Story by Bulwach Sereechaiporn; Illustration by Warinlada Intrathoot
Received the Honorable Mention Award for Sci-fi Short Comics from National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA)’s Thai Sci-Fi Comic Contest (general applicants)
More Than Death (2010) is a one shot story my friend and I created together. I wrote the story and drafted a storyboard, then my friend magically turned it into a beautiful comic within less than a month. Yes, the competition was rough.
This story, unfortunately, has not been translated into English. And because of an accident with my friend's hard drive, the latter part of the comic is gone. I guess no one will get to know the ending except us.
This comic is a thought experiment about punishment and justice. We basically ask what would happen, if there was a neuroscience technology that allowed the government to make the perpetrators taste their own medicine? If they would be forced to feel and live the pain they had caused, would that create the more empathetic society? Would that even, in turn, reduced the crime rate?
The story follows a detective squad in a futuristic world (ironically, the year 2020) to solve a series of murders of law enforcement officers. Surprisingly, the evidence leads them to someone in the justice bureau themselves. While the story unravels the perpetrator's motive, it asks whether science and the "perfect" legal system can really evaluate crimes and bring justice, or if it creates even more injustice and systemic oppression. The ending opens for a further plot development as the squad become aware of an underground business, Death Insurance, a team of gunmen who are hired by perpetrators to assassinate themselves before they are punished by such a severe law.
