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Psaltis, Reid – Kingdom/Order
So there’s one thing I figured out for sure after finishing this book: trying to figure out how much of it is meant to be a dream versus how much of it is meant to represent reality is a waste of time. It’s irrelevant to the point of the story, and you’re bound to get different opinions anyway depending on who you ask. Meanwhile, here’s my subjective opinion! This starts off with us seeing nature, with each of the various creatures making a different type of sound, as represented by the various images in their word bubbles. Well, they’re usually word bubbles; this comic is wordless. Anyway, we establish the various ways these animals communicate, and we soon see a car drive through their environment, represented by a droning noise. One wolf in particular takes an interest in this vehicle, and we’re then taken to a large city, complete with pigeons and their own way of communicating. They try to make themselves known to a nameless man in the street, who gives the impression of being so beaten down by life that he can’t even register it when something amazing is happening around him. Rats in the subway finally get him to take notice, and this is where we could start having a debate about what is real and what’s imaginary, as he pictures himself following them down the tiny hole they used before being snapped out of it by his train arriving on the tracks. Our hero, back to normal in his own mind, takes the train to his car and starts to drive home, as we see small signs of the nature all around him, followed by bigger signs. Finally one of the crows takes matter into his own, um, hands I guess, dropping enough leaves on his windshield that he’s forced to stop out in the wilderness. He has a brief conversation (for lack of a better word) with the crow, tries to go back to his car and finds it completely disabled. All that’s left for him to do is try to make it home through the wilderness, which is where his real trouble begins. If you think that I gave too much away up there, how dare you! I wouldn’t do such a thing, and that only covers maybe the first 20 pages of this book. From there natures takes control, possibly of reality itself… or maybe none of it was real? Again, don’t ask such questions. Give this book a chance, as this might be all the “getting back to nature” that you really need.
