Review: ‘Christopher Chaos’ #5 Continues To Remind Us That We Are Not Alone

Welcome to the table,

When I was a kid I wanted to leave. I wished for a place where I could be myself and be accepted regardless of my disability and my love of TTRPG and comics. I know that seems dumb now looking around the pop culture space we currently have, but in my youth, in the space where I was growing up, acceptance was not easy to come by.

We are quickly backsliding into a time where people are being policed on who they can love, people are being judged by the color of their skin, and those in power are giving those who judge even more control and power over things. For a while, it looked like we were coming out of a dark age and into a bright new world. More and more, as the landscape around us starts to erode, it feels like we are slipping back into my youth of satanic panic and policing of cultures.

Now, more than ever, books like The Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos are important to our society. I don’t know what the future holds in this turbulent world, but like The Invisibles and Sandman, this book needs to be tucked into long boxes for some lost kid to find and learn they have a voice, they are loved, and most importantly, they are not alone.

Christopher Chaos tells a brilliant story, but the most important thing it does is remind us that we are not alone.

This issue really feels like the team comes together and we are getting into the end game of the first arc. Christopher, Dracula Boy, and Viv take up refuge in a strange church and soon find themselves exploring this underground space. It feels very much like a hidden city I would have run away to as a child. A place that embraces the odd and strange and is not the weird gilded modern sprawl that the surface world is above.

James Tynion IV and Tate Brombal write their butts off in this issue, and Isaac Goodhart keeps up the pace with their art. Miquel Muerto‘s colors and Aditya Bidikar‘s letters are stellar really anchoring this whole book together and giving it the vibe of something familiar to me, like The Invisibles, but something wholly new and fresh.

Until next time, If you have not been reading this series now is a perfect time to go download and grab the first handful of issues and get caught up. This book is for all the weird little kids who grew up and did not lose their shine, and also for those that found it again somewhere along the way.