Graphic Novel Review: THE STRANGE TALES OF OSCAR ZAHN: VOLUME ONE

Thank you to Ten Speed Graphic for sending a copy of The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn: Volume One in exchange for an honest review.

The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn: Volume One by Tri Vuong

In the appropriately named The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn: Volume One by Tri Vuong, readers are introduced to the titular agent of the supernatural. Appearing variously as a floating skull above an empty outfit and a pale, mustachioed man, Oscar serves as the graphic novel’s narrator.

At the end of this volume, readers will still have many questions about the eponymous protagonist. However, in spite of being kept somewhat in the dark, a certain sensibility of reader will be delighted to undertake this uncanny paranormal tale.

The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn: Volume One.

Oscar’s Aesthetic

First and foremost, let’s talk about what you’ll notice when you open Vuong’s The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn. This story features an arresting aesthetic. Think, the intersection of Tintin and Hellboy, perhaps with a dash of Francesco Francavilla, and you’ll have a general idea.

Not only Zahn’s floating skull but also his enemies and allies alike ride the line between adorable and uncanny. See, for example, the Hydronauts, a trio of non-corporeal entities who rely on their SCUBA-looking containment suits for survival. For some of us, these creep-dorable characters will prove irresistible sequential graphic narrative catnip.

The colors in this volume are interesting, as well. Different color schemes are used to denote flashbacks and shifts in storylines, to great effect. These shifts allow the previously mentioned aesthetic to further evolve, while still maintaining a strict stylistic consistency.

So just how good is the art? Well, let me put it this way. You could probably get your full enjoyment out of The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn even without reading any of the dialogue. Vuong’s otherworldly characters and visuals are consistently compelling, and impressively varied over the course of this volume’s 240 pages. But while you might be wholly entertained by this course of action, you’d be missing out on the story’s enigmatic characters and their curious character arcs.

Oscar’s Antecedents

Previously, I alluded to several well-known comics in discussing the aesthetic of this graphic novel. However, another well-known genre comic springs to mind when I consider this volume’s content. Oscar is a charismatic protagonist undertaking seemingly supernatural responsibilities across multiple stories in a single volume. For this reason, I cannot help but make a comparison to The Sandman, especially the first volume, Preludes & Nocturnes.

This isn’t to say that Oscar and Dream of the Endless are identical characters; on the contrary, an entire comparative essay could examine the many ways they coincide and are distinct from each other. For one thing, Dream feels like a fully inhuman entity, while it’s clear Zahn originated within humanity. But the archetype of a supernatural (or supernatural adjacent) character playing steward to the unwitting “normals” is certainly present in both cases.

I have made multiple comparisons over the course of this review. But, I need to take a moment and emphasize that this graphic novel doesn’t ever feel derivative. It’s not simply a rehash of things you’ve read before. The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn may possess some elements of notable genre works that came before, but it’s certainly telling its own tale.

And as alluded to earlier, that tale is hardly told by the time this volume has run out of pages. In fact, Zahn himself may be holding the reader at arm’s length throughout the book, continually telling the stories of others instead of his own. But one gets a sense that the enigmas present throughout the book do have forthcoming explanations. According to the publisher, this first volume adapts the first 65 chapters of Vuong’s The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn. So you’re getting a good chunk – but nowhere near all – of the story in this volume.

The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn

In terms of the book itself, this volume adopts the same format as the previous Webtoon adaptations from Ten Speed. This is a substantial hardcover. It’s wider than a prose novel so as to better display the comic’s art. Spot gloss highlights the green tentacles on the cover. And while these pages are saturated with black, the ink does not saturate these pages. Even when the images are mostly black, they are crisply reproduced. Furthermore, the paper is thick enough to prevent any shadow from bleeding through to the other side.

Overall, this is a great presentation of the extremely engaging material. It’s sturdy and effective, and sure to last as you pull it off the shelf repeatedly while waiting impatiently for the publication of subsequent volumes of The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn.

The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn: Volume One by Tri Vuong will be available at your local bookstore and/or public library beginning on September 10, 2024.

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Avery Kaplan

Avery Kaplan is the author of several books and the Features Editor at Comics Beat. She was honored to serve as a judge for the 2021 Cartoonist Studio Prize Award and the 2021 Prism Awards. She lives in the mountains of Southern California with her partner and a pile of cats, and her favorite place to visit is the cemetery. You can also find her writing on Comics Bookcase, NeoText, Shelfdust, the Mary Sue, StarTrek.com, in many issues of PanelxPanel, and in the margins of the books in her personal library.