A decade or so ago, I happily read a lot of books submitted for review by First Second, a publisher of wonderfully diverse graphic novels. I frankly wish they'd send more because they do good work and were always fascinating. Two of the First Second books I reviewed belonged to a series of four books called 'Demon' by Jason Shiga. Unfortunately, they were volumes two and four, which was a little awkward, not having volumes one and three. Well, now I do, so I can fill in the gaps in a wildly inappropriate but hilariously funny series with an outrageous death toll.

In my review of volume two, which was at least easy to grasp without background gained from the first book, I drew comparison to the work of Hiroshi Sakurazaka. I'd read a story of his, 'Respawn', and I'd seen the feature film 'Edge of Tomorrow', based on his most famous novel, 'All You Need is Kill', both of which mined the same ground. I also threw out the observation, or perhaps warning, that "You will never again read a book that contains so much suicide." I wasn't remotely lying and here is where that all begins.

And, appropriately enough, it begins with suicide. We don't know who this character is yet but he uses the first six panels to write a suicide note, the next two to think about it and the final one on the first page to hang himself, only his legs visible to us above his final words. It's not gratuitous, but the nine panels on the second page don't show us anything different except a proliferation of flies. That's a nice touch and it's hardly how most authors would begin a graphic novel. We haven't had a single speech bubble yet and it'll be a couple of pages before one shows up.

This man wakes up in bed, wondering why he isn't dead. It seems to be the same room but there's no note and no rope. It's all very puzzling but he uses his second chance to do it right, this time in the bath with a razorblade. And he wakes up in bed again. Now there's a gun in his drawer next to the Gideon Bible and he blows his brains out. There's no way he could survive that, but then he's in the bath, completely unharmed, with a bullet stuck in the wall. Focused as he is on his own death, he misses that clue and perhaps the next one too.

Chapter one ends with him leaving the hotel and jumping in front of a passing truck, meaning that we've seen nothing thus far except for five suicides but we're rivetted because they were all done by the same person and that doesn't make sense. Hopefully we've connected the dots but Shiga is happy to explain in chapter two. This man is Jimmy Yee and his suicide attempt was successful. He was one of five deaths at the Sunbeam Motel that night. He isn't himself on video. And the police promptly arrest him for breaking into his own house, because his ID is someone else's too.

I've already spoiled this in my review of 'Volume Two' but I won't do that here. Jimmy Yee figures out the logic behind what happened on the way to the police station where he explains it all to an incredulous audience of cops. Quite how he reached the crux of it all, that he's the titular demon, I'm really not sure, but he has the mechanics of it all down pat. We'll learn about the demon soon enough. For now, the other important detail to know is that there's someone else who knows how this works too and that's what makes this a story.

As you can imagine, the humour here is bone dry and the first question you have to ask yourself is whether you can imagine laughing at the universe constantly flouting one man's attempts to kill himself. If you can't, then this is emphatically not going to be for you, because extrapolating that forward according to very specific rules means that this gets seriously bloody. You see, Jimmy Yee doesn't believe that he has anything left to live for, the reasons behind which are explained here, and that's why he committed suicide. Those rules mean that he doesn't die but does land himself in serious trouble. However, those rules also give him a guaranteed way out of it.

And that's what makes this work so well. To everyone reading, that guaranteed way out is severe, something most of us would never consider and none of us would take on the spur of the moment. I should pose this as a question. Let's assume that your entire life has been turned upside down to the point that you have nothing left to keep you here. You're literally not even yourself anymore, so you're utterly alone with no connection to anything and no way to go back to who you were. Yet you know, absolutely know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if you kill yourself you'll continue on in accordance with a firmly defined set of rules.

Given all that, would you kill yourself if it would get you out of a cell? If it would distance you from multiple charges of murder? If it would give you an entirely new life? Maybe a lot of us would. The rules are where some of us might baulk because, if you'll remember, we did kill ourselves back on the very first page, so every further suicide impacts someone else, probably many people through a serious knock-on effect. Jimmy Yee doesn't baulk, not merely because he has nothing to lose but because he seems to have lost the ability to empathise with anyone. That means that the bodies mount rapidly and we struggle to keep ahead of his twisted logic.

What this becomes is a cat and mouse game punctuated by a relentless set of cliffhangers. Every time Agent Hunter of the OSS believes he's got Jimmy safe and sound, Jimmy has to find a way to kill himself and escape his clutches. Frankly, I found the fact that Jimmy is an actuary by trade, so thinks in numbers, actually makes these cliffhangers funnier. He's also thoroughly matter-of-fact, however outrageous the situation, which further adds to the effect. And trust me, this gets much more outrageous than I've told you thus far.

That applies to more than one cliffhanger here, but there's one that's particularly wrong in every way possible. Shiga builds up to it, generates one body in relatively tame fashion, then another in a way that isn't tame in the slightest. And, when Agent Hunter comes to get him, Shiga gives us a full page panel that we gradually realise depicts at least the next fifteen steps Jimmy took to get out of there, even though it left an epidemic of suicide in his wake. The single speech bubble adds to the effect. And after that, we think about the next dozen steps.

I've talked entirely about the script here, because that's what speaks to me the most, but this full page panel highlights how well constructed the art is too. It's far less obvious a success because it isn't particularly accomplished stuff. Shiga isn't going for realism, perhaps for good reason, given the script; he's quite content to let this unfold as a sort of cartoon strip. His character design is as primitive as it gets without going all the way to stick figures but it's trivial to delineate everyone who matters. The colours are muted too, all black and white and red.

In fact, that reminds me. What's black and white and red and can't turn round in corridors? A nun with a spear through her head. If you laughed at that, then this book might be for you. There are no nuns here, dead or otherwise, but it's absolutely the sort of book that might include a nun with a spear through her head, merely with Jimmy using his actuary powers to figure out how she can turn round in a corridor. And then escalate that further on the next page. And again. And again...  ~~ Hal C F Astell

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