I’ve been hearing about this book for a while and finally got a chance to read the first volume, and it’s totally something I like.
Proof is about the operative of The Lodge, a secret government agency tasked with controlling cryptids. It was basically described to me at first as The X-Files with a giant bigfoot, John “Proof” Prufrock, as the star agent of The Lodge. The cryptids that The Lodge track down are the dinosaurs in the jungle, the fairies in the woods, the lake monsters of local lore. They insist that they’re just animals unnoticed and undiscovered by humanity, and have to be treated with special care and on occasion, isolated from humanity. It’s not necessarily about them “hunting them down” or capturing them, but making sure that they’re safe because The Lodge knows that it’s about protecting both them and humanity. It’s a unique take on something that’s been done before in other comics, books, film, and TV, but here there’s groundwork being laid out for something big, a solid story structure that I’m pretty sure is probably going to totally throw a curveball at me.
You get the sense that there’s a lot of history in The Lodge, perhaps moreso than is laid out in the description of their mission that Ginger Brown, their newest agent, gets at her orientation. There’s the same when it comes to Proof, whose hint that he’s roughly 200 years old and mentions of his “circus days” are just a hint at the tip of an iceberg of a past. And it’s kind of fascinating. The whole thing is fascinating, from the art to the writing’s little narrative jokes that are nestled in there with the rest of the text.
It’s suspenseful but with a sense of humor, action-packed but without lacking character drive and great writing, it’s just a solid comic all-round. I personally recommend the shit out of it.
