By Ben Boruff

1,024,000 humans trapped inside a vulnerable safe house. One man living 836 years into his own future.

One mission.

One big mistake.

"The math never lies. Floyd Solar never lies."

Floyd Solar is epic. Author Rich Foster described his comic via e-mail as a “pulp noir science fiction space-time paradox caper,” and the complexity of this description mirrors the mulilayered adventurism of the comic’s protagonist. Floyd Solar features a time-traveling scientist and mathematician who attempts to save the inhabitants of Zero Block, a cuboid structure designed “to house and protect the surviving ancestors of the paradox storm until unentanglement is achieved.” Rich Foster writes his narrative with Whitman-esque intensity. When poet Walt Whitman writes “I launch all men and women forward with me into the Unknown,” he is acknowledging the alluring, terrifying mysteries of life and eternity, and the interactions between narration and dialogue in Floyd Solar reveal similar conceptual commentaries.

If you want an intriguing, emotionally charged experience, read the first issue of Floyd Solar while listening to classical compositions. I suggest Romantic pieces like Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A Major (specifically the Allegretto) and Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1. The swelling intensity of Beethoven’s symphony enhances the grandness of Foster’s comic—a comic that seems both wide-reaching and aggressively personal. Liszt’s concerto highlights the jumbled beauty of the narrative. Or, for a more modern (and less optimistic) instrumental accompaniment, try Jed Kurzel’s ominous original soundtrack for the 2015 film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Whatever you do, pick something majestic, something mysterious, something that matches the strangeness of Whitman’s “Unknown.” Anything else would dishonor this pleasantly bizarre comic. Because “truth, like the future, is a moving target."

Score: 4/5

Floyd Solar - Book One
Writer/Artist: Rich Foster
Publisher: Rich Foster Comics
Price: $4.00
Format: Mini-series; Print
http://www.rfcomics.com/books.php

Comic are currently only available in the San Francisco Bay Area. An online shop will be opened soon. Questions can be directed to Rich Foster Comics at rfcomics@gmail.com