Crowdfunding Spotlight: The Berg – a Sneak Peek

By Luke Williams on April 6, 2023

The Berg by Fraser Campbell et al (2023)

An ordinary job for a team of London sanitation workers turns into a life or death struggle against an unthinkable horror… Luke Williams has the inside intel on The Berg, a new project from Fraser Campbell and others, coming to Kickstarter tomorrow…

The creators of The ‘Berg – Colin Bell, Fraser Campbell, JP Jordan, Gavin Mitchell and Sarah Peploe – make no bones about wearing their influences on their sleeve. Various 1980s action / horror films, such as the remake and classic paranoid horror thriller John Carpenter’s The Thing, with a touch of Aliens thrown in for good measure.

Plus, inspiration from a more down to earth source, the frequently reported “fatbergs” made up of human detritus, catering waste, sanitary products, prophylactics found in the outdated, outmoded and over capacity Victorian sewerage network that services London…

Over the course of 46 pages, a cast of sewage workers are introduced, as they encounter the bizarre threat that lies in wait under the streets of London – and you know this isn’t going to go well.

Despite its relative brevity, the creators make a good fist of introducing sympathetic characters, fleshing out their backgrounds so that they are more than just fodder for a murderous and unnatural subterranean creature – vital in a strip of this ilk.

Like all the best horror stories, the monster is mainly kept in the background as a lurking threat and introduced piecemeal as it picks the cast off.

Elegantly paced and plotted, with great dialogue. It’s beautifully drawn, with vibrant bubblegum colouring that adds to the unsettling atmosphere rather than detracting from it.

A credit to the creators and a reminder that outside the main publishers there is a thriving and vital independent publishers and small press scene which produces quality comics.

Luke Williams

• The Berg launches tomorrow, 7th April 2023, on Kickstarter now – get your PPE ready!

• Follow Fraser Campbell on Twitter | Official Site

Luke Williams

Brought up on a diet of Commando, British Boys Annuals and Asterix, Lucas Williams’s day job limits his reading time. Luckily for everyone else this also restricts his writing time.