DEMON Volume 1 Graphic Novel by Jason Shiga (First Second, 2016)

Demon, Volume 1 is the startling, darkly comic opening installment of Jason Shiga’s Eisner Award winning four-volume graphic-novel series—a wildly inventive mixture of horror, mystery, black comedy, and philosophical speculation. Jimmy Yee has a problem: he cannot die. At the beginning of the story, Jimmy attempts to take his own life in a shabby motel room. But death refuses to cooperate. Each attempt leaves him mysteriously alive, forcing Jimmy to confront the increasingly disturbing possibility that something far stranger than simple immortality is happening to him. As Jimmy begins experimenting with the limits of his condition, he discovers that his existence is governed by a bizarre supernatural mechanism: when his body dies, his consciousness can continue through another nearby person. What initially seems like an extraordinary escape from mortality soon becomes something considerably more sinister. Jimmy is intelligent, analytical, methodical—and almost completely without moral restraint. With every new discovery, he pushes his strange ability further, leaving an ever-growing trail of destruction behind him. Meanwhile, the appearance of people who seem to understand what is happening raises an even more unsettling question: is Jimmy really discovering his powers for the first time, or is someone else already several steps ahead of him? Shiga’s deceptively simple cartoon artwork provides a striking contrast to the book’s increasingly disturbing subject matter. Beneath its deliberately understated visual style lies an exceptionally intricate story concerned with identity, consciousness, morality, mortality, free will, and the consequences of having absolute power over one’s own survival. The result is a graphic novel that is simultaneously grotesque, funny, cerebral, suspenseful, and deeply unsettling. Demon continually takes an outrageous premise and follows its logic to increasingly extreme conclusions, making the reader wonder just how far Jimmy—and the story itself—will go. Title: Demon, Volume 1 Author / Artist: Jason Shiga Publisher: First Second Publication: 2016 Format: Paperback graphic novel Pages: 176 pages Series: Demon, Book 1 of 4 Genre: Graphic Novel / Horror / Dark Comedy / Mystery / Supernatural Audience: Mature / Adult Readers