harm. It's about the things we do because we love people—our lovers, our families, our communities—even people who don't love us back."
At the center of it are two lovers, Dax and Bisa. They're deeply in love, but in this world where alien monsters catch your scent when you have any serious emotion, they're forced to bottle their feelings up inside.
Both Milligan and Cantirino have a track record for horror, from his Enigma and Hellblazer runs to her works, I Walk with Monsters and The Final Girls. They're joined by colorist Dearbhla Kelly, and designer Tim Daniel.
Human Remains #1 goes on sale on September 29.
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