It’s sometimes difficult being “just” a writer in a visual medium. Despite the fact that writers are the very foundation for those media (be they films, television, comics, video games, or something else), they’re often deeply in the shadows of […]
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Author: Jackwraith
Persistence unto (and sometimes through) death
It’s been a couple months since the last time I tapped out one of these. In the interim, I’ve been writing in other places, although not as often as I could’ve been there, either. I’ve also been working on the […]
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The concept of oligarchy
The third level is the one that fits most neatly into the old school cyberpunk vision that drove a lot of the Dystopia setting. It’s very high-tech. It has a lot of cyberized-type characters and it contains that “corporations as […]
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The essence of control rings out
In some ways, the Control Ring (level Two) of the city is the most obvious of settings and, in turn, the most aptly named. Government of any kind is essentially about control: controlling who is considered a citizen, what the […]
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The tribal mentality
As I mentioned in the historical publication piece, the gangs have almost always been a fascinating topic for whomever has read the bible. When I started listing them off on that day that I dumped the majority of this whole […]
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Shadows on (and off) the ‘Net
The opening story, Into Darkness, is primarily concerned with what’s happening in “the Real” as the city expression goes. We’re presented with Force Command, which is the main route of interaction with the outside world, which is almost always only […]
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Plans for the moment
When Jeff suggested that we try to get back into comics (him drawing and me writing), he immediately suggested the Dystopia material that I’ve been regaling you with in these first few posts. When he did that, he asked me […]
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Edge of the known world
Dystopia was originally envisioned as a multi-genre project. Early in the lifetime of Fifth Panel, we didn’t have a ton of variety in our genres (e.g. it was still mainly superheroes), but there were at least some variations in approach, […]
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The grand vision
Me being me and having new stories and characters springing into my head on an hourly basis, I immediately knew that just doing one book and calling it “Dystopia” wasn’t going to serve the situation. With a setting that was […]
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The origin story
The most basic identity of the Dystopia setting was two-fold: 1. It was a place that everyone at Fifth Panel Comics could play around in. 2. It was a way to compile a ton of random ideas that I’d built […]
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The free weekly webcomic updates on Monday. Dystopia offers unique takes on storytelling through genre-spanning arcs set in a richly imagined, multi-layered world. Across its towering levels and shadowed undercity, you’ll encounter cyberpunk conspiracies, gangland rivalries, corporate cults, digital ghosts, and the quiet struggles of those trying to survive between the cracks. With each story, Dystopia invites you deeper—into a world that feels both impossible and eerily familiar. The world expands as you read, revealing patterns, echoes, and secrets hiding just beneath the surface. It’s an evolving experience that rewards curiosity.
