Reviews

The Department of Truth

The Department of Truth volume i volition get out y'all feeling disoriented, confused, and incredulous, only is that the point? The creative team consisting of author James Tynion IV, artist Martin Simmonds, letterer Aditya Bidikar, and designer Dylan Todd come together to seize the zeitgeist of our current cultural and socio-political moment and cast it into graphic terms to brand sense of it all. It'southward a tall order but something that they try to tackle yet. The story takes place spatially and temporally in our own. Every bit conspiracy theories run rampant in the dark corners of the internet and imaginations of the uncritical, at that place lurks a U.S. authorities agency called The Section of Truth. Their chore? To eliminate propagators of conspiracy theories and tie-upwards any loose ends that threaten the stability of the truth that they seek to uphold. In this storyworld, the truth isn't necessarily something that exists considerately; rather, it is generated by the belief that something is true. In other words, there exists a semi-stable timeline of facts and events that happened, but when people begin to believe in alternative facts and theories then the more those alternative facts offset to become existent. Thus enter The Department of Truth.

At times the story can feel convoluted and its logics disruptive. One could argue that these feelings of defoliation and incomprehensibility are a function of the experience of reading a story about conspiracy theories, just my question so becomes: was this a part of the plot'south design, or are at that place massive plot holes to be explored in the metaphysics of the storyworld? My instincts bespeak to the latter since nosotros tin't find prove (all the same) that draws the connections we need to understand the dynamics of—and in-betwixt—belief, truth, and reality. I oft found myself befuddled past the reality-angle quandaries that the protagonist Cole Tuner mirrored in his reactions and attitudes. Turner is apprehended by black-suited figures, interrogated, and subsequently offered a chore at the Department. Needless to say, he accepts the chore offer albeit apprehensively, so begins his descent downwardly the deepest rabbit pigsty of them all. There are some reveals in the first volume that will go along you turning pages to become to the bottom of this rabbit hole, merely every bit the story goes on y'all brainstorm to realize that in that location is no bottom, or rather that the bottom is comprised of an ensnaring and complex spider web. Turner'due south journey into the nature of truth forces him to wrestle with personal demons, literally and figuratively, while at the same time trying to empathize the various enigmatic characters that enter the fray. It's a mess and I'm dubious whether that's the bespeak Tynion is trying to bulldoze home.

The bewildering metaphysics of The Section of Truth is underscored by its corybantic and opaque art style rendered past Simmonds. The art attempts to capture an aesthetic that is jarring and divorced from what things actually look like and is more than interested in what things ought to expect like where reality is constantly warping in accordance with our collective beliefs. As private panels, the images are hitting and gorgeous, but every bit comics, or sequential art that are always considered in juxtaposition to one another, the images seem expressionless and static. The stasis makes for a reading feel that is aimlessly convulsive as your eyes are trapped and released by each private console or splash. This stasis can be read as either a spasmodic and dreamlike experience where we question if nosotros are somehow reading someone else's dream, or it tin exist understood every bit a sort of hieroglyphic reading experience where the images experience likewise flat and motionless.

The colors are temperamental, as harsh reds appear in contrast to deep blacks in the story's most terrifying moments and yet sometimes the colors meander into more familiar palettes when dealing with characters recollecting more normal events in their lives. Dialogue and thought bubbles are some of the nearly interesting and clever features of the art; their outlines rarely align with the bubbles and captions themselves. The effect is a visual destabilization of what is written, said, seen, and understood in the storyworld which works to inundate u.s. every bit readers with farther doubt regarding what is true.

The Section of Truth wrestles with hard questions about the nature of truth and lends perspective to how it is generated in the earth. It goes so far every bit to implicate all the conspiracy theories out in that location—from J.F.M.'s assassination to QAnon and everything in between. However, I'm not entirely convinced that all the disorientation and defoliation regarding how truth operates in the comic is dealt with responsibly. The plot seems to affirm that relativity is a governing metaphysical force in The Section of Truth . This kind of ethic put forth by the comic's story levels the playing field between truth and conspiracy theories. On one hand, it suggests that unsafe ideas are real; that may be accurate to the extent that when people truly believe something, then they will negotiate their manner through the earth acting on, or with, that false notion in their heads, in their ethics. On the other hand, it likewise suggests that conspiracy theories are valid and on equal footing with the truth as ontologically stable and as veracious. I also wonder: is a bureaucratic government bureau really the best answer for unsafe conspiracy theories condign real ? I'm doubtful, to say the least, but I hope the story leads to a place that calls this type of solution into question.