5 out of 5

Join the weekly reveal as a webcomic, enjoy digital pdf firsts as a subscriber, and/or experience in individual print form, month-to-month.  Or wait for the (apparently) 4-book collected editions.  However you’re following Demon, you must follow it, despite your revulsion, despite your confusion, to experience the most insane masterpiece I’ve ever read.  About which I truly can’t say much without giving pieces away, though misleading one by suggesting that the reveals are what makes this so amazing is to discount how much joy the book passes on even once you know what’s going on.  I am a print subscriber, and I went ahead and reread my issues, then went back to check out the webcomic (which, as of the end of February 2016, is still about one book away from completion) to read the frequently amusing fan comments on each page.  Plus, eh, and maybe I should be more negative about this, but it appears Shiga made some clarifications / corrections to the webcomic versus the physical editions, so go ahead and get pissed about paying for a broken version if you want, but it feels like part of the ad hoc charm of this project.

Project.  Undertaking.  A Patreon-produced self-published and packaged and shipped one-man comic.  Titter at Shiga’s simplistic cartoonish style if’n you like, and remark at how that wouldn’t take much time at all, but when you dig into the story and consider how excellent Shiga mapped out this whole thing – along with how his simplicity makes it easy to overlook his cartoonist’s grasp of the page, and of directing the eye around that page – well, fuck yer titters and all.  Besides, the general magic of Jason’s writing, all the warts considered, is that it works so perfectly with his look; I cannot for the life of me imagine Jimmy Yee’s story told in any other fashion.

In ‘Demon,’ we open with Jimmy doing his darndest to commit suicide.  It’s a bit harder than it should be, though.  Not that he’s failing – no, slitting one’s wrists and putting a gun in your mouth can be botched, but we see pretty graphic results.  …And yet Jimmy seems to wake up not much later, intact, some elements in his hotel room rearranged but otherwise all seeming normal.  So he tries again, and again.  A few issues in, we get an explanation, which is as ridiculous as anything and everything else in Shiga-land, where the writer will often create somewhat randomized rules by which to constrain his story, then use wits and match to work his characters – and his readers – around and through the limitations imposed by those rules.  To anyone to rigorously plotty, I can imagine this is frustrating, but for those willing to fly by the seat of their pants in a narrative, it’s a blast.  ‘Demon’ is further elevated by its complete disregard for… well, for anything.  And again, to say too much would be to give too much of the fun away, but let it suffice to say that every step you take in the story is just a starting point for something else, every explanation gets explored and extremed and then we move on to the next level.  This is where the basicness of the art is a boon, as the outlandishness might be overwhelming when done without Shiga’s happy hands gifting Jimmy with the goofiest of expressions when he’s doing some insane things.

In print, the color is pretty off (as in not aligned with the art at times) and, as mentioned, there are differences between what you get and what appears to be the “final” on the website.  But I think it’s worth having a permanent version of what might be the most brash thing I’ve ever read.  Its unique look and format guarantees it’ll stick out from your collection for any browsers, and I love to consider someone randomly stumbling across this book, and finding that first issue intriguing… and having no clue what they’re getting into.  Which, by series’ end – and not that this matters, but – is questionably without point, which can either be taken as a final “fuck you” shrug by the writer, or considered f0r its meta implications in a story that might be studying the inherent meaning / lack of meaning in life through an incredibly subversive method.  Maybe both, or neither, or whatever.  Jesus.  Such is the magic mind-boddle of ‘Demon.’  God bless Jason Shiga.