"I'm so thrilled about this," says Poirier. "I can already see how I'm going to be able to slip into her skin." According to author Josh Finney, "It's Denise's character who ties the narrative together. She's a force of nature. When the Prophet enters the scene, people's lives change forever."
A merging of the words utopia and opiate, UTOPIATES follows the lives of four individuals whose paths intersect by way of the drug. The drug's appeal is that it allows uers to inject the memories, dreams, and most importantly, the personalities, of others. Every user has his own reasons for seeking this chemical escape, but all learn the high price of “soul swapping.”
If AudioComics meets all its Kickstarter goals, UTOPIATES will be a two-disc set. The first disc will be an adaptation of Finney & Rocha's graphic novel. The second will offer three new stories set in the UTOPIATES universe; one scripted by Finney, one by an author to be announced, and the third by sci-fi legend John Shirley. Screenwriter of the The Crow, starring the late Brandon Lee, and one of the godfathers of cyberpunk, elements of Shirley's novels have found their way into properties such as Dark Angel, Max Headroom, and most notably, The Matrix Trilogy.