ConcreteHits Heavy at the Heart Without Ever Throwing a Punch

When Concrete first look in the mid-1980s , the discussion around comedian ’ esthetic merit was undergoing a unplumbed chemise . Excitement around works like The Dark Knight Returns , Maus , and Watchmen expatiate the world ’s ideas about what comics could achieve . Concrete never became part of the stenography tilt for “ mature comic . ” That ’s a shame , because author - artist Paul Chadwick ’s signature cosmos is one of the best examples of what a amply rounded aesthetic face like .

Concrete debut in Dark Horse Presents # 1 , an anthology series from the Oregon - ground publishing firm . Years later , Chadwick reiterate Concrete ’s origin fib in a 1997 miniseries call Strange Armor , which attractively distills the ruth and tenderheartedness that make the character especial .

After being nobble by alien , political aide Ron Lithgow finds his brain encased in a organic structure cover in pliable , lightly textured gray rock . The transplantation makes him super - strong , first-rate - tight , and more long-lived but rob him of his signified of appreciation and all right touch . His sensation of sight becomes superhuman , too , and the adept way I can think to tote up up the ethos of Concrete is that it ’s a unsatisfied investigation of what it means to be alive . Once he gets irrevocably changed into something forebodingly exotic , he spends his new existence appreciating beauty he once took for granted and look at how our life impact others and the satellite we know on .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

There ’s a notional paradox at the gist of Concrete ’s appeal : He looks sartor - made to raid head teacher and smash whatever gets in his elbow room , but mostly expend most of his “ adventures ” thinking and talking through things . In most Concrete stories , Chadwick ’s biggest attainment is in making existential meditations feel as indue as the nerveless superpower . He can also spool out Page of tense conversation that experience as energetic as a last - bandstand gunfight or martial arts conflict might feel elsewhere . you could see that in Think Like a Mountain , where Concrete falls in with a band of ecologic activists and gets pull from sympathetic inaction to full - blown stunt protests over the course of action of the series .

reckon back at this study almost two X by and by , it ’s awful how clamorous some of its political and philosophical element are . The painstaking story of research done by Chadwick is unmistakable on every page — often decorated with the name of various animals drag in the panels — and you’re able to experience him at least examine to give equal system of weights to a status quo he abhors . But Think Like a Mountain desperately push frontwards an agenda , driving its argumentation home by ask us to count past personal puff . In Think Like a Mountain and other Concrete stories , Chadwick pleads for Americans to remember about live lives where we consume less , birth few babies , and implement policies like gas taxes . Chadwick cognize that such ideas will be unpopular but presents them anyway because the option — accelerating bionomical crash — is a incubus .

One of the best things about Chadwick ’s art is how he ’ll suddenly storm you with surrealistic page designs . For the most part , Concrete ’s stories deal with grounded , down - to - earth drama , but Chadwick often rede them via whimsical , filigreed mete treatments and kaleidoscopical visual metaphors . “ expect how wonderful our lives are , ” his art whispers . These existences that we call wearisome and sulkiness through , they have significance that we dim ourselves to .

William Duplessie

Chadwick ’s concern about humanity ’s impact on the planet get their most penetrating intervention in The Human Dilemma . It ’s another serial focused on Concrete becoming a symbol for a cause .

This sentence , Concrete accepts a contract to be a spokesperson for a rich fast - food mogul who want to promote voluntary sterilization as a form of population dominance . Human Dilemma ’s personal drama happen across a panoptic swath , in Concrete ’s veracious - hand valet Larry ’s marriage proposal to his girlfriend , the emotional connexion between scientist Maureen and Concrete that has n’t been able to be expressed physically , and up - snug dealings with the cycle of life and demise .

Almost 30 years from his first coming into court , it ’s still amazing how unabashedly heady and emotionally intimate the Concrete work experience . I ’ve never run into Paul Chadwick and , to the best of my retention , never interviewed him . But the essay , third - someone narration , and dialog he ’s written in Concrete make me feel like I sleep with him . The psychedelic page blueprint and art - account enthusiasm seem to proffer insight into his sentience of humor and passions . It ’s not all eco - centrical drama , either . Concrete comics have had consecutive killer thrills , Hollywood satire , and body - horror sequences , too . Nevertheless , reading Concrete is like receiving an ultrasound picture of what Paul Chadwick has give care about as he ’s lived his living . To me , that ’s the most fledged form of comics ( or any artwork form ) that one can make .

Starship Test 9