In 1812, a poem was released about a character who was left alone on earth to fend for themselves after a nearly world-ending disaster. This was the first recorded start of the post-apocalyptic genre. Most stories found a character in a similar predicament. Whether the catastrophe is a comet, the sun burning out, or a famine, it was a character alone in a dead world. After WWI, the stories evolved to feature more characters, but this time, the world was nearly wiped out by less supernatural means; the world would usually be destroyed by nuclear warfare or attrition. In the modern era, the genre has become stagnant, with a few stories, such as Mad Max or Fallout, gaining the public’s attention. So, how will the post-apocalyptic genre thrive again? Post-post-apocalyptic storytelling.
New Earth is a series described as a post-post-apocalyptic story, focusing on a humanity that, despite nearly being wiped off the face of the earth, has survived and evolved alongside the mutations brought about by the apocalypse. From the ashes, we’ve entered a world full of robots, vampires, the occult, fauna-mutation-humanoids, with a peculiar wellness center. Its creators, Andra-Maria Placintescu and Ariadna Gómez-Kelly, currently lead a team of over 40 artists dedicated to bringing this story to life and have agreed to talk to us about it.
Can you tell us about yourselves in relation to the art scene?
“Andra-Maria Placintescu, the Romanian creator, writer and director of animation of New Earth, graduated from her BA in illustration the summer prior but has been drawing since she was old enough to hold a pencil. As a teenager, she began writing stories focusing on intensive worldbuilding, which served as the foundation for what would become a strong passion for the tabletop role playing game, Dungeons & Dragons, specifically in Dungeon Mastering. She began animating about 7 years ago as she was obsessed with the French animation school Gobelins, which she hopes to attend at some point in her career.
Ariadna Gómez-Kelly, the Irish-Spanish showrunner, director, co-creator and co-writer of New Earth, graduated from her BA in Filmmaking in the same university, where we both met. She began writing at around the age of 8 after fostering a love for poetry and forging a great love for reading, credit to her English teaching father. She set out to become a writer before switching onto the path of film directing, seeing film as the most all-inclusive art form, where all forms of art can be explored and expressed simultaneously, animation always being her most favourite medium in the craft. However, she knew she wasn’t an animator, and so chose to focus on film instead, until she realized that directing animation was a difficult, but still possible option. Between her passion for film, animation and cosplay, she is deeply entrenched in the world of fandom and understands the sorts of things that appeal to such a community.”
You’re working on your series titled New Earth, what’s the series about?
“New Earth is a post-post-apocalyptic, occult mystery series. It’s set 20,000 years in the future of the world we know now, several mass extinction and nuclear events later. The planet has managed to readapt to its new radiation fueled conditions and slowly has risen back up onto its feet. The over presence of radiation however has made the people of the planet look quite different than the ones we know now, with many different humanoid species having taken form. From mutated plant people to mutated animals, no one who stayed on the planet has been left unscathed. There were however the richest few that managed to escape the conditions that were essentially the consequences of their actions and only returned some 700 years prior to where the show takes place.
Whilst investigating a high-profile disappearance, the main cast stumbles upon an oddly placed flyer belonging to a Wellness Centre. This quickly descends into what is clearly an occult conspiracy much larger than they could have ever imagined, revealing a secret side to their world that irreversibly shifts the course of their lives.”
This has been in development for 6 years and now has a committed team you’ve organized dedicated to bringing it to life. What’s the history there and how does it feel seeing it come together?
“The idea first generated as a retro futuristic Duck Dodgers themed Dungeon & Dragons campaign that Andra created for her brother as neither had a group to play with at the time. Andra and Ariadna both then immigrated to London for their BAs and that’s where we both met (and moved in together, still living together to this day and typing the answers to this together in our living room!), Andra having developed the story further at this point, almost unrecognizably so from its origins, and Ariadna hearing it and being blown away by the concept became determined that this story deserved to become something bigger. Consistently, for the past 4 years since, the project has been being developed in its entirety, wishing to be brought to fruition narratively before being brought into production. A year prior to the initiation of its official production, we both began planning the production process, networking intensively and consulting with people in much higher ranks at companies such as Netflix and Paramount, asking for advice on how to proceed with such an ambitious project. We were inspired by the success of the likes of Hazbin Hotel and The Amazing Digital Circus, from their humble beginnings on YouTube to highly successful television series and see indie animation as the future of 2D.
It’s been truly overwhelming every time we receive any piece of art at all from our amazing team, having seen this project through so many iterations and serving as a ground point through tremendously difficult periods in both our lives. Our friendship is truly what gave this project its wings, it would never exist if we had never happened to meet. After all this hard work, it has been incredibly rewarding to see it start to pay off with the general reception the project has been receiving, and although we know there’s still a very long and great road ahead, frankly, bring it on.”
When it comes to post-apocalyptic worlds, we see a lot of orange/green color palettes and Cronenberg-esq mutations. Though, in your series, the world isn’t like that. It’s filled with plant and animal mutations that look more beautiful and terrifying. What’s the thought behind this choice?
“So that’s where the ‘post’ in the post-post-apocalyptic we referred to earlier comes in. Unlike traditional post-apocalyptic media that concerns with the fallout directly after whatever conflict or catastrophe preceded it, New Earth begs the question of what follows. We took the complex social structures and psychology that human beings possess and combined them with the vast speculative biology a radioactive planet would allow for. There’s a beauty to be found in the horrific when given time to take form. A shorter answer would be however: Andra notoriously loves subverting tropes.”
When you mention the occult in your description, it feels like a trojan horse of drama in the best way possible. What can you tell us about the occult in the world of New Earth?
“New Earth is loosely set in a distant future of our own world, however with a few twists that lie in its underbelly and later serve as the basis of the plot our cast finds themselves in. It’s a very intricate world with much to be revealed. The trojan horse is a very good metaphor for how the story presents itself as you wouldn’t much expect to find such spiritual themes in something so anchored in science-fiction. As the two themes are heavily rules based however, we have found that they complement one another very effectively.”
How did your writing process go with the main characters? They come from entirely different backgrounds on the surface and don’t share much traits with one another which can lead to rich interactions.
“The group is like a one man band: it looks like it’s going to sound awful the moment it starts but there’s an undeniable factor of entertainment in watching it all go down. Rag tag doesn’t begin to describe this bunch. It’s truly circumstance that brings and ties them together, however, the group has more in common than they’d like to think, and for where they don’t, they have Axiom. This dynamic allows us to tap into a wide variety of backgrounds and character types, allowing for many different perspectives of the plot that’s about to unfurl.”
You mentioned that Andra loves subverting tropes, are there any tropes you’re purposely subverting to make the series unique?
“Many more to come so to avoid spoilers, we’ll focus on a few from the main cast that we’ll be tackling openly from the first episode. Charleigh is a subversion of the cool girl trope, she strives to appeal to the male gaze, resulting in her being the very definition of a ‘pick me girl.’ Norman is a subversion of the everyman trope, the average projection friendly male caricature that’s almost always a white heterosexual cisgender man who despite not having any particular talents or skills, always wins at the end of the day. He thrusts himself into an unfamiliar environment believing that solely due to the nature of his being he will come out on top and is quickly confronted with the reality that this is not the way the world works outside of his own limited bubble.”
The occult is an expansive genre as each passing year in real life we’re able to add new conspiracies and superstitions to it. To the authors, what is your favorite part of the occult to read? Any inspirations for the series?
“We are particularly fascinated with the exclusivity of how the game is played that comes with being part of an occult society. There are so many rules within such a system and it’s always interesting exploring what happens when those rules are broken. In regards to inspirations that are occult specific, Gravity Falls is a big one in regards to the pacing of the mystery at hand. We’ve also researched a lot into real life cults and the psychology behind such a phenomenon, naturally drawing inspiration from these real-world events.”
I know this is a tough question, but do you guys have a favorite character?
“We both absolutely have our favs within the series, unfortunately due to the mystery nature of the series, most of them will not be gracing the scene in the pilot, so stay tuned hopefully down the line for them! But from the pilot alone, Ariadna’s favourites to write are Eddie, Psilo and Keith while Andra’s are Carmen and Earl, keep an eye out for some of their introductions yet to come on the Instagram!”
As you work on the series, what’s your current biggest goal?
“We’ve been properly developing this series for the past 4 years and have written it to completion. There’s so much in store with this series and in order to unravel this mystery, we need people to believe in its pilot. And so, our biggest goal would be to get the chance to finish telling this story and bringing it to fruition. Trust us, we promise it’ll be worth it.”
Word from Andra and Ariadna
“We wish to shine a light on the rest of our incredible team. We have been intensely networking in order to bring this project together, and through the wider networks of the London animation community to begin with, before then turning to the online sphere, we have managed to bring together an insanely talented and just overall lovely group of artists all giving their time and energy in order to bring this passion project to life. It’s no news to anyone that animation and the art world in general is a tough place to be right now, and having many people struggling in that in between in our lives at the moment, we feel extremely honoured to provide this outlet as well as experience of working in a somewhat large scale project that we’re trying our hardest to run like a digital studio environment. We already have had a number of artists try new things on the project and discover new sections of the animation process that they now love. This is extremely important to us as this is a very low budget project being crowdfunded from the ground up so we’re very glad to give back in any way we can, as we’re determined to make this a beneficial experience for everyone involved and so are very transparent with our team with how we work from the get-go. We very proudly view ourselves as an animation community run project”
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The last time the post-apocalyptic genre was at the center of pop culture’s attention was in 2024, with Amazon’s adaptation of the Fallout franchise, which quickly became the most successful program in Amazon’s history upon its premiere and also increased its user base. Though, despite this, fans of the franchise have commented on how they would love to see an addition to the franchise that has a more lush environment as opposed to a dry dusty world.
With the next season of Fallout looking to maintain the aesthetic and an eventual third entry into the Mad Max reboot franchise that also looks to maintain the aesthetic, New Earth has the perfect opportunity to provide audiences with a fresh take on the post-apocalyptic genre. You can follow the series on its Instagram and support the series on it’s GreenLit page.