High Strangeness truly is a perfect title.
On the one hand, the story cooked up in part by writer Chris Condon and artist Dave Chisholm is out of this world, as the journalist Harry Kean runs headlong into a conspiracy involving aliens and the Men in Black in 1967 Indiana and Chicago. Think Shock Corridor meets They Came from Beyond Space, but infinitely more gripping and terrifying.
On the other hand, “bookrunner” Daniel Noah has made sure that High Strangeness is so much more than a series of one-shot comics. Not only are each of the five books interconnected somehow, but there’s some truly solid backmatter — issue #1, for instance, features an essay by researcher Jim Perry about the history of aliens/UFOs. It’s as much a comic as it is an induction into some strange and secret fraternal order.
And it’s that very dynamic that makes High Strangeness so darn compelling. Maybe you’ve read 1 million alien/paranormal tales, or maybe you’re just a newly-abducted recruit. Either way, High Strangeness attempts to explore the genre with new eyes, fresh enthusiasm, and a creativity that feels deeply reinvigorating. It’s a book for anyone who has ever seen or felt something otherworldly, and had the courage to ask what’s really beyond the walls of the world we know.
The first issue of High Strangeness debuts this week (October 8). Ahead of that extraterrestrial transmission, Condon was kind enough to answer a few questions via email. That includes working with Noah and Chisholm, the ideas of skepticism throughout the story, the time and setting, and even his own experiences with the truly alien/bizarre.
Variant cover by Malachi Ward. Courtesy of Oni Press.
AIPT: What’s it like working with Daniel Noah? What was your first reaction to a rather “out there” project like this one?
Chris Condon: Daniel was great to work with. He’s full of ideas. I was interested in the concept of High Strangeness from the start. I’ve always had a fascination with the strange aspects of our reality, and this book certainly scratched that itch.
AIPT: Your issue involves the Men in Black in 1967 Chicago. What about this configuration is interesting, and what can you tease about the story itself?
CC: Chicago is an interesting place to be in the late 1960s as just one year later, it would become the site of the Democratic National Convention and the chaos surrounding that. I had some knowledge about Chicago’s Cicero neighborhood in the ‘60s from my father, so I wanted to include that piece of information to firmly establish us in a time and place. The story is about a guy named Harry Kean who is a skeptic. However, what he encounters when investigating a missing persons case — the girl is thought to have been abducted by a UFO — might change his mind on the subject.
Courtesy of Oni Press.
AIPT: Why do these kinds of paranormal/alien stories speak to us so intently? I keep thinking that it’s not just some shared curiosity for the unknown, but that it’s a story enmeshed in our everyday lives, waiting to be discovered by almost anyone.
CC: I think we all want to have those experiences. We want to believe that there is something larger than ourselves, and reading stories about the strange and alien lets us live in that world, even if just for 32pages or so. There are people who have had experiences that they can’t explain. Daniel is one of those people. I envy him, as I wish that I could see something that proves to me that what we see and perceive as reality might just be the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. But for now I’ll just have to continue writing stories about it instead!
AIPT: Each of the five issues are meant to be interconnected to some degree. Are there some challenges and/or opportunities involved when doing something like this?
CC: I’m sure there are, but I didn’t really have to deal with them as I was the first up at bat. Daniel knew what he wanted to see that would connect to the other stories so he was able to add some of those nuggets throughout the story.
Courtesy of Oni Press.
AIPT: The book isn’t just a comic, but a kind of dissection/exploration of the paranormal featuring essays and the like. Can you talk about why that’s interesting, and what those “extra bits” add to your own work as a storyteller?
CC: Like all backmatter, it makes the comic a more immersive experience. I think that’s always a boon. I can’t speak to the backmatter adding anything to the story as it came to fruition after I had completed my work, but I do think that, as a reading experience, it is far richer than it would be without it. The story doesn’t just end when the sequential pages end — it continues beyond there, stretching further out into our own world.
AIPT: In addition to working with Daniel Noah, Dave Chisholm is the artist for this issue. What does Dave bring to the party, and is he the perfect artist for this kind of tale?
CC: Dave brings the story to life, really. Without him, we have a few bits of paper with a couple of words scribbled on them. He’s fleshed this world out, gave it character and color and I couldn’t be happier with the result.
AIPT: Finally, do you have a paranormal experience from your own life that you can delight/terrify us with?
CC: I’ve had some strange things happen to me, though I’m reluctant to say I know what they were. There was one time that I had a strange experience with a Ouija board. I was the only person who knew the answer to the question asked and the planchette spelled the answer out correctly and quickly. It was a pretty shocking experience and I’m still not quite sure how it happened. Or what it was…
If you haven’t already, be sure to read our review of High Strangeness #1!
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