Gregor Samsa Returns To The Workplace
Updated: Jan 27
Gregor Samsa Returns to the workplace is an experimental comedy comic rewriting of The Metamorphosis, which follows main character Gregor on his journey back into the real world after the events of the book. Read it here:
Working heavily with contrasting themes of discomfort and comedy, I aimed to write a script that embodied “The Metamorphosis” and its rejection of tying self worth to employment; while also aligning it with contemporary readers for the medium.
This resulted in an entanglement of morbid and unsettling themes and graphics in dichotomy with the blunt, dry comedy that current media, particularly British media, hinges on.
Prewriting:
Any production process hugely varies depending on what the task demands, the style of writing or design I’m undertaking, and the intended medium I hope to
apply it to. For “GSRTW”, it followed a fairly standard five step process, allowing for ease of compartmentalization when discussing deadlines and expectations with collaborators.
For GSRTW, I began with prewriting: a brief period of ideating that allowed me to collate my thoughts and progress past its starting point as an idea to a fully outlined narrative ready for drafting. Having a general direction of development this early on also allowed potential collaborators to identify whether the themes and character of the project would align with their skillsets and style.
A project relating to Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis" had always been a quiet aspiration of mine since reading it as a child, which prompted a continued love of absurdist, existentialist, and surrealist fiction and art into adulthood. However, with a background in serious and thought provoking projects, I wanted to challenge myself by writing in a style I didn’t have much experience in: comedy.
With the book’s themes of worthlessness, alienation, and dehumanisation, many often find it difficult or confronting to read; so aligning it with popular themes of dark humour and self depreciation that are at the forefront of today’s comedy scene seemed a fitting way to translate its meanings to a modern audience.
Research:
Once my ideas were concreted, I proceeded forward to combining these ideas with visualised concepts, in the aim of identifying an aesthetic cohesion that worked best within the context of the comic’s theme.
In collaboration with artist Oscar Wood, we began this part of our process with a breadth of inspiration gathering, through moodboards and attempting to discern what made particular pieces of media stand out so much more than others. We recognised from this that alignment with contemporary audiences was pertinent in all these pieces, alongside a defined artstyle and humour, and thus encouraged references to other pieces of media to be made within the art and script; despite that typically being discouraged.
We strived to create a comic that followed other oddity pieces such as the “Moon” series by Beyond the Bunker, Smiling Friends by Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack, and “Artic Eggs” by The Water Museum; which all hinge on bizarre themes and a unique aesthetic appearance that defined them as standout experimental pieces in their mediums.
Drafting:
With research done, and a skeletal narrative outline following the three act paradigm identified during prewriting, progression to writing the first draft of the comic was seamless. Several kernels (essential plot points) had already been established, and so my key focus was ensuring these felt secure and understandable before I considered moving on to any satellites within the story (non-essential plot points) and what I like to call a “depth sweep” to ensure characters, settings, motivations, and actions all feel right within the narrative.
Revisions:
The biggest enemy to writing is solidarity- as it can promote insularity in the work, and often means that issues, major or otherwise, get completely glossed over. Seen in many fields, such as programmers hunting for a problem only for someone else to point out glaring spelling errors, having another person on a project in the same field or otherwise can be hugely beneficial to stamp out blatant problems early on.
When presenting the first draft to the artist on this project, Oscar, one of his first comments was a question surrounding the comic’s conclusion. Ready to explain, I reread the comic's conclusion and found one huge problem: in my head, in the context of how I was reading it, it made perfect sense. The nuances were obvious because I had written them. However, when looking at the script with a fresh set of eyes, it became clear that the ending I had in mind, built on reading between the lines, left readers confused or unimpressed.
To remedy this, we had a prolonged discussion about his perceptions of the narrative, using Jesse Schell’s FFWWDD playtesting strategy, tailored to the needs of a comic book application. While the project itself wasn’t a game, “playtesting” the comic internally within the team meant that working out the issues became a matter of asking someone to recount their experience, rather than a frustrating pursuit of perfection.
Editing:
Following on from our comic “playtesting”, I had a series of changes or considerations to make about the comic. Typically, I use a gamified version of the Eisenhower Matrix while working on projects- and this was no exception, although the elements of urgency became less about time sensitivity, and more about player reception.
Still organised by importance, the other scale was used more as a scale of receptive sensitivity- would the player notice these issues? Would they be rectified elsewhere? Were the problems urgent enough that they had to be resolved during scripting, or was there a degree of leniency that meant we could see if artistic accompaniment would fix it?
Making final edits and revisions with all of this in mind, we came to a comfortable conclusion that could allow for further expansion, but also fit within our three week working window. With the first full draft finalised and curated, we have intentions to consider further pieces, additional minor rewrites, and additional time spent on art in the future.
Read the comic here >>>>
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