CELESTIAL FEAST

PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENT

Super pumped up to announce our latest comicalfoods collaboration project! A short story anthology by Christian Ochoa, Bradley Ramsey, and Ryan McCowan! A collection of sci-fi stories about off world scientists investigating alien oceans and their food webs to save their new home planet from a great flood. Inspired by the recent climate events that are happening in our own world we plan to bring you some illustrated cli-fi short stories full of…

👾 Alien Jellyfish
👨🏿‍🚀 Deep Ocean Divers
🦠 Ancient Viruses
🌀 Giant Storms
🕸️ Food Webs
☄️Celestial Events
🧊 Jelly

Ryan cooked up some Jellark creature design concept art…

Christian cooked up a story called…Fall of the Jellarks.

Gel-Memory AD-00000001

Our sick diving team has ventured up into the gelcean but I am the only one that can hear the jellark’s voice.

Help us
*Click-pop*
Promise us
*Ploop-pop*

Their cries remind me of my promise to you and your mama, of my Alzheimer's and of the depressing fact that I will leave you again but this time I won’t -*cough* - remember.

Warning! Liquid detected inside suit. Warning. Liquid detec- Suit disable warning. *cough*

It’s just tears and phlegm. We are approaching an injured jellark the size of our main spaceship. It’s pretty small but loud enough to vibrate us all to death with the whale-like noises it emits. We should stop here and wait until it dies before we extract anything.

Command center:
Remember your mission. We are here to study and extract. As the jellark dies it will transform into a tiny blob of tissue and become a polyp once again. We are here to study how it transforms and to extract that tissue. Your main mission is to extract. This is for the sake of our planet, for the possibility of immortality, for the Council of Eight, for - Suit mute command center.

Command center muted.

Fuck the council of eight. I’m here for immortality. We’re so close to achieving it. I’m here so I can save myself to go back home, wake up my family from cryosleep, and hug them before my mind eats itself. I *cough* promised you. Papa promised you.

My team stays at a safe distance from the tentacles of the Jellark. Those tentacles are similar to that of an extinct creature from our original home planet. The octopus. They have a decentralized CNS, meaning that unlike us, where control happens in the brain, they have control systems in each arm. Sort of like a mini brain in each limb ready to fire the galaxy’s deadliest toxins into whoever touches it.

One of the tentacles feebly reaches out towards me.

Help us
*Click-pop*

I reach out. My suit should protect me from its toxicity. My arm is vibrating from the Jellark’s final cries. I think my brain is too. I’m starting to remember your face. I miss you so much but I need to hear what it is saying before it’s too late. As the darkness feasts on my brain I keep my hand out and listen.

Help us
*Click-pop*
Cycle Broken
*cli-click*
Help us
*Click-pop*
Save Planet
*Popp-clik*

We touch and somehow exchange memories at the speed of light! I gasp in wonder and pain. The Jellark suddenly sinks through the bottom of the gelcean and falls thousands of miles down into the ocean below. I wonder if I’ll remember any of this. Darkness.

End Gel-Memory AD-00000001

Color Edited image by Zetong Li from Unsplash +

Bradley cooked up a story called A Planet’s Song.

***BEGIN TRANSMISSION***

Cora: Felix! Felix, please tell me you’re awake!

Felix: I am now…(coughing) your incessant messages have seen to that.

Cora: I’m sorry, but I had to reach you. I’ve done it, Felix! The translator is working!

Felix: What? You’re serious?

Cora: Yes! We were right, the Gelaton peoples do in fact communicate through some form of music. They’re singing, Felix!

Felix: We already knew that, please tell me that’s not why you woke me up. (cough)

Cora: There’s more. They’re singing to the volcanic jellyfish we’ve discovered around the planet. What were those called again?

Felix: Yes, the Jellarks! Remarkable, are the Jellarks singing back?!

Cora: Unknown, but the translator has decoded the language they’re using when they gather on the Jellarks. We’ve managed to transcribe the lyrics in their entirety.

Felix: Okay, now you have my attention.

Cora: I’m transmitting the lyrics to you now. I’ll see you soon. I love you!

Felix: I love you too, even if you do wake me up at unreasonable hours. (repeated coughing), Damn, this cough is going to be the end of me.

***END TRANSMISSION***

//BEGIN DATA TRANSFER…

The tides above go out.

We, the children remain devout.

Darkness crawls across the land,

But here we firmly stand.

Fellow Medusas, raise your voice,

Holy Seamounts, may you rejoice!

Upon this place where purpose grows,

We remain through the highs and lows.

Protectors of the oceans hear our cry.

The Seamounts, who float and fly.

We stand guard by your side.

Setting aside all of our pride.

Here and now, we sing the planet’s song.

Our bodies are weak, but you are strong

As the ocean stars finally align

We see that your purpose here is divine.

Seamounts, please accept our sacrificial dead.

With reverence, upon your bodies we tread.

We humbly feed you this sacred specimen

so that you may consume and recycle our kin.

Take our feeble flesh and skin

and transform it into sacred gelatin.

As our bodies feed the sky’s ocean,

We will never waver in our devotion.

Seamounts, we listen patiently for your voice.

And when that day comes, we shall rejoice.

The day our gods grace us with their song,

Returning to the clean ocean above after so long.

Art by Christian Ochoa

Here’s a quick recipe for how we started this project!

1. Christian created a sci-fi/fantasy-horror pitch

2. Pitched it to Bradley and Ryan

3. We all signed a collaboration contract

4. We created a worldbuilding guide

5. Christian took part in a cli-fi writing event that pushed him to write the 1st story for Celestial Feast and gave him the idea to announce it on earth day.

6. Christian made a quick logo.

7. Bradley wrote his 1st story to also follow project announcement date

8. Ryan drew concept art for the Jellarks

9. We announced project today!

Follow us as we keep cooking up Celestial Feast!

Christian Ochoa

Bradley Ramsey

Ryan McCowan