The Department of Truth: Wild Fictions (Image, 2024) is a companion volume to Eisner Award-winning writer James Tynion IV’s hit comic series The Department of Truth, which tells the story of FBI agent Cole Turner’s recruitment into a clandestine U.S. government agency established to handle conspiratorial and paranormal threats. Unlike in other series with similar premises, though, the aliens, ghosts, and cryptids the Department tangles with aren’t autonomous entities, but imaginary beings that have been willed into existence by collective belief. They are, in short, Wild Fictions.
The Department of Truth: Wild Fictions is designed to be a field guide for new hires, so they can familiarize themselves with the different classes of manifestations. As originally explained in issues 10 and 11 of The Department of Truth comic series, Wild Fictions are divided into three categories:
- Ghosts, fairies, and demons
- Aliens, UFOs, and angels
- Cryptids
Wild Fictions has 27 entries ranging across all three categories, with the cryptids section boasting the most at 13 listings. In a short preface, Tynion inserts himself into his own series as a character, a Senior DoT Ranger, and explains that DoT operatives are often mistaken for cryptozoologists but aren’t, because Wild Fictions aren’t actually flesh and blood animals. The brilliance of the premise allows Tynion to treat these subjects as the contemporary folklore they are, while still weaving an engaging narrative in which the stakes are the very lines that separate fact from fiction.
In choosing to present the world of conspiracy theories and the paranormal this way, Tynion has also established himself as something close to a real authority on these topics, or at the very least as the premier writer of contemporary paranormal-themed comics. His titles now range from BOOM! Studios’ UFOlogy, through Department of Truth and a trilogy of books from Dark Horse; Blue Book, True Weird, and most recently Let This One Be a Devil.
With The Department of Truth: Wild Fictions, Tynion takes his role as a Fortean historian a step further, with 27 short essays accompanied by stunning illustrations from some of the best artists working in comics today, including James Stokoe, Bill Sienkiewicz, Yuko Shimuzu, and Erica Henderson.
Image Comics
The entries are written in the same metatextual manner as the history of a given subject is usually discussed in The Department of Truth. There’s no bibliography, though, and Tynion only occasionally cites his sources in-text. Noted skeptic Benjamin Radford gets name-dropped in the essay on the chupacabra, and International Cryptozoology Museum proprietor Loren Coleman is mentioned in the entry on the Dover Demon. Paranormal investigator Greg Newkirk, star of the Amazon Prime series Hellier, is also discussed in the entry on Black-Eyed Kids, with his “Week in Weird” webpage characterized as “not necessarily a website of factual renown.”
Readers hoping to gain additional insight into The Department of Truth comic series may, however, end up disappointed. Other than a few clever asides – the entry on Santa Claus suggests that the DoT is especially busy at the end of the year when belief in St. Nick is especially high – Wild Fictions contains no real revelations about the Department, their ultimate aims, or their surreptitious counterpart Black Hat.
There’s also no entry for either of the comic’s two most prominent Wild Fictions: the Star-Faced Man and the Woman in Red. There is one on Mothman, who’s played a prominent role in the series since issue 15, but it’s rather cheekily presented as having “been redacted by someone with high-level clearance.” Similarly, there are numerous references to entries that don’t actually exist in this book. For example, the reader is repeatedly instructed to consult the entry on Slenderman, only to discover there’s no such thing. There is one on Elvis, however!
Wild Fictions also somewhat muddles the concept of the three classes by repeatedly emphasizing a given Fiction’s relative level of threat, i.e. how likely it is to manifest in reality. Since probability of manifestation is determined by how many people believe in the reality of a given Wild Fiction, the lower the number (1 – 3) the lower the probability.
Image Comics
This is all well and good, but Tynion classifies demons as Class 1 and the Jersey Devil as a Class 3, thus creating the impression that more people believe in the Jersey Devil than the actual Christian devil. A 2021 YouGov poll found that 43% of Americans believe in demons, while the Jersey Devil is little more today than a harmless hockey mascot for most people.
Likewise, Tynion places ghosts as Class 1 and Bigfoot as a Class 3. This is the exact opposite of what studies like the ones carried out by Chapman University into paranormal beliefs among Americans regularly find. In 2018, 58% of Americans professed to believe in ghosts, while only 21% believed in Bigfoot. While both of these percentages are high enough to prevent either specters or Sasquatch from being considered truly fringe, it does suggest that the DoT should perhaps be more preoccupied about the pernicious popularity of movies about demonic possession than with making sure cryptozoologists don’t get tenure.
The Department of Truth: Wild Fictions is a beautifully illustrated, informative and fun, if not essential, companion piece for fans of the comic series. Alternatively, it could also serve as an introduction for anyone who’s interested in ghosts, UFOs, and cryptids but isn’t reading what’s easily one of the best comics to ever examine these phenomena.
Every February, to help celebrate Darwin Day, the Science section of AIPT cranks up the critical thinking for SKEPTICISM MONTH! Skepticism is an approach to evaluating claims that emphasizes evidence and applies the tools of science. All month we’ll be highlighting skepticism in pop culture, and skepticism *OF* pop culture.
AIPT Science is co-presented by AIPT and the New York City Skeptics.
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