#the somewhat incredible jackie boy man

[graphicpolicy]

Bad Egg Publishing announces three new series!

Bad Egg Publishing announces three new series! #comics #comicbooks

[fleecal]

It arrived.

I also got a copy with the typo. Hehe.

[ashiiplier]

i stopped crying enough to finish the comic and i am kinda at a loss for words. i LOVE IT SO SO MUCH i still can't believe it's real 😭

[ashtonisvibing]

"aw man, i'm gonna share something i'm excited about to my discord friends!"

[sees that they never even acknowledged my other excited message and started a different convo]

"..... never mind-"

so anyways i just found out jackie's from boston in the comic- like- like a city that's about 3hr away from mine- like it's in my home state oh my god-

i am- buzzing a little-

[imamotherfuckingdinosaur]

I’m not 100% on the face but I tried some markers out and really like it!!!

[jellyfishdoodler]

ALTRVERSE Panel Redraws!

Kinda neglected Marvin for his week of the SepticArtParty so have a 2 for 1 of the comic lads!

My markers would have perished if I colored the background forgive me

[glass-trash-bab]

Its the altrverse boys!!! I adore them so so much, theyre so precious to me

[deceptive-jo]

Drawing these two and actually being able to look at a reference is so odd...

[leobashi]

Took a sewing class this semester. The last assignment was pants and I decided I needed to steal Jackie’s

[graphicpolicy]

NYCC 2023: JackSepticEye annoucnes the The Altrverse Project with Bad Egg

NYCC 2023: JackSepticEye annoucnes the The Altrverse Project with Bad Egg #comics #comicbooks #nycc #nycc2023 #nycc23

[the3rddenialist]

The Unreliable Narrators of

The Somewhat Incredible Jackie-Boy Man & Void Silver

And their capacity to deceive us in the future.

Dramatic Youtube Thumbnail lol

Major #0 spoilers

Gotta say, I really love when a story comes with a sister story with it, this being the two Altrverse comics. As I personally love having two texts to compare and contrast, as it can really help highlight what they share, what's different, and what's missing.

And wow there is something things in each story that look a lot more suspicious due to their sister text existing.

While Sister Stories do many things, in this case it highlights the unreliable narrators of each text. I hope after this look into these aspect, and if these aspects continue into the next comics, will implore you to keep an eyebrow raise in regards to Marvin and Jackie.

But first, what is an unreliable narrator? At the most basic, an unreliable narrator is a storyteller whose perspective isn't totally if we want to get the full picture. They can be intentional, unintentional, aim to wrongfully mislead or give a happier story. But even unreliable narrators with good intention still can alter the story to its viewers in a way that will lead us to the wrong conclusions.

Now do I think the Volume #0 are unreliable? Not really, but it had the capacity to be, which means in future comics, they may become more and more unreliable.

I will explore how each comic is unreliable by the perspective of each story and what we are shown (or more importantly not shown).

First we'll start with

Perspective: Who is their story being told by?

From the first page of The Somewhat Incredible Jackie-Boy Man, and by the second page of Void Silver, it is already establish that these narrative will be unreliable.

First we have Jackie. Who straight out of the gate acknowledges the viewer.

SO LET'S JUST GET OUT THERE--

And continues to narrate the rest of his story.

Now this probably doesn't seem important at first, don't a lot of comics do that? Spiderman does it! Which TSIJBM draws inspiration from. But remember what I said about Sister Stories? While this doesn't seem strange when by itself, it's strange when you look at VS.

Unlike TSIJBM, who has Jackie address the viewer, we instead have a completely different character, Higgins the Cat, introduce Marvin to us. And boy does Higgins know we're watching.

So while in TSIJBM, Jackie introduces himself to us, in VS, Higgins introduced Marvin to us.

Giving us two different protagonists, Jackie, who knows he's telling a story, and in the role of storyteller, and Marvin, unaware his story is being told and the role of storyteller belongs to Higgins.

This shows that these stories have unreliable narrators,

Shown: What do we get see?

This is also evident in the structure of the comics.

In TSIJBM, the entire story we are following Jackie, as we get his input and thoughts. The only exception being the first couple pages and the final couple panels. This also limits what we see of Jackie. As we only see what he sees/cares about, having an entire page dedicated to his thought process, because he decided that to be of most important than what else is going on around him. His story is heavily skewed by his perspective of things. Which seems to be a theme in TSIJBM, as he mistakes CyberMass' demo to be a Robot Apocalypse. We even have a minor time skip in the comic with a flashback, as we see why JBM was late to an order, but this flashback is used to bring out sympathy. It's why we only see him come out of the dumpster, not into it, it's what is more important to recall to him.

This is oppose to VS, where we don't follow Marvin the entire time, he's not even in his first page. And have an entire section dedicated to the Twins. You could say it's still Marvin's perspective because he learns of what the Twins do, but we don't learn it at the same time as Marvin. We see what happens and he learns afterwards. If we saw him go home, pick up the mask, and then see what the twins did, that would be more accurate to Marvin's experience. But Marvin, while the protagonist of his comic, is not the narrator, which belongs to Higgins. And so we see in the order of how Higgins wants us to see.

Higgins controls the perspective in Marvin's narrative. Jackie controls his own.

This means Jackie has the capacity to deceive the viewer in TSIJBM. Will he? Well we don't know him well enough in this version to know for sure. But we need to know he does have that card at his disposal.

But Higgins has the capacity to decisive the viewer in VS, and a part of me feels like he wouldn't be above that. What is especially interesting though is that it makes Marvin a lot more authentic, due to his lack of knowledge of his story being told, as we need to worry more of what Higgins shows us of Marvin.

All of this shows how Jackie is the narrator of his story, whilst Higgins is the narrator of Marvin's, both storytellers having the ability to mislead us in the future. We've already touch on a bit about what is shown in each narrative due to their narrators. But Great Sister stories highlight what they don't show.

Shown: Marvin doesn't think

There is almost 0 thought bubbles in VS. I implore you to look yourself. The only thing resembling a thought bubble is Marvin recalling what was mention in the previous pages and the statement that "Everything this masks sees, it records", which doesn't seem to be his own thoughts but just recalling statements said to him.

There are pages in VS, where if Jackie was in the situation, would be scattered with thought bubbles, like the two pages of Jackie moving while he comments on social aspects that dehumanises people. But there is none in VS. This makes sense of course, Higgins is the narrator, not Marvin, why would Higgins know what Marvin is thinking? He at best can show us what he's doing, or doesn't want us to know what Marvin's thinking.

This does highlight that Jackie is his own narrator with the lack of though bubbles in VS, if thought bubbles are a tool only for the storyteller. I mean look at these pages and tell me it wouldn't have thought bubbles if Marvin was the narrator.

If this was in TSIJBM, we would probably see Marvin's thoughts of frustration, not just his face.

This page especially.

We didn't know why Marvin recognised the insignia until later, when Higgins showed us a flashback. Because we don't know Marvin's thoughts.

So while Marvin is more authentic than JBM, he's more secretive, not of his own volition, but because he's not his own narrator.

While they aren't both unreliable narrators, since Marvin isn't his own, they are both unreliable protagonist. One which can alter his own story, the other which has his thoughts concealed.

Similar to how there is a theme for Jackie of his perspective being skewed to what he deems reality is, there is a theme of Marvin just not knowing what's actually happening, having to rely on others to inform him (Sunday, his mask, Ramesses). Marvin is a lot less aware that he's in a story and his role in his own story.

The viewer can only trust what Jackie decided is more important for us, and the viewer has to be informed by Higgins what is important for us. This makes both comics of TSIJBM and VS have unreliable narrators, and that we should be careful at taking everything at face value in the future.

I have no clue if these aspect will continue in #1, perhaps these things only a apply to #0. But is they do continue in the next comics, I hope this has help you approach the next comic with more suspicion.

Thanks for reading. And remember that you can't always trust what is shown.

[ashiiplier]

i am going to be so insufferable because of this comic oh my god

im sorry to anyone who knows me ever because it's all im gonna be talking about

[ashtonisvibing]

I GOT THE COMIC BOOOOOOOOOOK \o/\o/\o/

jackie is such a DORK i LOVE HIMMMMMMMM HGFDGCFHKV<J>LCKYIDRKG

[dancing-heart-pony]

Yeehehehe! 🤩😍😱🥰🤯❤️

I’m almost afraid to open it 😓

[rogue-of-broken-time]

Anyway. Let's hear it for the artists, writers, and creatives behind the ALTRverse!

Creative Team behind Void Silver

Suzi Blake (artist):

Twitter

Instagram

Linktree

Skylar Partridge (issue #1, cover B artist):

Twitter

Instagram

Website

Alejandro Arbona (author):

Twitter

Instagram

Andrew Dalhouse (color artist):

Twitter

Instagram

Creative Team behind The Somewhat Incredible Jackie-Boy Man

Connie Daidone (artist):

Twitter

Instagram

Megan Huang (artist):

Twitter

Artstation

Laura Helsby (issue #1, cover B artist):

Twitter

Linktree

James Asmus (author):

Instagram

I'll update this as I find more!