This book confronts the question of why our culture is so fascinated by
the apocalypse. It ultimately argues that while many see the
post-apocalyptic genre as reflective of contemporary fears, it has
actually co-evolved with the transformations in our mediascape to become
a perfect vehicle for transmedia storytelling. The post-apocalyptic
offers audiences a portal to a fantasy world that is at once strange and
familiar, offers a high degree of internal consistency and completeness,
and allows for a diversity of stories by different creative teams in the
same story world. With case studies of franchises such as The Walking
Dead and The Terminator, Transmedia Storytelling and the Apocalypse
offers analyses of how shifts in media industries and reception cultures
have promoted a new kind of open, world-building narrative across film,
television, video games, and print. For transmedia scholars and fans of
the genre, this book shows how the end of the world is really just the
beginning...