The Strange Tales Of Oscar Zahn: Volume 1 by Trí Vương

Me while reading this book: Why am I crying?!

Me reading the artist’s bio at the end: Oh, because this is one of the creators behind Everyday Hero Machine Boy, which was another extraordinary graphic novel that I also did not expect to make me cry.

If you’ve read my last two reviews, you’ll know that this has been an unsettlingly emotional week for me, not helped by my eldest interrupting my reading of The Strange Tales Of Oscar Zahn last night to show me the latest PSA from Sandy Hook Promise. Poor kid didn’t expect me to be openly weeping by the end of the announcement, as he gave me consoling tissues, hugs and an “I’m sorry, Mommy!” Nothing for him to apologize for, I told him, even as the mantle of anxiety and sorrow that comes with living in 21st century America weighed me down. And good thing, I told myself, that I’d taken ninety minutes out of my afternoon earlier to go get a spa pedicure, which definitely helped work at least a little of the prior tension out of my body.

And while we’re at it, it’s time for a little PSA of my own: if you, dear reader, have been thinking about doing some self-care — a nap, some yoga, a spa treatment, whatever you’ve been wistfully wishing you had the time to do — take this as your sign to go for it. We live in a stressful peak-capitalist world that overemphasizes productivity and appearances at the expense of internal health and I have no doubt that you deserve a break.

Interestingly, most of TSToOZ is set well before capitalism sank its talons shanks-deep into the zeitgeist (which I ascribe to the mid 1980s onwards, for obvious reasons.) While much of the book takes place in an amorphous modern day, the formative eras of many of its characters lie in the beforetimes, whether in the seas of the 1970s, the battlefields of World War I or the academic halls of the turn of the 20th century. Our hero Oscar Zahn is a paranormal investigator who was once fully human. Nowadays, he’s a floating skull in a trenchcoat, trying to help lost souls move into the afterlife while defeating greater evils that prey on the dead. With the help of his grumpy assistant Agnes, he is mostly successful, even if the secrets of his own origin continue to haunt him.

Senseless deaths always make me cry, whether in school shootings or on battlefields where combatants are ordered to kill one another because their superiors lack the combination of imagination, patience and compassion required to solve conflicts without wanton violence. But Trí Vương’s book isn’t just about the horrors of death-dealing: it’s also about spurning fear and finding peace in courage and self-sacrifice. His illustrations here are, of necessity, gloomy, in a predominant palette of greys and blues, with the occasional splash of red and yellow for both warmth and emphasis. This sombreness counterweighs the linework, which has a tendency to lean cute, sort of Tintin by way of Hellboy. It all works well together to tell this utterly gripping and thoroughly humane story.

After reading this graphic novel, I won’t be able to pass up a Trí Vương book ever again. Thoughtful, witty and impossible to put down, TSToOZ has cemented my respect for this creator and his ability to tell an extraordinary tale.

The Strange Tales Of Oscar Zahn: Volume 1 by Trí Vương was published September 10 2024 by Ten Speed Graphic and is available from all good booksellers, including