“Lara Croft meets Robert Crumb. ”

Paul Waddell

Spine: A monthly comic epub from creator Cihan Sesen

Writer and artist Cihan Sesen sums things up this way: “It’s a post-apocalyptic, dystopian future where Spine makes the best of it, and by best of it I mean skydiving half-naked into submarines."

Sesen imagines an alternate world, one in which humanity finds itself in the midst of a new Dark Age. Nations, cultures, and norms have been shattered after a cataclysmic event, replaced by clans who have rewritten religions, reinvented borders, and fashioned new means of warfare from the remnants of the previous world.  Food and energy drive two great, and very different powers.  In what was once North America, Saint-Romeo eliminates religion from his clan, and re-creates a Roman calendar, restarting history from Day 1.  Across the ocean, where Europe used to be, the mighty Warlord Xoon forms a confederacy of many tribes, with a mission to unite the world under one flag, and one nation.

Our story begins in Year 56 of the New Roman Calendar, with a young woman who will ultimately bring both leaders to their knees. Traveling around the world, and jumping over political fences, Spine is a chameleon, a mercenary without loyalty to any particular force.  Born in Turkey, she has somehow made her way to San Francisco, where she works for a shadowy corporate entity called the Bakery.  When she is given a new mission—to locate and secure a mysterious energy source called the Sun Drive— Spine must out-manuever, outfight and outthink the many forces hellbent on destroying her. In doing so, she must confront a   Born and raised in Istanbul, Cihan Sesen barely spoke English when he came to America to study art at Idyllwild Arts Academy. Idyllwild is a small town in the mountains; at times you can hear your own heartbeat because it is so quiet. You can also witness how a bunch of hippie-fallouts, religious fanatics, enlightened artists, tourists and rednecks get along at 4000 feet. After graduating from high school as a visual arts major, Sesen went on to study filmmaking at San Francisco Art Institute. He lives in Los Angeles. 



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