Ready Art Explains the Growth Lab - Episode 044, The Coalition of Science (continued)

Hey there and thank you again for your support! The Growth Lab universe would not be here without your kind words of encouragement and interest.

Let’s talk a little inside baseball about what we’re seeing right now with our characters and setting. Specifically, the Coalition of Science (CoS).

The Coalition of Science

If you notice the recent Character One Sheets you’ve undoubtedly seen the trend of CoS members being revealed. A longtime friend and fan was wondering if the CoS was some sort of villain group. I think it’s a fair point given what we know.

For me, the Coalition has been there in some form all long since I started the Growth Lab. I didn’t necessarily have a name for it but I always envisioned some sort of hidden group of people who manipulated science and technology. I don't think of them as 'villains' as much as a hidden faction. Let’s be honest, the Growth Lab universe has a lot of handwaving when it comes to its science. I don’t think that’s ever going to go away. For me part of the fun is having crazy stories and awesome transformations. Still, it’s nice to have grounding as long as it’s not interfering with the fun of the overall comics or animations.

When I started the Growth Lab series, I deliberately did not use licensed characters and I deliberately created a world with interconnected people. That wasn’t some great vision on my end. It was more like me trying to avoid copyright strikes and all sorts of issues you get when you draw a lot of fanart with licensed people. Little did I know over 20 years ago I’d still be drawing these characters today. All the old-time fans know about Naomi and how she was set up early to be a primary character. And she was, for the first seven or so issues. Even through issue 8 up to issue 11 it was mostly about Naomi and her family. We were also introduced to Hannah in those later issues.

A little bit of the technology of the world was shown in issue 6 where we see decom suits for the first time. For me that was the solid inception point of showing an organization monitoring and possibly inciting the growth. Again, don’t give me any great credit of foresight with the characters or tech. I was mostly goofing because I liked to show people growing out of armored suits. Still, we got the Sergeant and soon after we got Hannah. I’ve mentioned it before but Hannah was originally set up to be Naomi’s adversary through the Growth Lab. The idea would be Naomi goes on adventures all over the globe, growth ensues and then Hannah shows up and stops or thwarts her. Rinse. Repeat.

Things changed obviously and Luna became a main character (much to the dismay of some of you I know, ha ha). One thing Luna did on my end was solidify the idea there is some sort of an agency behind things. It was her creation that spurred me to drop a bigger back story for all the characters. Hannah was suddenly connected to Luna, there were these giant space stations, there was some sort of huge technology going on. This is also where we see the connection of the growth energy to some sort of renewable or sustainable energy created by the government or if you prefer a scientific think tank.

How does this all lead back to the COS? Well, I still felt like there needed to be machinations inside Luna and Hannah’s spheres of influence. I know the stories are wacky. I know we’re not supposed to take it too seriously and just have fun with it all. That still is the case! I still felt there needed to be some overall driver underneath everything. That’s where the Coalition comes in and that’s where we are now with Hannah.

For all you longtime fans of Hannah, of Trisha, and all the other ladies in the CoS. Those are still the ladies you know and love. Sure, some of them have been running a long con but there’s a lot of story to tell. Some of the comics (which you do not need to read if you do not want to) will be flushing out CoS information. Also, I want to add viewers of the animations should not feel the need to browse through 5000 pages of comics. Nor should comic fans feel the need to subscribe to the Patreon just to get additional story information from the animations. They are related and if you see both that is amazing and awesome and I thank you. I am doing my best to make sure both groups can work without having to deep dive into everything.

There will be upcoming stories in the comics and animations going into Hannah’s origins and how we got here. Same for Luna, same for Trisha, same for all the ladies. What will not be changing are the fun transformations and the overall fun tone of the stories, both written and animated.

I’m here for the long haul. I love what I’m doing and I love that you’re here with me! Here is to many more years and many more stories.

Love you all! Go out there and keep being your awesome self!