Homo Depressus was – in fact, perhaps still will be – a collection of short comics.
It’s satirical science fiction. But it hasn’t many laughs. It isn’t even black humour, and far prefers the accusing, puritanical gaze to any other expression. It rarely laughs, and when it does it’s a spat, aggressive “HAH!” rather than anything else vaguely integrating.
This strip was to be in the middle of the sequence, so doesn’t attempt to explain the conceits of the world. That said, you should be able to follow it given these three facts.
1) Modern life is the End of History. Homo Depressus takes that literally, and has society stay completely static from now until if not forever, at least enough to allow evolution.
2) The biggest evolutionary pressures are those which stop you breeding. Anything that kills young people is strongly selected against. One of the biggest killers of young people today is suicide. Logically enough, if the world continues as it is, evolution would select for traits that reduced the suicide rate.
3) Rather than doing it psychologically, I’ve chosen to make the mutations physical. The human being evolved to make it harder to commit suicide. Blood clots quicker, Bones are constructed to shatter differently and so on.
Homo Depressus is a world of people who are suicidally depressed yet find their efforts thwarted at every turn.
This would have been around the third episode or so.
Enjoy.
In a very specific, rarely used meaning of the word “Enjoy”.
Kieron Gillen