Paranatural

Last updated
Paranatural
Paranatural Webcomic Logo.png
Author(s)Zack Morrison
Website paranatural.net
Current status/scheduleUpdates Fridays
Launch dateJune 30, 2010 (2010-06-30) [1]
Publisher(s)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.

Contents

The comic began on ComicFury and Smackjeeves before later moving to its own site. [2] [1] [3]

Synopsis

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]

Max, the protagonist of Paranatural Max, Paranatural (Webcomic).png
Max, the protagonist of Paranatural

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

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

  1. 1 2 "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)
  2. Pellegrini, Mark (2012-11-13). "Paranatural (A Webcomic By Zack Morrison) – AiPT!". Adventures in Poor Taste.
  3. "Paranatural :: Comics - The Story Begins". 2011-05-31. Archived from the original on 2011-05-31. Retrieved 2021-06-04.
  4. 1 2 Cruz, Larry (May 27, 2014). "'Paranatural': It's over 9,000 (spooks)". Comic Book Resources .
  5. "Paranatural - Chapter 1 Page 24". paranatural.net. Retrieved 2022-05-22.
  6. "Zack Morrison (@paranaturalzack) | Twitter". twitter.com. Retrieved 2016-11-30.
  7. "HUMAN RANCH". firstnamezacklastnamemorrison.tumblr.com. Archived from the original on 2016-11-28. Retrieved 2016-11-30.
  8. Rico, Elizabeth (January 11, 2015). "'Paranatural' is witty, humorous, and filled to the brim with spirits". PopOptiq.
  9. Davis, Lauren (April 13, 2013). "Saturday Webcomic: Being haunted isn't the weirdest thing about Paranatural's bonkers middle school". io9 .
  10. Davis, Lauren (April 16, 2014). "51 Awesome Webcomics The Eisners Have Completely Failed To Recognize". io9.
  11. Doyle, Cooper (2015-12-01). "Side effects to new age media". The Hawkeye.
  12. Gaudette, Emily (2016-01-28). "The 9 Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Webcomics Still Running". Inverse .
  13. Hauman, Glenn (2014-04-14). "The Winner(s) of the 2014 Mix March Madness Webcomics Tournament Are…". Comic Mix .
  14. Hauman, Glenn (2014-03-11). "Announcing the Mix March Madness 2014 Seeding Round!". Comic Mix .