Tighe-Mearns-Smith are having an outpouring of creativity that just seems to grow and grow – we caught up with them in the middle of their interactive /NFT comic series (which includes wearable jewellery from their fashion collection) the launch of their Cult Club and ahead of a Dr.Death techno dance set in Amsterdam.
Who is Dr Death?
Dr.Death is a master of vibrations, a warlock of the mystical realm, an ancient shaman born 30,000BC. As the story goes, Dr.Death broke free of samsara, he completed the magnum opus of alchemical transmutation and surpassed into new forms through metempsychosis. Dr.Death spent thousands of years travelling through the metaverse, searching for hidden truths and studying the patterns of the ever-expanding universe. That was, until 31st October 2019 when he first made contact with Tighe-Mearns-Smith who ritually summoned him to re-enter the physical world. Dr.Death has been brought back to physical life, with his spirit existing in digital form; through this, he spiritually guides Tighe-Mearns-Smith as he uses them as a vehicle to share his knowledge on esoteric wisdom and arcane universal truths.
What is this NFT comic thing you are doing?
One of the ways that Tighe-Mearns-Smith and Dr.Death share these universal truths is through the illustrated comic series ‘Dr.Death’s Redemption’. This is a weekly comic series in which we follow Dr.Death on parts of his adventures through the metaverse. Black holes, lizard kings and philosophical aphorisms; this is a journey that explores the inner and outer universe, the expanding physical cosmos and the intrapersonal abyss of the individual mind.
The comic series is released as weekly episodes, each episode comes with a section of narrative writing and a JPG digital illustration or an animated MP4. These weekly episodes are then ‘minted’ (the process of turning digital art into an NFT on the Zilliqa Blockchain, which is our chosen cryptocurrency) Each episode is available to buy on our Mintable.App Market Place Store ‘Dr.Death’s Redemption’. We are currently on episode 16 and we have pretty much sold every episode to date!
Dr.Death’s Redemption isn’t your average comic. We have incorporated a ‘choose-your-own-path’ aspect into the series; at certain stages, in the comic, we offer multiple decisions that Dr.Death can make, and we leave it to a public vote; the option with the most votes is then chosen as our audience become the hand of fate and are able to immerse themselves into the storyline, setting into stone crucial decisions that alter the entire story. The votes are held on our Twitter profile ‘@drdethcultclub’. Will you play the role of good or evil as you vote on Dr.Death’s next move? This is all part of the all-inclusive storytelling arc that we are creating, we travel along this path together.
We love the idea of allowing our audience to become part of the story, which leads us to another fun element of the comic, which we call a ‘Ticket to Redemption’ – where ticket holders star in the comic as characters! Will you be mining against the rocks under the watch of the overseer? Or will your head be served up on a plate at a feast of the noblemen? That’s the risk you take as you enter the realm of Dr.Death’s Redemption. This ticket is available as an NFT on our store, and if you want one you must be quick because they going like hotcakes!
We would also like to highlight the infamous Dr.Death Cult Club! Every buyer of a Dr.Death NFT has access to the Cult Club! Cult Club members are invited to join Dr.Death in a private worldwide group chat for enthusiastic individuals to meet, share knowledge with each other and have fun. The Cult Club already has members from England, Switzerland, Thailand, Canada & many other countries! Being in the Cult Club brings many perks such as early access to releases & prize giveaways; we have just completed our first prize giveaway where 2 Cult Club members won an ICARO eco-t-shirt. You can find out more over on our website: tighe-mearns-smith.co.uk/cult-club
You can buy product from within the comic book stories? How does that work?
As well as digital artwork we include physical pieces within our comic series. For example Priestess Lacerta, a character in Chapter 1 was seen wearing a necklace, this necklace is available to purchase in real life! Only one of them exists and we have made it as part of our sustainable jewellery collection. As the comic series goes on there will be a multitude of physical pieces that you will be able to buy, wear and use!
Why are you using Zilliqa?
Zilliqa is paving the way to a better future. There is an almost endless list of reasons that support our choice of Zilliqa blockchain, two of which are it’s spectacularly low carbon footprint and low energy usage per transaction. As well as this Zilliqa has an incredibly low fee per transaction which is perfect for us as we have sales of all different costs all over the world, we don’t have to worry about amounting oversea transaction charges! Aside of all the brilliant eco-friendly and business friendly perks of using Zilliqa blockchain we have found ourselves in a welcoming, zealous and supportive community of incredible individuals. The community around Zilliqa, or ‘the Zilliqans’ has become a great expansion to our friendship group, we are proud to be a part of this fascinating movement and we encourage more to join us! We see Zilliqa leading the way, especially for artists and creators to be able to fulfil their own creative potential, in fact, we think that Zilliqa is so great for artists that we created a song and animation about it! Zilliqa have an incredible ecosystem with an amazing array of projects built on it, some of our favourites are: Sparda Wallet, DeMons ‘Decentralised Monsters’, ZilDuck, UFF Sports, Pele Network, ZilSwap & Xacademy ‘XCAD’ – it’s a whole new world and its the best space to be involved in – everyone should check it out!
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So is this a fashion digital contemporary art thing? How would you classify it?
As with all of our work,
it’s a real multi-disciplinary bonanza, our comic has been created to include our animation, zero waste fine art, sustainable fashion, illustration, philosophies and thantatos techno music all into one project!
How can we find out about drops?
Our weekly episodes are released every Sunday at 11am UK Time on Twitter & Instagram. Twitter is our most active and up to date place to keep up with every movement real time! You can also check out our website at which you can read the comic in order, have a look at the other NFT projects we have running with Dr.Death, check out our roadmap and find out about all the other work we get up to!
Any plans for Frieze week?
Yes! But at the same time no, as we won’t be in the country! We have booked in our first Techno set as Dr.Death at Amsterdam Dance Event! We are so excited to bring our new, unreleased songs out and create a real party!
