The Regulator (Series)

The Regulator is a series of novels written by Andrew McInerney. The novels deal with Andrew Stark, a young man who finds himself living in a Post-Apocalyptic zombie world and follows his transformation into The Regulator, a leader of the new world. The final two novels, follow Clay Rogers, a citizen of the newly founded Nation of Fireside as he choose sides in a civil war, eventually fights on the side of the Loyalists, and becomes a new Regulator.

The series includes fourteen books in total, released in order over several years. The first twelve books are the "Original Storyline" while the last two act as an extension in the "Civil War Storyline".

Development
In it's most initial stages, The Regulator was envisioned as "Rage" by Andrew McInerney (Damac1214), back in 2008. Rage was based primarily on the movie "28 Weeks Later", and was an imaginary TV series based around Andrew and his friends surviving multiple Zombie Apocalypses with 28 Weeks later type Zombies, one's that are simply humans with a deadly pathogen. They were able to run fast, and could be killed by normal body shots rather than exclusively headshots. The imaginary TV show "ran" for multiple "seasons".

In 2010, Damac decided to write a legitimate, written version of "Rage", re-titled "Rage in Death". The story ended up being very significantly altered, the cast was shortened down to four characters. This cast included an early version of Andrew, an early version of Ivan, and two other characters named Luke (Andrew's younger brother) and Casey (Ivan's older sister). Zombies in the series were also different, with three different types. There were "Undead", which were classic Romero type Zombies, "Infected" which were based off of 28 Weeks later, and "Possessed" which were supposedly humans possessed by Demons. They could speak, run, climb walls, and spit a black gooey acid. Though Rage in Death was completed, released on writerscafe.org, and a sequel was planned, Damac decided the story was too low quality, and chose to abandon it.

Concurrently to the writing of Rage in Death, Damac imagined a Fifth Season for Rage in his head. The fifth "season" was to feature a significantly different and larger cast, be set at a summer camp, and have Andrew in a clear leadership role. As the season went on in Damac's mind, he chose to cut it's ties from Rage and began developing it as a separate "series"

In 2011, after working out a basic story based on the rough idea of surviving a zombie apocalypse at a summer camp, watching The Walking Dead, and listening to the song "The Regulator" by Clutch, Damac was confident he had a solid story to begin writing. Wanting to focus on story and dialog rather than detail, Andrew initially wrote a screenplay version of the story.

In the screenplay, Andrew Stark, then known still as just Andrew, and Nick argue about Zach, a young camper who has been bitten by a zombie and is going to turn. The screenplay also introduced Gabi, though she was a much younger character. At the end of the story, Andrew killed Zach out of mercy. This whole sequence was eventually replicated in the final book, though with some edits.

After completing the rough screenplay, Damac showed it around to multiple users on the Call of Duty Wiki, who all gave him compliments as well as critique. One user in particular, Matt Mclean who goes by the username KATANAGOD, took particular interest. Seeing potential for a comic book, Damac and Kat began working on the script with the intention of making a pilot comic.

After watching The Dark Knight and The Avengers, Damac wanted a villain that would emulate both the chaotic craziness of the Joker, but the calm and calculating evil of Loki. With further suggestions from Kat, Damac developed The Bedlam for the series as a new antagonist. In initial plans for the series, Nick would have been the first true antagonist in the series, but he wouldn't be evil until late in the series. The Bedlam was added in to have an antagonist for the characters to fight against for the early series. During writing however, Damac and Kat took particular liking to The Bedlam. Though he didn't live any longer than initially planned, his role and effect on the series was expanded greatly.

After talking to Kat further, Andrew began editing the script and expanding it. Kat changed his vision from a comic to a video game, and though Damac loved the idea, he still wanted to get the story told and didn't want the development of a video game to delay getting the story out. Damac switched from a Screenplay to a Novel, and began writing this at the end of 2013. The series is still in production to this day. Damac is actively writing the book, while Kat is actively developing both a game and possible comic adaption.

The Regulator jump started Damac's "Mega Storyline" which featured The Regulator, 808, Operation School, Hostile Takeover, Wastes, and Age of Reclamation, as well as several "One-Shot" single stories. As a result, The Civil War storyline went from simply being an epilogue to being a connection between The Regulator and the later series, alongside Eden's Veil.

Trivia

 * The Regulator got it's name from the song "The Regulator" by Clutch.
 * Though "The Regulator" normally refers to Andrew and Clay, Anthony, a camper of Andrew's, takes the title during The Regulator: The Long Road Ahead.