Paranatural
| Paranatural | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Author | Zack Morrison |
| Website | paranatural |
| Current status/schedule | Updates Fridays |
| Launch date | June 30, 2010[1] |
| Publisher | Hiveworks Comics LLC |
| Genre(s) | Action, comedy |
Paranatural is a supernatural action/comedy webcomic created by Zack Morrison. The comic has been written and illustrated by Morrison since its debut in 2010, with eight completed chapters and a ninth chapter currently ongoing. Set in the fictional town of Mayview, the comic follows the Activity Club, a group of middle school students who have the ability to interact with the supernatural world.
The comic began on ComicFury and Smackjeeves before later moving to its own site.[2][1][3]
Synopsis
[edit]The comic follows the adventures of Max and the Activity Club throughout their adventures. They fight ghosts and bullies, play hitball, and solve the mysteries of the town.[4]
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The story is told through an omniscient third person, sometimes including guest art or mini-comics. The comic was drawn page by page in a standard panel format, including shifted panels and extraneous movements depending on the activity going on, but was changed to traditional novel-esque story telling with illustrations due to the author's poor health. Morrison also includes alt text on each page (starting with the 24th page of the 1st chapter[5]), with a short comment on the page.
Morrison interacts with their readers through the text underneath the pages as well as both their Twitter[6] and Tumblr[7] accounts.
Reception
[edit]Comic Book Resources has described Paranatural as "fun, action-packed and visually inventive", with "enjoyable character moments", and compared it to Dragon Ball Z.[4] PopOptiq considered it to be "brimming with wit and humor",[8] while io9 emphasized that there is "a rich story sitting behind all that humor,"[9] and recommended it as worthy of an Eisner Award.[10] The Hawkeye praised its humor, which it described as "a mix of almost self-aware snark, fun-loving parody, and downright great standalone jokes", its art, which it described as "a mix somewhere between western cartoon and anime", and its cast of characters.[11] Inverse praised its "sly use of manga-esque stylistic tropes", remarking that "its characters leap off the screen".[12]
Paranatural reached the final round of the Mix March Madness 2014 Webcomics Tournament, a single-elimination tournament between 128 contestants.[13][14]
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Archived copy". paranatural.thecomicseries.com. Archived from the original on 14 December 2010. Retrieved 15 January 2022.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ Pellegrini, Mark (2012-11-13). "Paranatural (A Webcomic By Zack Morrison) – AiPT!". Adventures in Poor Taste.
- ^ "Paranatural :: Comics - The Story Begins". 2011-05-31. Archived from the original on 2011-05-31. Retrieved 2021-06-04.
- ^ a b Cruz, Larry (May 27, 2014). "'Paranatural': It's over 9,000 (spooks)". Comic Book Resources.
- ^ "Paranatural - Chapter 1 Page 24". paranatural.net. Retrieved 2022-05-22.
- ^ "Zack Morrison (@paranaturalzack) | Twitter". twitter.com. Retrieved 2016-11-30.
- ^ "HUMAN RANCH". firstnamezacklastnamemorrison.tumblr.com. Archived from the original on 2016-11-28. Retrieved 2016-11-30.
- ^ Rico, Elizabeth (January 11, 2015). "'Paranatural' is witty, humorous, and filled to the brim with spirits". PopOptiq.
- ^ Davis, Lauren (April 13, 2013). "Saturday Webcomic: Being haunted isn't the weirdest thing about Paranatural's bonkers middle school". io9.
- ^ Davis, Lauren (April 16, 2014). "51 Awesome Webcomics The Eisners Have Completely Failed To Recognize". io9.
- ^ Doyle, Cooper (2015-12-01). "Side effects to new age media". The Hawkeye.
- ^ Gaudette, Emily (2016-01-28). "The 9 Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Webcomics Still Running". Inverse.
- ^ Hauman, Glenn (2014-04-14). "The Winner(s) of the 2014 Mix March Madness Webcomics Tournament Are…". Comic Mix.
- ^ Hauman, Glenn (2014-03-11). "Announcing the Mix March Madness 2014 Seeding Round!". Comic Mix.