NEW YORK — A Brooklyn paramedic has turned his experience on New York City’s front lines into a comic superhero story.
FDNY EMS Paramedic James Parrish has spent the past eight years responding to emergencies across Brooklyn, and is the creator of “Detonator,” a six-issue independent comic series he spent nearly eight years completing, according to the Brooklyn Paper.
The series follows Kaz, a character whose extreme attempt to jolt his superhero best friend out of a debilitating mental illness sets the story in motion. Parrish describes the book as an action-driven, darkly funny exploration of friendship, trauma and the fragility behind superhero myths.
“The main question that ‘Detonator’ asks is how far you would go to help a friend struggling with mental illness,” Parrish said. “And the main character, Kaz, would go as far as to blow up his friend’s house, which most mental health professionals wouldn’t recommend.”
In Parrish’s story, superheroes are just as vulnerable to depression, trauma and PTSD as anyone else. The plot centers on a hero who refuses to leave his bedroom, prompting his best friend to literally blow up the room to force him to confront his mental health.
The creative process unfolded slowly as life kept getting in the way. Parrish went through paramedic school, which he said “consumed a year” of his life. Those years helped define the emotional core of the comic, infusing it with his real-world EMS experience, the sudden swings from calm to chaos, the quiet trauma carried by first responders and the burden of trying to help people who can’t always accept it.
“I could be sitting in an ambulance calmly on my phone in one minute, and then literally trying to resuscitate a baby or being attacked by a patient,” Parrish said. “It’s a lot. And I had my own issues learning to acclimate to this profession; everyone’s fighting their own silent battles.”
Parrish turned to Kickstarter to fund printing and distribution, unsure if the deeply personal series would find an audience. It did: a previous campaign for the first three issues raised $8,000 from more than 200 backers, and his latest drive has nearly met its $4,000 goal. All six issues of “Detonator” are now available through the crowdfunding platform.
