Comrades
My second comic novel is about student politicians, and how they end up running the country… with all the backstabbing and moral compromise they learned running student organisations…
Sydney University is Australia’s pre-eminent finishing school for politicians, and its Students’ Representative Council is the nursery where generations of future leaders have cut their first dodgy preference deals and performed their first backstabbings.
Comrades is the story of one student President, Eddie Flanagan, and the brutal struggle to replace him, as a menagerie of campus lefties, Liberals and a would-be comedian dressed as a rooster battle for the spoils. Principles are abandoned, loyalties forgotten and party lines crossed until the blood of all the candidates but one soaks the sandstone cloisters.
In among the back-room deals, though, Comrades is also an affectionate portrait of student life, with its lofty idealism, constant hedonism and irrepressible humour.
As per Disco Boy, the cover illustration is by my brother Jasper.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.