Divided Kingdom

I came across the Divided Kingdom team via their fundraising campaign on Kick-starter. Straight from the off I knew that this was something special in the making. I browse around comic stores all the time, looking for something to pop out & something to grab my attention. Believe me Divided Kingdom is one of these books. Boasting spectacular artwork by Adam Oehlers and the sublime writing talents of Andy Hamilton and Bill Clark I guarantee this is definitely One to Watch! The guys behind Divided Kingdom ever so kindly gave us a little background about their journey and the book itself. For all comic book fans out there remember these guys names as we at The Bird believe Divided Kingdom is going to be a book we’ll be talking a lot about in the near future!

The story of DK is essentially a dystopian future where the main story is focused on Britain. In 2030 the entire planet was ravaged by a catastrophic flood and anything below a certain altitude was submerged and remains underwater. Britain is transformed from an Island, into a collection of several and the remaining populace are relocated to “temporary housing” on what high ground remains. During this time of crisis the people find their saviour in the form of Chairman Dereck Lock, the owner of the wealthiest technology firm in the world “Lock Technologies”. Using his vast wealth and resources he houses and feeds the broken remnants of Britain’s population and starts to rebuild the country. In 2031 Lock Technologies becomes BritCorp and Dereck Lock stages a hostile takeover bringing Britain under his complete control.

We join the story in 2045, or as it is referred to now “Year 15”. The old calendar and weekends have been abolished; the year is numbered 1-365. It is everyone’s responsibility to rebuild Britain so no time off should be required. BritCorp hold the surviving populace in a permanent state of Fascist slavery, enforcing it with a vast, highly trained, private army and virtually limitless wealth and resources. From this misery 3 unlikely heroes arise; Terry Black a mechanic, Dan Gardner an accountant and Russell King a BritCorp scientist. They are thrown together when Dan is exposed to a weaponised chemical manufactured by BritCorp resulting in powerful side effects.
Issue 1 is where we witness Dan’s exposure from there we will see how our 3 main characters unite. Their journey will then take them across the expanse of BritCorp’s Divided Kingdom, intertwining with the lives of the remaining survivors as they try to cure Dan and heal a country torn apart by war and greed.

The team behind Divided Kingdom is comprised of 2 writers Andy Hamilton and Bill Clark and artist Adam Oehlers.

Andy Hamilton kindly spoke to The Bird regarding the project -

The DK project is now coming into its 6th year. We love comics and felt the social decline of Britain needed representing. We have spent about 4 years writing 12 issues worth of material and when we had finished issue 6 we still hadn’t found an artist. We experimented with a few but nothing really grabbed us, we had built a solid mental picture of what our world looked like and the art just wasn’t reflecting it. By pure chance Adam’s name was mentioned at a birthday meal and the next day we looked him up. We were blown away by his website and contacted him; once we had a good working relationship we sent him our synopsis and then the hard work really began. He said our story reminded him of a cross between 1984 and V for Vendetta with some super powers thrown into the mix.

Adam sent us concept art for our main characters and locations which we loved, so we decided to go down the route of submissions to the majors. We commissioned Adam to create 6 full pages and a front cover, when these were finished we added them to our publishing packs, crossed our fingers and sent them to our targeted major comic companies. We experienced the long wait of no reply that many in our position have shared, before long our impatience turned to acceptance and we decided to push on regardless. This brings us to early 2013 where we launched our first attempt at funding DK issue 1 using Kick-starter. We asked for £4000 which covered Adams time, printing the comic, posting it and all the rewards. Thinking back I think we barely achieved £1000, the project failed spectacularly and we were not only disappointed but we lost our drive and determination for a long time. It was at the start of 2014 however that we re-ignited our passion and decided to try the Kick-starter approach once more. This time we cut our target goal in half and asked for £2000, the idea being to distribute the comic digitally. The results were incredible, in 3 weeks we had our smashed our target and the money was still coming in. When we reached £2500 we decided to add the bonus prize, if we reached £3000 we would furnish every backer with a paperback issue. The irony was not lost on us, aiming small to achieve digital distribution only to be faced with such overwhelming demand for a paperback version. It was always the original intention to make DK1 an actual comic “book” but we could never have foreseen the circumstances that made it actually possible. With that said we couldn’t be happier, this is our dream job and we want nothing more than to be able to bring our story to everyone that has shown such love and support already.
Regardless of what happens in the future DK1 is coming and it will not disappoint. A huge thank you to everyone that has made this possible.

So there you have it, Divided Kingdom Is Coming and I for one cannot wait. Not only do these guys deserve it for the immense hard work they put into it, but they are extremely talented, so we at The Bird wish them all the best with all the success that’s surely coming their way!