Oni Press and SpectreVision, the genre-distorting production company founded by Elijah Wood and Daniel Noah, have revealed our first look inside High Strangeness: Book Five. Everything we have witnessed thus far – from sightings of Men in Black in 1967 through to psychic test subjects tasked with unlocking alien secrets in 2001 and more perplexing phenomena – has led to this point … and now series creator Daniel Noah is joined by multiple Eisner Award winner Christian Ward (Batman: City of Madness) to finally reveal the unspoken truth that connects each episode of High Strangeness across time, space and a hierarchy of confounding new dimension beyond all human understanding.
Co-written by Noah and Ward and illustrated by Ward – along special “glimpses” into the past, present, and future by the series’ past collaborators including Ringo Award winner Dave Chisholm (Plague House), Noah Bailey (Station Grand), and Chloé Stawski (Sapphic Pulp) – the final issue is an ambitious, dimension-spanning finale that you will forever shatter your notion of reality.
“This entire project has been an incredible opportunity to explore the paranormal, not only in the subject matter, but also in the way the books were made,” explains writer and SpectreVision co-founder Daniel Noah. “The creative process can sometimes feel like an interaction with another realm, and I’ve never felt that more than with High Strangeness, in particular this final chapter. To get to realize that with such a powerhouse team of creative conjurers has been a career highlight.”
“Even before reading Daniel’s breakdown I was so thrilled to be invited to work with him again after collaborating years back on the movie poster for Archenemy,” says writer and illustrator Christian Ward. “After talking with him about what he had in mind for this final part of High Strangeness, I was mind blown. Not since working on ODY-C with Matt Fraction, have I been so challenged and excited by the sheer ambition of a comic, so much so that I just had to draw almost 20 pages of HIGH STRANGENESS #5 myself! Honestly, this is one of my favorite scripts I’ve written and drawn, and working with both Daniel and genius artist Dave Chisholm has been a wonderful experience and I can’t wait for everyone to go on this trip with us. To infinity and beyond!”
Welcome to the ultimate terminus of the unknown, where our four chapters, our four tragic fates, and the innumerable threads of our perplexing cosmic existence have all found themselves gathered together. Do fate or free will bind the eerie ultra-terrestrial phenomena that our brains recognize as UFOs, ghosts, cryptids, and other nonhuman intelligences? Are they distinct entities unto themselves, or are they all expressions of some higher order? More pressing still: Where do they come from? And where are we going?
“I’m so thrilled to get a second chance to visit the High Strangeness universe (universes?!?) and get a glimpse into Daniel’s master plan for this mind-blowing series,” says artist Dave Chisholm. “It’s also a real thrill to collaborate with Christian who has been one of my favourite comic creators since the ODY-C days! If you, like me, enjoy your comics with a healthy dose of weird/cosmic/trippy, then you’ll need to read this–and the rest of the series.”
From Oni Press and SpectreVision, the year’s most ambitious experiment in comics storytelling culminates on March 11th in our unmissable final chapter . . . Enter: High Strangeness: Book Five as series architect Daniel Noah unites with multiple Eisner Award winner Christian Ward (Batman: City of Madness), to deliver an unforgettable, unpredictable comic spectacle – also featuring special appearances by Ringo Award winner Dave Chisholm (Plague House), Noah Bailey(Tremor Dose), and Chloé Stawski (Sapphic Pulp), alongside covers by Christian Ward (The Ultimates), Jesse Lonergan (Drome), and Becca Carey (Benjamin).
The publishers have also shared a series of interior page previews from the book which you can check out below. Beware there are potential spoilers ahead…
