The (Paranatural) Activity Club. Clockwise from the top: Isabel, Isaac, Ed, and Max.
Max:"I'm starting to think crazy is the norm in Mayview."
Paranatural is a supernatural humour webcomic made by Zack Morrison, a.k.a. MidnightTelevision.It stars a cynical young lad named Maxwell Puckett who just moved into a town called Mayview with his eccentric father and little sister Zoey. It soon turns out that the town is haunted by ghosts and other supernatural creatures, which only a handful of people, Max included, can see. The comic derives a lot of humor from over the top facial expressions, making mundane situations and actions seem far more awesome than they should be, and the fact that almost everyone in Mayview is crazy in one way or another.After a hectic first day of school, Max finds himself joining the (Paranatural) Activity Club, whose purpose is to keep paranormal activity around the school in check, and to help young spectrals like Max understand and control their powers. Mostly they just mess around though.The comic updates on Mondays and Fridays, and can be found here.A fan-made, fan-operated forum for the comic can be found here.The comic was first updated on ComicFury.
This comic shows examples of the following tropes:
Academy of Adventure: Mysterious clubs: check. Weird teachers: check. Paranormal activity that'd detonate a PKE meter: check.
Animesque: The comic seems mostly inspired by the wackiness of e.g. FLCL.
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: According to Isaac, a person can develop spectral powers if they (at least) had a near-death experience, prolonged exposure to supernatural phenomena, or a diet obnoxiously high in citrus.
Art Evolution: The comic starts off with rough colorless pencil art and occasional gradients, switched to being fully coloured and shaded on the ninth page, then finally the author switched to using a brush pen for lineart on the 58th page (the lines are heavy and rough here because "this was the first page I drew with a brush pen and I could not control that beast").
Many characters had some noticeable redesign as the comic went on.
The Bully: Johnny is this trope cranked up until the knob snaps off. He's not even all that mean, it's just that beating people up is his base state of existence.
Butt Monkey: Isaac, despite that he says he's the strongest of The Activity Club.
Broken Masquerade: Johnny's seen Max and Isaac use their powers while pretending to be out cold.
Chekhov's Gunman: P.J. and Lefty both make easy-to-disregard appearances in the first chapter before making proper debuts in the second.
Chekhov's Armory: Re-reading the comic will reveal a truly staggering amount of continuity- for example, you can see Ed receiving Isabel's message in the background of one panel, the Doctopi make an appearance before they're explained, and passing mention is given all the time to things that are elaborated on later.
Cool Horse: Isabel makes one out of her powers, complete with the ability to unfold its head into a horrible, toothy mouth.
Deadpan Snarker: Max, mainly but also... pretty much everyone else.
Defeat Means Friendship: To an extent. Johnny seems less hostile towards Max after kicking his butt. The same seems to go for Lefty.
Discard and Draw: The possibility is implied in chapter 3, and made explicit via Word Of God. Tools and mediums are really just ways for spirits to recover from grave injury, and spectrals are able to use their powers during that interval. A spectral will lose that spirit's abilities once it leaves, but they can always pick up a new tool or get possessed again.
R.J. has lime green irises with concentric circles in them.
Several spirits.
Expy: Max's dad is a dead ringer for Kamon Nandaba, minus the glasses.
Extracurricular Enthusiast: Suzy, bravely straddling the line between "intrepid student journalist" and "domestic terrorist."
Eye Scream: The whale-frog spirit can make reflections come to life. This is taken to the logical extreme through including reflections in peoples' eyes. Which causes tiny doubles of himself clawing their way out of P.J.'s eyes. Holy crap.
The Faceless: R.J.'s face is always hidden in the shadow of his hood.
Faceless Masses: In chapter one, the school hallways are filled with purple and less-detailed extras. Subverted; they're actually ghosts.
Fantastic Racism: The whale-frog spirit apparently finds ghost-powered humans abominable.
Freudian Slip: At the end of Chapter 3, Max asks Spender a question about where could a ghost more likely be found, whether where it died, or where she was buried. Every other member of the Activity Club catches the slip, Mr. Spender and Isaac comment how that wasn't subtle at all.
Fridge Logic: In-universe. Max wonders aloud in chapter 3 why the earth isn't covered in bug ghosts.
Isabel's Grandpa: Arrogant girl! How could an immaculate and majestic being such as myself produce a descendant with such a flaw?!
Improbable Weapon User: The "tools" used by the activity club to fight monsters include such things as paintbrushes and books. There's even a plunger tool out there, though as of yet no one's gotten stuck with it.
To quote a random commenter regarding that last page: "Johnny’s face assaulted me as I clicked upon this page, and I was forcefully made aware of his appearance..."
Lotus-Eater Machine: Max expresses some concern over entering the Doorman's belly-portal.
Max: What if the other side is a simulation in this guy's stomach? What if he's eaten us and we live out our lives mistaking extremely slow digestion for the aging process? What then?
Magic Mirror: The Whale-Frog spirit can create these at will, summoning crude copies of itself or others from any reflective surface. It uses these copies for offense or nutrition.
Masquerade: So ghosts are like totally a secret, OK?
Lampshade Hanging: When Max asks why this needs to be a secret, Mr. Spender seems to be at a loss for an answer and quickly changes the subject.
Meaningful Background Event: Just like the Funny Background Events, the comic is chock full of important ones too. For example, when Johnny recounts his version of the battle with the sphinx to Ollie, the sphinx is edited out the panels cropped from previous strips because he didn't see it.
Often doubles with Chekhov's Gun. A good example is in chapter 1 when Max was talking to Violet and Lisa, you can see Ed receiving a paper plane message in the backkground which later turns out to be from Isabel.
Isaac alludes to a previous new spectral having a Freak Out over suddenly seeing ghosts all over the place before Mr. Spender cuts him off.
In chapter three Mr. Spender implies that he used to have a different fourth spectral on his team before Max showed up. May or may not be related to the above.
No Social Skills: P.J., probably because he's been dead, desperate, and needy for who knows how long now.
"Ghosts" are dead people; "spirits" were never alive and run the gamut of weirdness. Everyone from either category has a special power that is fully subject to the Superpower Lottery (one spirit can shoot lightning while one ghost can...conjure pretty glowing butterflies).
"Spectrals" are humans who can see the supernatural, and with some training can access a basic set of ghostly superpowers, such as a Finger Gun. Spectrals can supplement their powerset by obtaining a "tool" (a possessed object that can access a spirit's powers) or becoming a "medium" through direct possession.
Other ghost-related terminology includes "poltergeist" (a ghost that can manipulate physical objects—also used as a verb), "shade" (the indistinct, shadowy blobs that people see when their sixth sense is first awakened), and "grudge" (vague, but based on context appears to be a spirit going One-Winged Angel due to stress).
Psychoactive Powers: While Spectrals can generate energy voluntarily, they also tend to radiate it when angry or upset.
Pun: Max notes with glee that since Isaac is possessed by a spirit, he's...a tool.
Punny Name: P.J., a pajama-clad ghost living in Max's house. Although he would like you to know that his nickname was P.J. before he died in his pajamas.
A friendly kid in Max’s grade. His most abnormal trait seems to be his tolerance for his friends’ abnormality.
Sarcastic Confession: Spender asks Max and Isaac how they snuck into his office. Max replies, "Through the door, mannote i.e. through the Doorman", earning a swift punch in the arm from Isaac.
Sealed Evil In A Six Pack: Whatever is possessing Max says it "didn't end up with the sense of humor", implying that it's just a part of a bigger threat.
Web Comic Time: Due to the author switching hosts, it is now impossible to tell exactly when the comic actually started, but it was sometime during the summer of 2010. As of April 19, 2013, Max has barely started his second day of school.
.A fan-made, fan-operated forum for the comic can be found here
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