AMBER LOVE 16-APRIL-2014 Today’s VODKA O’CLOCK features comic writer/artist CHRISTOPHER KOSEK the creator of THE DEFAULT TRIGGER, a cyber-noir that includes a wild conspiracy about student loan debt. Would you take a deal of working at a secret job for two weeks to pay off your student loans if it meant you had no memory of that time?

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Chris had a great background as a comic book fan that went to art school and then on to study graphic designer which is where he landed professionally. The way he reminisced about his early years sounds like so many of us that were interested in comics then diverged for careers and came back to comic eventually echoes what I’ve heard from so many creators. What differed for Chris is that he was in a school that revered art and had advanced programs that included studying figure drawing off-campus. The environment was nurturing for creativity and encouraged him to go further.

The sacrifices former students and their parents need to make in order to maintain any existence while burdened by the mounting student loan debt was the motivation Chris needed to pull his thoughts together to create THE DEFAULT TRIGGER. He had heard stories where graduates were told that their parents should sell their homes in order to make the loan payments. He has talked to lawyers who can’t get home loans because the sheer amount of student loan debt they have makes them more of a risk than a laborer with a lower income.

How far do you need to go to pay off your loans? Well, for some that means turning to a career in porn and adult entertainment. Recent headlines targeted Duke University’s student known as Belle Knox. There’s a ton of debate on this subject where sides range from seeing this move empowering and critics who see it as contemporary sexual slavery where women have no other skillset than the sex market. You’re not paying for college by delivering pizzas. College is no longer $2,000/year; a low ball number would be $20,000/year and the service industry has not proportionately increased along with it.

Read THE DEFAULT TRIGGER and let’s hashtag this social question: If you were offered “the deal” to be indentured for two weeks and your loans would be completely paid off but you would have no memory of that time, would you take it? #defaulttrigger

LINKS:
christopherkosek.com
@ckosek

Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.