The Lost World

CAST

EDWARD CLARKE (30)

A scrappy, hot-headed punk rocker and teenage runaway, Ryley engages in frequent mischief and heavy substance abuse fueled by anger, fear, self-loathing and an essentialist reactionary worldview spawned from her traumatic childhood.

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CONNOR McARDLE (51)

Ryley's girlfriend, Alex is a local political organizer still recovering from the overnight thrust into fame as a result of becoming a best-selling queer author just under a year ago. Intellectually-minded, her external aura of serenity and strong assertive nature is betrayed by her endless internal turmoil: crippling anxiety, depression and overwhelmingly self-destructive behaviors.

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ALISA HUNGERTON (28)

A free spirited vegan "flower child", Dawn is the oldest and seemingly the most "put together" of the household. Acting as a communal well of wisdom and emotional support, her carefree temperment has unintended consequences for herself and her housemates.

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JOHN ROXTON (39)

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KIM SUMMERLEE (29)

CLIVE MALONE (33)

SECONDARY CHARACTERS

Bibua Madungu:
Jenna Antonelli:
Simon MacGregor:
Rania al-Khatib:
Quint Schrader:
Lucas Mitchell:
Austin Hughes:
Kaleb Simpson:
Nia Huỳnh:
Zachary Richards:
and Sophia Procter:

DEVELOPMENT

The initial concept for what would eventually become Blank Earth initially arose in the spring of 2014 in the form of "Faust": a psychological thriller which, although similar in it's bleak tone and grunge-influenced aesthetic, veered heavily away from the final product's gritty realism in favor of post-modernist and the surreal: influenced by popular media such as Silent Hill, Jacob’s Ladder, Angel Heart, Donnie Darko, 1408, Selby's The Room and the various assorted works of David Lynch, H.P. Lovecraft, Franz Kafka, Lars Von Trier, William S. Burroughs, and painters Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud.

This journey into the abstract marked a notable turning point for Cooper, who had - up to this point - spent the past several years working on Apocalypse and similar works that followed a very "Hollywood-inspired" formula of storytelling and narrative conflict, often centered around grand setpieces, post-apocalyptic settings and the multiverse. Cooper, inspired by the works of philosophers Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Friedrich Nietzsche and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, found himself growing ever more intrigued by the concept of focusing instead on internal character dynamics, unreliable narrators, and an exploration into more viscerally challenging, obscene and taboo subject matter that Cooper believed better reflected the reality that he, and his peers, had grown and lived in.

The Screaming Asylum, located in Wellington, New Zealand (circa. 1993) served as the initial inspiration for the novel's central locale.

This new book had no title, initially defined by only a short outline; the story was to follow a traveling motley crew of punk rock vagabonds who traveled the country in a beat-up Volkswagen and dished out their own brand of homicidal vigilante justice to greasy old politicians, wife-beaters and rapists everywhere, while being hunted by a morally-disturbed FBI agent, only to be stopped when their respective pasts caught up to them. Though that concept would be scrapped, many of it's plot elements would be recycled for the inevitable sequel Of Cigarettes & Copulation, whilst the spirit of that original synopsis was re-contextualized and embodied in the character of Ryley Summers.

By late-2015, Blank Earth had been formulated, in-part as a response to (and rejection of) the emergence of what would later be dubbed the 'culture war' between "DiAngelo-brand woke tenderqueer SJWs" and "basement-dwelling incel neo-nazis" on major social media platforms such as Twitter and Tumblr. Cooper had ascertained that he did not want to pander to either, opting rather, to offend both. As such, the novel inherently rejects and attacks concepts of identity politics, political correctness, gender norms & stereotypes, ethnic nationalism and identity, and objective morality and instead raises arguments against both ideologies by observing 'simple truths' about modern life that Cooper remarked could be "easily found on any street corner, from dying small towns to over-gentrified cities, if one dare to look outside their safe space".

Over the remainder of the year, Cooper had dug his hands ever deeper into the world of film and literature, particularly in search of art that would reflect and help develop the innate themes and tonal mood that he had envisioned for Blank Earth. At this point, several various "scrap chapters" were also written up as a playground for Cooper to explore translating said themes into written prose, with the character of Jacob Delsin being created and developed as a visual catch-all proxy for the novel's overall themes.

"It was clear from very early on that I wanted to treat 'Blank Earth' as a more abstract and deconstructive piece of literature, to which things like theme, aesthetic, mood, atmosphere, tone, ambiance and character motivations were far more important than the overall “plot”. I really wanted 'Blank Earth' to feel less like your cookie-cutter ‘story in three parts’ narrative and more like it was a snapshot or a recording of something that had happened and/or was happening in real life; that these characters could feel non-fictional and would maybe feel like old friends to the reader. Even if they were perpetually flawed, morally inconsistent, and not always agreeable in their actions, you would feel their choices were deliberately tied to their core desires and beliefs. Human."
- Todd Cooper, on the inception of Blank Earth.

At this point in time, Cooper began his first drafts on the novel's overall plot outline, however, unlike the final product, it was as a three-act play then-entitled "Six Cigarettes", inspired by several classic kitchen-sink dramas, the implication that each of the six main characters, outcasts disillusioned with society, would ultimately burn fiercely then wither away.

Cooper realized that crafting the characters, story and world of Blank Earth and actually writing it, were two separate and equally difficult challenges that would require much effort, many rewrites, and a balance of determination with the correct state-of-mind. Blank Earth had to be nuanced and subtle, yet, could not pull its punches. It had to be equally "raw" and "in-your-face", but not enough as to invoke a pubescent child merely writing obscenities. It had to shock and offend mainstream readers sensibilities, while also being deeply thought-provoking. Thankfully, as time went on Cooper was able to draw massive amounts of inspiration from dozens of newly discovered works.