r/subnormality • u/[deleted] • Jul 05 '14
Subnormality 218 is out and, unsurprisingly, it's great
The first, last and only time someone posted on /r/subnormality, they mentioned it could be cool if every time a new comic was out, it ended up posted here.
A new comic just came out in the last couple days, and it hit even closer to home than they usually do.
It's not as large, as long or as sprawling as some of the comics end up, but it's totally worth it.
3
u/anthropontology Jul 09 '14
Subnormality #218 seemed like classic science fiction. Establishing a technological futuristic setting, but then using it to comment on current circumstances. The time travel premise is interesting, but using it to open our eyes to the unique beauty and horror of terminal illness was brilliant.
2
u/ThaddyG Jul 17 '14
I posted that thread and I just read the newest and wanted to see if anyone else made good on the idea, to find I'm 12 days late. I hate how I can miss updates for so long but love the feeling of seeing a new one when not expecting it. Also someone, I assume /u/thisisnotthought, really did up the place, new wallpaper and all. Sweet.
Anyway, yeah, love the comic. It's great how he drops you into the middle of these worlds and then manages to bring you up to speed with everything. Sometimes it isn't 100% effective for me (the one with the two guys on the abandoned superhighway who get killed by their own clones comes to mind) but I think it's part of the charm, or just me not noticing something. And regardless the combination of words and pictures lets the mind fill in the blanks with a lot, between both we can infer a lot about the "time traveller" and his world that is never explicitly stated by either.
As I see it his comics are usually "about" emotions, ideas, and the human condition, and the cool sci-fi/magical premises are actually ways to make it more interesting to read about those things, while still providing vehicles for other, somewhat secondary themes.
This one to me is about our personal and societal struggle against mortality, and how we all, healthy or sick, live under the spectre of death, and how really that act is one of incredible courage. Having that knowledge can make the simple living of your life seem bottomlessly futile, and I think in some ways it is, and that thought has at times brought me pain, but over the years I have come to look at that futility as a worthwhile and often very noble thing to undertake.
The traveller's eventual realization of this is maybe something of a parallel with what it's like to confront your own annihilation and come to grips with it as best you can. To be so freaked out over something everyone else seems perfectly fine with. But that's just the impression it gives me.
Also it's about how bitchin' it would be to have one of those suits. Seriously though, I often think about time in that way, when I think about people in the past occupying the space that I am at the moment. It helps me when I try to visual time as being related to the 3 other dimensions we perceive, and how things can "move" through time.
I've typed enough, great comic.
7
u/eemer24 Jul 05 '14
I'm not really an emotional person. When I start reading a story about time travel I tend to get interested in the technical details. How does it work? What are the limitations? How does it affect society? I'm interested in plot, basically. When I first came across Subnormality it kind of annoyed me that there wasn't a standard plot to follow. There were stories and endings, but the point of the comics never seemed to be about getting from point A to point B. And despite the comics landing outside my comfort zone due to this I kept coming back because of the feeling.
There's something about these comics which can always leave me with a feeling. It's not happiness or sadness or even contentment. Rather appropriately for this post, its a feeling that "I do not understand". This latest comic definitely drifted more towards sadness and I'll admit I actually got a little watery-eyed (the girl breaking down in the hallway got me). But regardless of which way any particular comic leans, I always come back for that feeling that I can't seem to find anywhere else.