The World Below

by Paul Chadwick, Ron Randall

Fifteen years ago, from a hole in the ground in rural Washington, a tiny flying machine emerged and Charles Hoy found it. From all appearances, this small vehicle wasn't built with any existing human technology and Hoy made a fortune selling that technology to the first eager customer. Now with his fortunes dwindling and his curiosity piqued with more than a decade of questioning, Hoy has hired a team of adventurers to enter this vast, underground realm in hopes of bringing back even greater discoveries. But while the team expects the unexpected and is prepared for danger, nothing they can imagine will prepare them for The World Below.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Science Fiction, Fiction, Comic Book, Adventure

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Paul Chadwick (b.1957) has worked widely as an artist and writer for comic books, with collaborators like Ron Randall, Doug Wheatley, Alan Moore, John Bolton, Harlan Ellison, Jan Strnad, Randy Stradley, Archie Goodwin, Brian K. Vaughan, and others.

He's most noted for his award-winning series Concrete, about a thoughtful man stuck in a brutish, rock-coated body. Born in Seattle, he grew up in its lakeside suburb Medina, then a haven for Boeing engineers and their families, now the site of palaces for Bill Gates and his ilk. His father Stephen F. Chadwick was City Attorney for the small hamlet.

As a teen, he joined Apa-5, the amateur press alliance of comics fans which also provided a creative outlet for future comics luminaries like Frank Miller, Mike Richardson, Randy Stradley, Chris Warner, Randy Emberlin, and others.

He attended Art Center College of Design, majoring in illustration. Around this time Chadwick lived in a courtyard apartment building, The Golden Palm, which teemed with talent. Bryn Barnard, Ron Harris, David Mattingly, James Gurney, Thomas Kinkade, Kurt Cyrus, Mark Verheiden, Andy Su, Terry Robinson all lived there, five of them as Chadwick's roommate (at different times).

Chadwick graduated in 1979, and began storyboarding movies for Disney, Warner Brothers, Lucasfilm and others. Credits include Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Strange Brew, The Big Easy and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. Chadwick says the auteurs behind two small films he worked on, Lies (Jim & Ken Wheat) and Miracle Mile (Steve DeJarnatt) were the greatest personal influences on his writing.

Chadwick also freelanced illustration, mainly for movie advertising (Streamers and Galaxy of Terror were the only finished posters among the dozens of preliminary paintings he did) and for SF and Fantasy paperbacks.

Chadwick decided to devote himself to comics, but Concrete didn't sell at first. Chadwick's first comic in print was The Life of St. Norbert, published by an order of Norbertine monks. Going from the sacred to the (mildly) profane, he next drew Steve Perry's strange and silly Salimba, about a jungle girl fighting "wormboys" and a giant three-headed were-dog.

A year on Marvel's Dazzler completed Chadwick's apprentice years, and he sold Concrete in 1985 to Dark Horse comics. It has appeared intermittently ever since.

A Concrete movie has been in development for years. Chadwick has written several screenplays for it, first in collaboration with Larry Wilson, then solo. Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh wrote one, as well, which briefly won a green light for the film.

The decision was reversed upon the release of the surprise hit The Blair Witch Project, which caused the sudden mass delusion that Hollywood could dispense with costly visual effects and stars. The fever passed, but Concrete's window had closed, at least until somebody with the clout or energy decides to brave the thousand demons that lay waiting to kill every movie.

Chadwick wrote and drew (inks by Ron Randall) eight issues of The World Below, about a network of vast, mysteriously lit caverns beneath northern Washington State, and the strange beings and technology to be found there. Dark Horse plans to reissue the series as a collection.

The Human Dilemma, the newest Concrete series, won an Eisner Award (best cartoonist) and a Reuben Award (best in comic books division) from the National Cartoonist Society.

Chadwick is currently drawing a miniseries for DC, Seven Against Chaos, written by Harlan Ellison.

He's also working on a (non-Concrete, TBA) graphic novel for Dark Horse, as well as a new Concrete miniseries.

Biography updated 2010

Reviews

[Asciigod · Rating 2 out of 5]

Paul Chadwick's "The World Below" series could have tried to be an average action-drama comic book. But it had a good premise, an interesting world, and a truly capable writer/artist behind it. So today, I am here to mourn...

Instead "The World Below" fails spectacularly in presenting its essential purpose to exist against a novelty-sized gaggle of limitations, restrictions and bad luck.

Facing a 20 page per issue limitation, the plot simultaneously suffocates AND breathes too freely. No real coherence, urgency or meaning is allowed to grow. Stories are presented with a faux chronology that makes almost no sense, and yet it seems like it wouldn't have mattered a whole lot if it did.

In this confined space character personalities have no room to establish, much less grow or earn reader empathy. Frankly, reading this was a painful experience, especially after considering Chadwick's honest and illuminating introductory text (excellent by the way!) Truly an example of what can and shouldn't go wrong in the execution of an idea.

Chadwick, mixing the sardonic and the stoic, sums up the tale in the closing narrative dialogue: "Endings are not always triumphant. Life itself is accomodation to tragedy, to calamity, to circumstance" (182).

Paul, you have my belated condolences.

[Santiago L. Moreno · Rating 1 out of 5]

Este tpb contiene los ocho números de la serie. En España sólo se publicaron los cuatro primeros en dos volúmenes, un primer arco. Podría esgrimirse la excusa de que la mala traducción y el estar incompleto desgracian la obra en español, pero es que la obra ya viene lastrada de origen.
Chadwick es guionista y dibujante, pero no hay nada aquí que se pueda emparentar con Concrete, si acaso el dibujo a ratos en escenarios y figuras humanas, porque el diseño de criaturas es una risa.
El guión es aún peor. Desarrolla la historia de una expedición en la que la interrelación entre personajes debería crear conflicto y potenciar lo de fuera, pero están definidos en base a pequeños flashbacks que no aportan ni un gramo de interés o personalidad.
Cutre.

[Matthew J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the heck out of this weird, retro adventure story. It reminded me of stuff like 'Challengers of the Unknown,' and other old comics. There's a kind of melancholic vibe to it that used to show up in some of the old tales. The art is really good, though I wish this edition still featured color, as I think it would have helped. Sadly, the comic was short-lived, and while it wraps things up in a way, I was left wanting more. Things were just getting rolling when the comic ends. Still, good stuff.

[Garrett · Rating 2 out of 5]

It would take the existentially bleak Paul Chadwick (the creator of the navel-gazing Dark Horse Comic Concrete) to bring this to life; it's weird. It's deliberately, oppressively weird, and that's kind of great at first, but all of the weirdness builds up about halfway through and becomes silliness, which you can sort of tolerate for a while, since the feel of the whole project is kind of retro to begin with. But then, there's this twisty pathway from healing fungus to transcendental cephalopod heads into one of the most nihilistic, fucked-up, screw it, no one's buying this book anyway, surrender endings I've ever seen in comics. It's trying to be Twilight Zone, and it comes off as eyeliner poetry slam. Cannot recommend.

[Rob McMonigal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some people will do anything for money, and in this case, it's putting a bunch of flawed characters together on a series of suicide missions to recover technology that could make a small group of people very, very rich. But when they end up encountering some of the worst things imaginable in the underground world, culminating in a horrific nightmare in a departure for Paul Chadwick into old-school comics horror, with Ron Randall along for the ride with great ink work.

This is a fun romp of a book with Chadwick really enjoying a chance to do some really terrible things to his characters, culminating in leaving them trapped with no presumed means of escape as breeding stock. It's like reading a series of EC comics stories that are linked, instead of one-off, and the premise works very well, though it probably wasn't something that could go on indefinitely. Because of Chadwick's restrained style, there's nothing really gory, but seeing a realistic hand growing out of a person's chest is pretty damned horrifying to me.

This sci-fi horror set of mini-series worked extremely well for me, because I love the old-school style and Chadwick's linework. If you find it somewhere, pick it up if you dig horror comics. I think you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I remember reading and disliking the first World Below miniseries many years back, but given how much I loved Dark Horse's recent Concrete re-issues, I decided to give World Below a second chance.
It's still pretty rough in the beginning. Choppy and uneven pacing and dialogue, with one ridiculous creature design for every really cool design, all prevent it from ever really seizing your attention.

Chadwick does find a stronger voice as the series progresses, but for an adventure series, the pacing is still a little slow, and the characters are mostly blank slates, indistinguishable and unmemorable after finishing the entire eight-issue run (There are two four-part miniseries in this trade). Chadwick's art is very good, however. Ron Randall's a good inker for him, and the storytelling and layouts are great. As noted, the designs are hit or miss, unfortunately.

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Chadwick seems like the most underrated guy in comics. His work is consistently beautifully drawn, funny, thought-provoking and exciting. I found this in a $3 bin at a convention. It's great. It's a series canceled after a few issues (again, he's REALLY underrated) but I'd have happily read many books of this. It's about a team of adventurers exploring an alien world, a bit similar in tone to LOST. I do wish this collection was in color, as the alien world and creatures would really lend itself to that (and the art, to me, doesn't appear to be purposefully black and white, not a lot of contrasts in the shading.)

Also appreciated is the bonus material in the collection; Chadwick's honest musings about his stories flaws and strengths, and many many unused covers and story ideas. Looking forward to what Paul does next!

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Paul Chadwick's Concrete was an amazing comic book. The World Below is an amazingly bad comic book.
The premise is good: a businessman became rich by ripping off alien tech from a strange subterranean cavern world, but now he needs fresh gadgets to keep up. Down go a team of adventurers ... into boredom. Characterization is minimal (surprising, as that was one of Concrete's strength). The adventures consist of throwing weird random monsters at the protagonists (Chadwick talks about his influences in the intro — he definitely picked the wrong ones) with no real build or story arc. Attempts at insight and depth fall flat.
And the ending absolutely sucks.

[Bob Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book!... until the end, the end was depressing and hopeless. Every "chapter" is great until "Pets!" I recommend every chapter except for "Pets!"

[Charles Jr. · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the adventures pays tribute to the Basil Wolverton SF-horror comic short story of the 1950s "The Brain Bats of Venus." I got it! I got it!

[Larrypalooza · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s sharp looking and weird, but really the narrative thrust is so weak or so distracted and the ending so harsh and hopeless that it’s hard to imagine this series was not cut very short.

[Dr Zorlak · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a tragedy of our times that this title got pulled out of the Dark Horse catalog. And worse: that it was given a hurried ending.

This was Paul Chadwick's best work after Concrete. It went back to the old high adventure zeitgeist of the Golden Age of Comics.

Chadwick has such a eye for the odd and the weird: his worlds leave you reeling and you find yourself thinking about what you just read, musing, ruminating, reflecting. That's a talent.

How not to ruminate days after finishing an issue, when you are shown a giant organism that mimics a vulva and traps unsuspecting men, drunk on testosterone; or when characters are taken hostage by parasites that attach to their brain and remove all unhappiness and anxiety; or when you finally meet the Ancient Ones, that can speak English, but can't understand it when heard, anatomically impossible beings that keep humans as pets?

I only hope this title makes a comeback sometime in the future.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paul Chadwick notes in the introduction to this collection that this series was his attempt to broaden his audience and write something different than his successful title, Concrete. It focuses on an ensemble cast, rather than a single main character, and hearkens back to old-time adventure stories as well as new ones, like Lost. My personal take is that it's basically "Journey to the Center of the Earth" meets "Alien".

As an adventure with a sci-fi tinge, it measures up on several fronts. There are plenty of weird creatures and situations in a totally alien setting. It's handy to be on, or rather under, the Earth so that its not unreasonable for the team to be small and privately funded. On the other hand, the landscapes would make much more sense as the surface of a different planet. My educated brain couldn't make the leap to allow for so much undetected subterranean space and variety of life forms (even if they are supposed to be from another world).

The art is often up to Chadwick's fine standard. The humans are identifiable, though not altogether unique. The layouts and angles and settings are beautiful. Some of the alien creatures and machines are amazing and alien. Many of them aren't. They're muddles that seem like random collections of pieces and parts that barely make functional, much less anatomical, sense. This may have been intentional, in fact a couple of creatures seem to be capable of trading limbs and at least one machine appears to be made up of somewhat independent parts. And they are supposed to be alien and mysterious.

The characters are serviceable, if not entirely relatable or rounded out. Chadwick attempts to make them distinct and three dimensional through conflict and flashbacks, but with so much else happening on each page and the constant tug to move on to the next situation, much of this seems tacked on and easy to ignore. As he admits in the Intro, the first couple of issues are a bit short on exposition and this is exactly a few more bits of background might have created a firmer foundation for the cast.

I had a fine time reading this book. I enjoyed Concrete immensely and had looked forward to this title since I first heard about it. If it weren't for the problems with subterranean geology and biology (and some clunky writing), I'd probably give this four stars. As it is, I give it a solid three.

[CasualDebris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some interesting ideas are unfortunately transformed into mere backdrop as Chadwick has chosen to focus his uninspired writing on the group of all-too-familiar characters and their inane relationship to one another. In his introduction Chadwick claims that the first chapter is "underwritten," since at the time of writing he "had a new religion of avoiding verbosity." This is odd since the main story-line is compressed due to the amount of back-story he squeezes into a minimal number of frames. We are not allowed to discover in detail the interesting world he has created, nor its fascinating creatures & their unusual behaviour, since he felt it necessary to explain unnecessary character aspects instead of allowing them to naturally develop along the course of the stories. The background art in the first chapter saves it from being a complete waste: notice the eyes gleaming from underneath the rock which the hummer tries to veer around, or the shadowy figure seated in a stone crevice on the third from last frame.

[Kirsten · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh, this was just awful. I haven't read any Chadwick, but I'd heard his Concrete books were excellent, so when I saw he'd done a pulpy "Journey to the Center of the Earth"-esque series of comics, I figured the collection was worth checking out. Sadly, the plots are stupid and pointless, and not just in a pulp-stupid way, they're quite simply directionless and frequently bizarre for the sake of being bizarre. The artwork was also sub par. For one, the anatomy of the creatures that the travellers encounter doesn't make any sense, which really bothered me (probably more than it should have) -- there were all these grotesque creatures that were misshapen in nonsensical ways. The action scenes feel weirdly static, and the way the frames were constructed tended to obscure rather than explain what was actually supposed to be going on. Big disappointment.

[Deodand · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. This is a really weird story - I mean that in the traditional "tales of the strange" sense, which I believe is where the author was aiming. I wished it was editorially tightened a bit - sometimes the story's direction is not clear. The ending was a little fuzzy too. I understand that the end wasn't necessarily meant to be The End at the time the comics were created.

It's still worth a read in spite of my minor gripes. The middle issues are particularly interesting and original.

[Michael Griffin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this for what it was. I liked the characters. I loved the strange world beneath the surface. There's some really cool weird stuff in this book.

I offer this advice for this graphic novel: Don't read the introduction until after you read the comics. Paul Chadwick pointed out the problems in the story, so I couldn't help but notice them as I read this. It colored my perception of the comic. (It also didn't help that I knew the first half of the book was originally in color.)

This has a real downer of an ending. Give this a pass if you want to avoid bleak endings.

[matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Chadwick's stories there is always a sense of wonder and joy about the world we live in. Even in this case, when these people are trapped in a nightmare environment that is completely other-worldly.
I prefer when Chadwick addresses issues that are affecting the world around us today -- but although this book is essentially a sci-fi diversion - it is still a great book.

[Matt Piechocinski · Rating 1 out of 5]

Could have been really good, but was just really awful. I felt like DH published it just because he was Paul Chadwick. The art's not so awful, in fact, I think it's really neat ... the story is just really stupid.

[Hillingdon Libraries]

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[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

I made it most of the way through, but didn't finish. It just didn't grab my attention. I did really enjoy the pulp action adventure aspect.