Exploring Unexplained Phenomena in High Strangeness

 High Strangeness by Daniel Noah, Christopher Condon, Zac Thompson, Christopher Cantwell, Cecil Castellucci, and Christian Ward with various artists. 

High Strangeness Deluxe Edition cover

Many thanks to Oni Press and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of High Strangeness Deluxe Edition. I was intrigued by the cover and title, which featured a kind of mysterious element with a little bit of sinister mixed in- and this edition does not disappoint. This unique collection features several stories bound by the mysteries of the unexplained. Furthermore, each story contains both a comic depiction and an essay that provides some background, history, and personal connections with the unexplained phenomenon. I read the comics first, but I really appreciated the essays that follow since they provide a unique insight into how the writers experienced these phenomena, as well as some history about the phenomena. The comics and essays/articles work well together, but it’s also important to note how the comics share connective threads not only through the theme of unexplained phenomena, but it was really cool to see the artists incorporate some shared visual themes and motifs throughout the comics that are eventually explained in the essays.

I really appreciated the unique approach that this collection takes in exploring the unexplained phenomena across different eras. The first one explores UFOs from 1967, and follows an investigative journalist, Jack Kean, who is based on John Keel, the journalist who wrote the Mothman Prophecies and investigated UFOs. In terms of both story and art, this was probably my favorite comic in the collection. It uses a fake UFO sighting and the disappearance of the person who faked the sighting to create questions and skepticism around what is known and what is hidden with UFOs. The story has a great twist and reminds me of X-Files, as Kean becomes haunted by the possibility of UFOs.

 

Book 2 takes place in 1975 and investigates Sasquatch/Bigfoot. I also really enjoyed this one. The story is interesting, and the artwork is also compelling, especially around sightings of Sasquatch. Furthermore, reading the essay helped me understand the artwork and various evidence that some believers cite as evidence for the existence of Sasquatch. The story takes a surprising turn and calls into question whether Sasquatch is a monster type cryptid or something else that many may not have considered. It tells the story of an inmate named Ellwood who ended up escaping from a prison transfer during a snowstorm with help from a sasquatch. He ends up in a nearby town, squatting in a cabin and building a new life for himself. However, he remains haunted by the encounter with the sasquatch, and as the birth of his first child nears, he heeds the call of the sasquatch (a wood knock, glowing eyes, and a stick structure in the woods. Elwood leaves the confines of his cabin during a storm to investigate these mysterious signs and see if the Sasquatch is lurking for him. This is also the story where some of the visual themes and repeated symbols appear (hello mantis). I really loved the essay as well that provided more background information about wild men and sasquatch myths around the world. In particular, it was exciting to learn about the author’s personal experience in the woods of Pennsylvania. I wasn’t even aware that PA had any kind of sasquatch legends. I really appreciated how both the essay and comic provide background information into these signs of sasquatch and possibly present sasquatch as a beneficial caretaker of the wild.

Book 3 takes place in 1983 and deals with synchronicity. It’s an interesting story about the chance encounters that occur in a father and daughter’s relationship and lives. The artwork for the story is great, and the author of the related essay presents some interesting and meaningful incidents of synchronicity in her own life. The comic story explores how meaningful events can occur on similar dates, and how these events can sometimes influence future events. It’s a touching story, but not as mysterious or phenomenal as the others. Reading the essay gave me a deeper appreciation of the story, but it also demonstrates something the author mentioned about meaning being inherently personal, which is harder to explain to readers. The essay does a good job noting how specific coincidences are connected and add meaning, helping to shape the author’s future decisions about love, work, and life. The comic presents some of this as well, but there are some other events occurring that make the story a little harder to follow than some of the others in this collection.

Book 4 takes place in 2001 and deals with out of body experiences (OBE). The artwork for the comic is well done and engaging, and the essay does well explaining these phenomena, using some personal experiences. The story for the comic is ok. I initially found the main character Adeline a little annoying at first. She seems to rely on coin flips to make decisions, often abandoning responsibilities because a coin told her to. Yet, the ending of the story is interesting, and it seems like she gains significant insight from her OBEs, learning how to access the astral plane and gain some additional information about events in her life. Like Book 3, I felt like the essay was more helpful I explaining the phenomenon of OBEs, but I really enjoyed the artwork in this section.

Book 5 is titled “Infinity” and takes place in the future. It’s a wild ride that provides some essential information about how these phenomena are connected. The artwork for this section is also incredible, and varies from many of the other comics in this collection. It’s a surreal exploration of meaning and myth to better understand how these unexplained phenomena can impact our lives. I also appreciated the last essay from Daniel Noah that explains how he moved from skeptic to believer based on his experiences in the Stanley Hotel. The essay also explores the connective tissue among the various phenomena and how the visual themes and symbols are related in the various stories. It’s a clever and creative way to synthesize these stories and note how much wonder is in the world when we leave open these doors of explanation, even if it’s just a crack.

Overall this was an interesting collection that was fun to read. I love these books that explore mysterious and unexplained phenomena, so this was fun to read. I typically lean more towards the scary, monster type stories like the first two, but I also found the last two stories that explore synchronicity and out of body experiences to be also interesting and somewhat emotional in a heartfelt way. The artwork for this collection is phenomenal, and the essays that conclude this deluxe edition provide further exploration and background information about these mysterious events and phenomena. Although I read the comics first and the essays last, I wondered how reading the essays first might impact my understanding of the comics and these phenomena. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to approach this- just two different paths that lead to potentially similar outcomes. Nevertheless, this is a fun and very different read than what I was expecting. Highly recommended, especially if you like learning about unexplained phenomena.

 

Cursed Film Lore: Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Silver Nitrate

 Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Silver Nitrate book cover

Silver Nitrate presents a really intriguing urban legend, the cursed film, and proceeds to incorporate other entertaining and interesting elements of the horror-fantasy genre. The story starts off a little slowly, but this allows Moreno-Garcia to develop the characters Montserrat and her friend/actor Tristan. The story revolves around the legend of an unseen film that is based on ancient magik texts. Moreno-Garcia’s development of the two protagonists allows for differing views of the various players involved in the story and their different motivations for wanting the cursed (or magikal film stock). I was looking forward to this story since I am fascinated by stories of cursed films, and while this takes a slightly different approach, it is nevertheless entertaining, especially in the middle and end of the text. There are also some really chilling ghostly moments, and that made this book a wild and entertaining ride. Although I enjoyed Mexican Gothic, Silver Nitrate offers more action and a wilder ride, while also discussing some of the inequality and racism found in Mexican society. 

A Unique Twist on the Urban Legend of Polybius

 Polybius by Collin Armstrong

Polybius book cover

Author Collin Armstrong

Big thanks to Gallery Books and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of Collin Armstrong’s thrilling and inventive book Polybius. For those who may not be aware, Polybius is based on the urban legend of the mysterious video game that suddenly appeared in Portland, Oregan in the early 1980s, and is supposedly part of a government mind-control experiment. While I’m not sure of the origins of this myth, I’ve heard that the arcade game Polybius may have been like a CIA recruiting tool to see which players excelled at certain killing skills, while other versions have claimed that Polybius was a mind-control tool that induced various neurological problems like headaches, seizures, and blackouts. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, it seems that the Polybius urban legend may have even influenced the great 1984 film The Last Starfighter. In Collin Armstrong’s imagination, Polybius takes on a more destructive and deadly turn that transforms the sleepy seaside town of Tasker Bay into a raging storm of violence and chaos shortly after the mysterious arrival of the Polybius cabinet in the town’s local arcade and video store Home Video World. Polybius has a lot of throwback references throughout, chief among them the local arcade where kids hang out and shady business happens in the back, mostly from the shady owner, Mal. Like many new games that arrive in an arcade, Polybius attracts crowds of players, who begin exhibiting strange and aggressive behaviors as they jockey for space in front of the cabinet, staring at the flashing strobes and runic like shapes that appear on Polybius’s unique and large screen.

I absolutely loved this book and couldn’t put it down. It was such a fun and exciting read, although it does have plenty of dark parts. Nevertheless, there are plenty of reference points throughout the book, and even if you aren’t familiar with the urban legend of Polybius, the book has plenty of thrills and mystery to engage readers looking for both something familiar and something unique and inventive. I loved what Armstrong does with the legend, taking the basic framework of the story about a video game that has powerful psychological and neurological effects on players, and transforming it into a story about its impact on an entire town. Even more interesting is how he develops the idea that Polybius is part of a government program. I won’t share much more than that, but it is interesting to see how this kind of program has relevance in today’s world despite the book taking place in the early ‘80s.

In addition to the unique twist on the Polybius urban legend, Armstrong creates an interesting world of Tasker Bay, which is a seaside town in Northern California. The chapters are divided into subsections, and each subsection tells the story from a different characters’ perspective. The main characters are Andi and her mom Rachel, who both relocated from Silicon Valley/San Francisco area to Tasker Bay after Rachel left her husband, who is a kind of freelance engineer. Andi, reluctant to move, is standoffish and doesn’t want to develop friendships, but works at the arcade, Home Video World. Rachel, Andi’s mom, is the town’s doctor. There’s also Ro (short for Roman), who is a classmate of Andi’s, and his dad David, who is the town’s sheriff. Mal, the owner of Home Video World, is Andi’s boss, and someone who experiences early exposure to Polybius’s power. As a result, he comes under suspicion for a mysterious and violent incident early in the book. There are some other less prominent characters, but Armstrong’s writing and chapter development create a realistic and full sense of the Tasker Bay community. It’s not just the background of these characters, but we also learn about the simmering tensions, jealousies and resentments that underlie the characters’ actions and motivations. I loved how these chapters are developed and created. In some ways, it reminded me of some Stephen King books that take place in small towns in Maine. How we learn brief elements of the characters’ backgrounds and qualities adds to the depth of the story and the interactions and conflicts that arise. In other ways, the story and town reminded me of some films. On the one hand, I couldn’t help but think of The Fog, John Carpenter’s moody piece about a coastal California town that experiences terror when a fog rolls in on the 100^th anniversary of a major event. In Polybius, most of the chaos starts to unravel about a week or so after the arrival of the game, and this coincides with a major storm that makes leaving the town difficult. In other ways, the story reminded me of Romero’s The Crazies, where a town’s drinking water is infected with a chemical agent that makes the townspeople become violent. The government tries to take over the town, but struggles against the violence the townspeople are capable of. Polybius also transforms the townspeople into violent people capable of great destruction, but it’s not just those who play the game who are “infected”. We see how there are adjacent individuals who also get swept up in the violence and paranoia as the town gradually descends into chaos. I also kept thinking of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible while I read Polybius, as we see how the loss of control and authority in the town allows long simmering feuds and resentments to boil over and cause vengeance and vigilantism. The book raises many important questions about the nature of authority and control in society, especially how governments and social institutions should address these kinds of threats to society. The book was cinematic and compelling. I could see this as a movie or even better as a limited series where we have time to develop some of the characters and their conflicts even further and get more of the backstory about how the game’s development came about.

I am so glad that I finally read this book. As soon as I saw the title, I was interested since I’ve heard about this urban legend, but didn’t know too much about it. Although Armstrong takes some liberties with the legend, I loved what he did. It was inventive and creative, and I did not expect the twists and turns that he took with the Polybius urban legend. I also loved the references to the 80s. I some reviews that mentioned Stranger Things, and I could see that with the multi-character story that takes place in a small town and deals with mysterious government mind control programs.  I also wondered if two characters, Whitney Hines and Greg Streiber, was a Wolfen reference (author Whitley Streiber and star Gregory Hines). There was even a reference to Bucks County, PA, which is right around where I live. It seemed like such a random reference in the book, but I wondered if the author had some connection with Bucks County. I hope that Collin Armstrong has more books on the way. This was such a fun and exciting read that deals with such an interesting topic. He took a mysterious urban legend and transformed it into an inventive and creative story which a cast of unique characters who populate a realistic world that gradually descends into chaos. Highly recommended book!