The Sprawl

The Sprawl is a furry webcomic created by DrawHolic. The comic launched on January 1st, 2014, updating with a new page every Wednesday. It was added to The Katbox as a co-host on September 28, 2017, part of the new 'Katbox After Dark' adult section.

In addition to the website, the first chapter of The Sprawl is available as a paperback book from publisher Ringtail Cafe.

Premise
The Sprawl takes place in the fictional world of Tartarus, initially focusing on a survey team sent on a search-and-rescue mission to locate a missing expedition to the planet's southern ice cap. The mission is sabotaged early on and the team finds themselves stranded in the frozen wastelands near their destination. Soon after they find more violence and a greater mystery than they had counted on before the story changes focus to that of Liam O'Malley, a private investigator hired to protect an aging professor and his daughter from mysterious threats, then again to an ice mining platform where workers begin to disappear only to turn up as mangled corpses. Each story seems to be tied together through recurring characters and a sinister, glowing artifact which appears to be the cause of the violent outbreaks and strange visions the characters experience.

The comic includes nudity, sex and graphic violence. DrawHolic has stated that he considers The Sprawl to be an adult comic in the vein of Heavy Metal Magazine.

Characters
Bonnie Schuul is one of the primary characters in the first act of the comic. She is a blonde, white furred anthropomorphic rabbit who is the first to discover the artifact which seems to be the source of the violence throughout the story.

Getta Garbo is a primary character in the first act of the comic as well as the only character from the first chapter to make an appearance in chapter two, delivering the artifact discovered during the expedition to Professor Bohte.

Liam O'Malley is a character in the second act of the comic. A tabby striped anthropomorphic feline and private investigator hired by Professor Bohte to protect himself and his daughter from mysterious threats.

Plot
"The Sprawl", a massive megastructure consuming one of the desolate moons of a blue gas giant named Tartarus. In the opening to the first chapter it is revealed that the origin of The Sprawl is a colony ship that had arrived nearly a millennium earlier.

The first LOG follows a survey team that is sent to discover what became of an earlier expedition to world's southern ice cap. They arrive and find the expedition has been slaughtered, presumably by one of their own. As a blizzard descends on the camp site, the rescue team delves deep into the nearby caverns and finds the remaining expedition members dead, apparently having killed each other over a mysterious artifact hidden inside ancient ruins that should not exist. This glowing orb seems to be the source of the violence which killed the expedition and now grips the surviving members of the rescue team.

The second LOG takes place over 12 years later. When a scientist is researching a mysterious artifact brought in from the wastes, they find themselves threatened by unknown attackers. Private investigator, Liam O'Malley, is hired to help find the source of these attacks, but when he arrives he finds everyone in the Professor's lab has been killed except for the scientist's daughter, Sibo. What's more, it seems the attackers are not yet gone.

The third LOG picks up where the second left off and moves at a much faster pace than the previous chapters. Having escaped the lab into the city, O'Malley wakes up in a hospital room. Sibo has vanished and Liam has reported the incident to Public Security. After Liam reunites with Sibo the situation quickly spirals out of control with a series of grisly murders, corrupt police, and Liam seemingly falling into one phantasm after another until it's unclear what is real and what is fantasy. The chapter culminates with O'Malley attempting to rescue Sibo from the cultists, only for the orb from the first chapter to be revealed, then opened, appearing to turn Sibo into some sort of mechanical demon.

The fourth LOG begins with an opening page showing a blue and green moon orbiting Tartarus, closer still showing the world is covered in cities and has a partial orbital ring. The moon's crust breaks in some world shattering catastrophe. Above, in the ring, a group of what appears to be robots attempt to escape as everything begins to come apart around them. After this sequence the time jumps ahead "1.7634E+7 hours" later where one of the expedition members from the first chapter is seen standing on an icy ridge, overlooking a brightly lit chasm with a tower at the far end. The setting is some sort of ice mining and science operation, some time after the third LOG's conclusion and featuring yet another all new cast. As this part of the story opens, two workers are killed by an unseen, alien-like attacker. We then cut to the control center of the platform where more new characters are introduced and learn that the platform is preparing to receive a "fusion burner". Later, the bodies are discovered and more workers go missing. The platform's workers begin to protest and refuse to go into the areas where people have disappeared. The fusion burner arrives and is revealed to be a massive machine which appears to be larger than the entire ice mining operation. The security officer attempts to discover the cause of the first two deaths, but their investigation is cut short when a section of the ice mining platform collapses, revealing the cavern the orb was discovered in way back in the first LOG.

The fifth LOG continues off of the fourth, with the collapsed corridors and the caverns discovered beneath it quarantined by the platform's science team.