Paranatural is a webcomic written by Zack Morrison. It currently updates Fridays, and is described on its "About" page as "a comedy/action comic about a group of superpowered middle schoolers fighting evil spirits and investigating paranormal activity in their hometown."
The webcomic started in the summer of 2010 on its own ComicFury site,[1] and moved during the November of that year[4] to Smack Jeeves.[5] The comic could also formerly be found on DeviantArt[6] and The Duck (formerly known as DrunkDuck)[7] On October 23, 2011, the comic moved from Smack Jeeves to its own official website.[8][9]
Chapters[]
- Chapter One - The Activity Club and the New Kid (70 pages; started 6/30/2010, ended 10/15/2011)
- Chapter Two - Max and the Midnight Visitor (30 pages; started 10/17/2011, ended 5/8/2012)
- Chapter Three - Max, Isaac, and the Secret Shortcut (53 pages; started 5/20/2012, ended 4/29/2013)
- Chapter Four - The Activity Club and the Ghost Train (151 pages; started 4/22/2013, ended 12/02/2014)
- Chapter Five - The Activity Club and the Insidious Infiltrator (300 pages; started 12/22/2014, ended 9/18/2018)
- Chapter Six - Stephen and the Suspension of Disbelief (49 pages; started 12/31/2018, ended 2/28/2020)
- Chapter Seven - Mr. Spender and the Activity Club (90 pages; started 4/3/2020, ended 9/30/2022)
- Chapter Eight - Mayview and the Dark Before Daybreak (ongoing; started 10/7/2022)
Cast Page[]
- Main article: Cast Page
The cast page is a list of characters in the webcomic with accompanying images and short descriptions. It was created alongside the comic's move to its own URL, and has undergone various changes since its inception which can be found documented here.
Archive[]
The Paranatural website features a comic archive, which contains links to each page sorted by chapter.
The old archive page used to contain a list of page numbers under the title page and a short description of the chapter. Sometime after its creation, Zack added a brief, factual description of the events each page (presumably to make finding certain ones easier), which could be accessed by hovering over any given page number.
The current archive has an entirely new layout; it features collapsible menus for each chapter containing thumbnails of each page in rows of five, making it much easier to find a certain page. It also has a drop-down menu which lists each page alongside the date it was released, as well as a link to the website's home page.
Side Stories[]
Supernormal[]
- Main article: Supernormal
On the Paranatural website Extras page, Zack maintains a series of one-joke comic pages titled Supernormal (a play on the combination of "Paranormal" and "Supernatural" like Paranatural) that "[showcases] the side of Mayview that isn’t supernatural", featuring characters and places from the original story in funny situations.
The Activity Club and the Final Hole[]
- Main article: The Activity Club and the Final Hole
During a break between Chapter 6, Page 8 and Chapter 6, Page 9
, Zack uploaded a short story to the website entitled The Activity Club and the Final Hole which follows Max Puckett, Isabel Guerra, and Isaac O'Connor playing mini-golf at Small Business Benson's Gas Station & Human Joy Emporium.
On June 4, 2019, Zack announced via Twitter that they were in the process of making an illustrated version of the story that would be put up for sale in the near future. On June 24, 2019, the illustrated version was released for sale on Gumroad alongside an official announcement.
Alt Text[]
Since its days on Smack Jeeves, each page of Paranatural has contained alt text that provides an extra joke for the reader if they hover their mouse over the picture. However, due to the transition from Smack Jeeves to the Paranatural website, most of the alt text from Chapter 1 has been lost, and only pages 24-47 contain something other than the respective chapter and page number.
Trivia[]
- The first eight pages of Paranatural are older than the subsequent ones, which is why a jump in quality can be seen starting from Chapter 1, Page 9
.[10]
- The first thirty pages of the comic were drawn with a Bic pen and scanned at 100 DPI (dots per inch), meaning that they have to be redrawn and scanned in higher quality if a physical book is ever released.[11][12]
- According to a tweet, Max's baseball hat and bat are remnants of Paranatural's early stages as a baseball-focused story.
- Prior to the February 2014 redesign, the website used to have a blog section. The last version of the blog prior to its removal can be found archived here.
- In its early days, the site also used to have a fanart section. The page was removed sometime between September 25, 2012 and November 26, 2012, and the last version of the page can be found archived here.
- On May 22, 2012, the cover pages for the first three chapters were first uploaded to the site alongside an accompanying blog post.
- As of Chapter 4, Page 111
, Zack uses Clip Studio Paint (then known as Manga Studio) to create new pages.[13][14]
Gallery[]
Promotional Material[]
article)
(Tweet)
(Tweet)
Official Wallpapers[]
- Note: These images were retrieved from the wallpaper section of the official site.
Logos[]
Concept Artwork[]
Characters[]
Other[]
External Links[]
Notes[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Archive of the comic archive on TheComicSeries.
- ↑ Archive of Chapter 1, Page 1 on Smack Jeeves.
- ↑ Chapter 1, Page 1
- ↑ "Paranatural launches! Today marks the momentous date of the launch of Paranatural! Comics coming soon!" Archive of the comic on Smack Jeeves.
- ↑ Archive of the comic archive on Smack Jeeves.
- ↑ Archive of Chapter 1, Page 36 on DeviantArt.
- ↑ "First of all, I just want to thank you guys again for reading and commenting this past year over on ComicFury, SmackJeeves, DrunkDuck and DeviantArt." Archived from the first blog post on the current website.
- ↑ "New Website!" Archived from the comic's old Smack Jeeves website.
- ↑ Archive of Chapter 2, Page 1 on the current website.
- ↑ "Hello, and welcome to the beginning of Paranatural. The first few pages of this webcomic are older than the newer ones, so there will be a noticeable change in quality (for the better) around page nine. My name is Zack, and I hope you enjoy the story." Author's comment on Chapter 1, Page 1
on the comic's now-defunct Smack Jeeves site.
- ↑ " drew my first 30 pages with a bic pen at 100 dpi ;^D" (7 Jul 2014)
- ↑ " eventually! i have to redraw the first 30 pages because i don't have them in print resolution so it's an Ordeal" (14 Oct 2015)
- ↑ "As of the last two pages, I do everything in Manga Studio 5!" (24 Jun 2014)
- ↑ "hmm, is there a way to get clip studio paint selections to snap (...)" (18 Feb 2018)
Paranatural
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Meta | |||||||
Cast Page · Comment Section · Filler Pages · Merchandise · Zack Morrison (Zack's Comments) | |||||||
Chapters | |||||||
Chapter 1 · Chapter 2 · Chapter 3 · Chapter 4 · Chapter 5 · Chapter 6 · Chapter 7 · Chapter 8 | |||||||
Transcripts | |||||||
Chapter 1 · Chapter 2 · Chapter 3 · Chapter 4 · Chapter 5 · Chapter 6 · Chapter 7 | |||||||
Short Stories | |||||||
Supernormal · The Activity Club and the Final Hole |