Sunny Singh’s comic, "Static Noise," features a young protagonist as he grapples with morality in a nightmarish cast of TV characters and authoritative figures. Left home alone by his mother with a foreboding reminder of a safeguarding presence, Billy’s act of watching television turns his world inside out. Singh’s contemporary protagonist retains his childlike innocence yet is tormented by the surveillance of his thoughts. Billy navigates internalized feelings of good and bad with philosophical queries as mediated through a paranoid mix of superheroes and toy mascots.

 

Aiming to question the gimcrack ideological structures and rules that we choose to follow, "Static Noise" compares those structures with the metaphors of religion and "cult-like" TV programming. Singh cleverly immerses the reader in Billy’s disorientation by distorting the comics form. The typical left to right panel grid is broken apart into a swirling spiral, reversing the reading direction. Next, a series of overlapping non-sequitur  panels further emphasizes the nonsensical experience of Singh’s protagonist. Seen through Billy’s eyes, reality is uncertain and loyalty is tested through unspeakable demands. Singh renders the psychological struggle that occurs when a child’s burgeoning reasoning skills are pitted against the delusion of theological dogma and 90s cartoon programming, both of which envelope his upbringing.

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—Martha Newbigging