Although The Science of Ghosts had delays in getting to print after it was first announced, thankfully this graphic novel release isn’t vaporware. When the topic concerns why they manifest and what their importance is to family legacies, just what’s told isn’t necessarily mind-shattering! As for encountering one for real versus manufactured, that’s a detail I rather enjoyed discovering while reading this book.
Here, the portrayal of ghosts suggests that some old black magic needs to be involved more so than trauma to cause them to remain on this earthly plane. As Halloween approaches, I finally cracked open this book written by Lilah Sturges and illustrated by El Garing. This graphic novel doesn’t really delve into the physics behind what makes up a ghost (it would’ve been interesting to offer ideas). Instead, what it offers is a great hard-boiled type mystery concerning this spirit appearing to specific individuals.
The story takes a much more serious approach to the Scooby-Doo formula, with introducing the heroine, Joy Ravenna. She is called upon to investigate age-old crimes. The fact she’s a forensic parapsychologist means she’s able to dabble in spiritualism. She wants to gather hard to discount data on why some entities can manifest. But when reality gets in the way, namely getting asked to investigate why the Haskell home is haunted, what’s going on isn’t concerned about why Liz is the heiress to the family fortune. They built their empire on selling guns. I immediately thought of the Winchester’s family. But there are skeletons in this other family’s closet she’s not aware of.
To say too much about the story would spoil the journey, and what’s revealed isn’t all that surprising. Although Joy’s story does not factor as much into the main plot, the whole LGBQT thing seems to get overused to help sell a book. When her sexual orientation isn’t important to the overall story, why does it matter?
At least the setting is right. Houston, Texas is the home to more than just the blues, and I would not think of this city as spook central. Instead, the fact that family legacies have helped build this city plays a role in the overall tale. This work has my thumbs up by referencing Paschal Beverly Randolph, whose theories may ring true for those studying the occult. According to Paschal Beverly Randolph, the human body is filled with electric current, which he believed to be the manifestation of the human spirit. Whether that explains the science of ghosts (i.e. how they function in our world), nobody is really going to know until there’s equipment calibrated to prove what leaves the remains upon death.
At least with this graphic novel, its own theosophy has its heart in the right place.
4 Stars out of 5
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