Well, that's it for the death and ghosts.

paradigm #1 is, apparently, a reprint.  It's a book which came out as a self-published comic a while back and was promptly signed up by Image.  So here's issue #1 again, in preparation for the rest of the series.

Since it's got a relatively high price tag, I'll just mention straight away that it's a 37-page black and white story with no adverts (plus another eight pages of editorial material at the back).  In that light, it's not bad value.

I'd like to give you a snappy explanation of what this book's about, but it's not an easy one to sum up.  Creators Matthew Cashel and Jeremy Haun try to explain it in the comic and on the website, without really making much sense.  "Conspiracy nuts.  Fairies.  Metros.  Talking cats.  This is the world of paradigm.  An overview of the many worlds we collectively inhabit, be they real, imaginary or televised.  A continuing epic revolving around a core group of characters, their conversations, realizations and lifestyle choices.  With paradigm Jeremy and I have created a world that allows for the weird and bizarre, an abstract gonzo nightmare, if you will..."

And so on.  Quite honestly, I have no real clue what they're talking about, and the story itself is pretty cryptic about its larger themes.  Broadly speaking, they seem to be interested in pop culture and its interaction with the collective unconscious.  That means one of two things - either this comic is very ambitious and is only scraping the surface of a complex theme in its first issue, or alternatively it's incredibly pretentious.

Fortunately, the first issue leads me to put my money on "incredibly ambitious."  It introduces its core characters in the generic-seeming city of Bogsdale, and they're well established from the outset.  There are nice elements of character detail which make them easy to identify with, and I firmly agree with the creators' view that you can tell a lot about people from their pop culture interests.

Into this thoroughly down to earth and believable setting, Cashel and Haun throw surreal story elements which range from the merely cryptic through to the outright baffling.  Characters suddenly find themselves having automatic conversations about plays they haven't seen with men in union jack scarves.  Cats talk.  A woman turns up in a flat from nowhere to deliver an unfathomable speech about "fighting for the sitcom."  To be honest, this last one is probably a mistake for the final scene, because it's at the "baffling" end of the scale and ends the story on a fairly impenetrable note.

The book works, though, partly because it seems entirely conscious of how ridiculous some of this stuff is.  It's revelling in its quirkiness without sliding over the line into silliness.  As the creators claim, it never loses sight of a completely normal world even when it's at its most bizarre.

The black and white art is strong on atmosphere, background design and characterisation, although some of the character designs are a little similar (notably Chris and Ethan) and there are occasional failings in the visual storytelling (such as Dreiser punching out his colleague in the middle of a downpour, which doesn't come across clearly at all).  It's very effective for the story, nonetheless.

While I don't pretend to understand large chunks of this issue, Cashel and Haun have certainly got me interested to see where they're going with this.  Ambitious, and worth a look if you're open to something a little more twisted.

Rating: A-

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