In story posts, the goal is to unpack elements of storytelling for use by others.
In the first story in The King in Yellow, Robert Chambers wastes no time letting the reader know we are in an alternate version of the United States, in this case a dystopian vision of the future (1920, the book was published in 1895).
He paused, and turned to the white Lethal Chamber. The silence in the street was absolute. "There a painless death awaits him who can no longer bear the sorrows of this life. If death is welcome let him seek it there."
The ‘he’ referenced is a government official at the ribbon-cutting of a new ‘lethal chamber’ or suicide chamber. This passage takes place one page in, but the first paragraph describes the world in 1920, a world very different from history and past any natural through-line from 1895. Chambers is doing nothing more than establishing setting, which gets done in many ways on many levels to dial the reader in to the rules of the world they’re going to inhabit through fiction.
There are hundreds, even thousands of questions you can ask yourself in world-building (some people are incredible at internalizing it), but they collect into a few main tributaries. The two biggest ones are: what are the rules of my world? How do I convey that in story?
DC sets its stories in Metropolis, Gotham, Star City and others. Marvel Comics sets its stories in New York, New York, New York and New York (sorry, too easy -actually they use real cities everywhere to set their world). Both publishers do this aware of their intent - Marvel to make its comics more realistic (i.e. closer to our world) and DC to move a few steps over from our reality to one very similar, yet different. Unpacking these choices can be of benefit.
In Kodoja, my goal was to establish an alternate reality similar to ours, but with just enough difference to bring uncertainty into play. This is in line with two of the strongest influences on Kodoja - Godzilla and HP Lovecraft. Both ‘universes’ are similar to our own and that’s the point - giant monsters and cosmic horror deities are more terrifying when placed in this world. In the above cutout, from the first panel of the first Kodoja issue, it’s clear something’s different since there’s no such thing as Special Weapons division. It’s a world like ours but not.
A similar choice is made in the page introducing Mercury Velez when he nonchalantly references being a demonologist. Whether conscious or not, the reader knows something is up - the new Press Secretary of the US is a Demonologist? Demonology is a legitimate discipline? Many people internalize these things, but the effect is there and can be molded to the author’s intent - specifically because readers internalize them. Small differences can build on top of each other as the story progresses to substantial effect.
