In Unfollow, the dying creator of a Twitter-like social media network has, supposedly, divided up his billions among 140 of his followers. He’s brought them all to an island to celebrate, and reminded them that if anybody dies before they collect, their share gets split among the remaining members. And one has already died.
Rob Williams and Michael Dowling have an interesting riff on the classic story of humans struggling with their greed and their better natures. First of all, the exact motivations here are still mysterious, even four issues in; we’re not sure just what’s happening here. Secondly, the book is focused as much on how a potential windfall can ruin your life as save it. And finally, the social-media aspect, as the book is scattered with tweets from its characters, gives it a different edge; instead of a brutal contest done in secret, these are people followed closely and who might just live-tweet their own horrible end. How would society react if a billionaire went off the deep end and did this? Not quite how you’d expect, according to this preview…
To see which of the remaining 139 manage to survive, check out Unfollow #4, on stands Wednesday and available digitally.