Rupture: How a Virus Infects its Host
So, the other day I get one of my regular “Christmas presents” in my inbox, courtesy of Gabriel — new storyboards. This time, depicting a sequence we’d been talking about since the first night I sat with him in a conference room over a year ago — the infection of a B-Cell by a virus, resulting in the “birth” of a whole new batch of viruses.
In our story, the thing that makes what viruses do especially pernicious is that once one of our heroes is infected, there’s no saving him or her. They must be eradicated, or there’s the risk that they could spread the blight across the BioCosmos, intentionally or not. It’s something that will have a huge impact on our cast on multiple levels, with the repercussions still being felt in a major way in Season 2 (yeah, I said it!).
For that reason, the visual that introduces readers to this phenomenon has to be mind blowing. It has to work on a visceral level. For reasons that I think are apparent, my mind immediately went to the famous chest-bursting scene in Alien. But while the concept here is somewhat similar, what we’re looking to establish is even scarier — it's happening inside a man’s body, and it’s happening on a massive scale. A cell infected by one virus will eventually explode, releasing a veritable swarm of new viruses.
Gabriel had me in the next evening for a quick phone conference with Lucius, and building off what he’d already sketched out, we came up with what I think is a unique and impactful visual. After our discussion, Lucius, as has become typical, took our written and spoken words, and translated them into something far better. Take a look below. (I’d say “enjoy,” but I’m not sure that’s quite the right word for this…)
