Polarity #1 Review

Polarity #1, written by Say Anything frontman Max Bemis with art by Jorge Coelho, is a brutally honest take on mental illness that is as self-aware as it is fun to read. Presumably drawing on his own experiences with bipolar disorder, Bemis has crafted a story that follows one man's descent into madness and beyond, while also delivering one of the neatest eviscerations of Brooklyn hipster subculture I've ever had the pleasure to cackle over.

Timothy Woods' mental illness is deftly handled without Polarity becoming an "issues" book. His disorder is a part of his lived experience without becoming his defining characteristic and it is something with which he must negotiate in order to survive both life's daily indignities and the larger comic-esque villainy looming around the corner. When Tim decides to go off his meds, he finds that not only does he have to contend with the monsters in his own head, but the very real monsters lurking in the shadows.

Tim's conundrum is one faced by many people with conditions like bipolar disorder: he isn't terribly fond of the person he is with his meds, but he doesn't necessarily trust the person he is without them. Coelho depicts Tim's downward spiral in a way that is both beautiful and disturbing. The vibrant, clean geometry of Tim's world when he's medicated is thrown into stark contrast with the swirling, dark vortex of his mania.

When Tim discovers that not all of his delusions are products of his addled consciousness, the realization does not mitigate the power of what came before. Bemis' plot twist doesn't negate the character's mental illness but rather places him in a situation in which he will have to navigate the murky waters of his own psyche while delving into a mystery that not even his manic paranoia could have concocted. Bemis puts his protagonist through the ringer in more ways than one as he learns that reality may indeed be stranger than the elaborate fictions in his head.

Melissa Grey is a lover of all things cats, comics, and outer space. She can be found on MyIGN at MelissaGrey or lurking on Twitter @meligrey.

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