DeadEndia: The Watcher's Test

By Hamish Steele

From the creator of Netflix original series Dead End: Paranormal Park comes the graphic novel series that started it all!
 
“DeadEndia is immediately appealing with its colorful art, unique setting, and funny jokes, but I especially loved the complicated emotional arcs of the characters and the weird, spooky magic underlying everything!”
—Molly Knox Ostertag, creator of The Witch Boy
 
“Heart-warming, heartbreaking, heart-pounding, and heartfelt!"
—Marika McCoola, The New York Times bestselling author of Baba Yaga’s Assistant
 
Barney Guttman’s life has been turned upside down. His family is struggling to fully embrace his trans identity, but thanks to his best friend Norma, he’s just landed a job at Phoenix Parks, a Dollywood-esque amusement park inspired by the long life and career of mysteriously youthful actress and singer Pauline Phoenix. Soon, Barney and his dog, Pugsley, secretly move into the haunted house attraction. Little does Barney know, the house contains a portal to the demonic planes of Hell. When Courtney, Barney’s devilish new roommate, invites a demon king to Earth through the portal, they offer Barney and Norma as flesh vessels for the king, but in a strange twist, Pugsley is possessed instead! It’s a race through the park to save Pugsley—and the world—from the demon king’s reign of terror that leaves Pugsley with strange and magical side effects. With all of this chaos going on, Barney is also discovering he has crush on park employee, Logan, so he must face his biggest fear of all… talking to someone he likes.

Follow the lives of this diverse group of friends in this hilarious and moving graphic novel series, complete with talking pugs, vengeful ghosts, and first love.
 
Part workplace comedy, part supernatural horror adventure, with a splash of LGBTQ+ romance, The Watcher’s Test is perfect for fans of author Hamish Steele’s TV series Dead End: Paranormal Park who are in search of more adventures, for graphic novel lovers who want more diversity in their reads, or simply as an introduction to the zany, creative, and laugh-out-loud funny world of DeadEndia.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Union Square & Co.
• Release date: May 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9781454948971

Book preview

Reviews for DeadEndia

[AJ · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Dead end being cancelled was so brutal but this definitely healed the whole in my heart ?

[reader1009-863136 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

teen/adult graphic adventure (demons, ghosts, talking dogs, apocalyptic battles, humor, with diverse cast/LGBTQ interest)
*reviewed from uncorrected e-galley*

I picked this up because of the art, and was pleasantly surprised by the high-quality storyline and interesting characters. If I could give this 6 stars I probably would.

[librolindsay · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

So much fun!! I loved all the characters and the ridiculousness and the queerness and diversity. I will say just about every chapter included a heavy-handed moral about acceptance that maybe didn't have to be there in that way because I feel like it was addressed more deftly in the plot overall, but the hilarity quickly resumed, so it didn't wallow too much. Would 100% read the next installment.

[lispylibrarian · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Weird graphic novel about friends that work in a haunted house in a theme park.

[villemezbrown · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

After his delightfully obscene Pantheon, Steele tones things down considerably for a pretty engaging supernatural YA graphic novel.I liked the diverse cast of characters and several of the episodes collected here, but the overarching story about a mysterious wizard in the future was pretty lame and didn't make a whole lot of sense since it involved time travel paradoxes. Still, the ending got me a little emotional and left me curious as to what happens next.

[krau0098 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the first graphic novel in the DeadEndia series, from the brief research I did it looks like this was a TV series first. I really enjoyed this graphic novel; I loved the illustration and the story was crazy, bizarre, and engaging. It’s quite different from other graphic novel series I have read and I loved every minute of it.Barney and Norma both work at Dead End, a haunted house in the Pollywood theme park. It might sound kind of boring but Dead End also contains a dimensional gate that goes both to demonic and angelic realms (it’s complicated). So, aside from keeping Dead End ship shape and running haunted house tours...they also have to fight occasional demons.This was an incredibly creative and engaging story about a group of diverse characters that constantly find themselves involved in bizarre supernatural situations. The illustration is amazing and I loved the coloring. The graphic novel is easy to follow (despite how bizarre the story gets) and I really ended up loving it.While there are some LBGTQIA elements (one of the main characters is transgender) that really isn’t the focus of the story. The focus of the story is saving the world from DEMONS!!! The book does show how a unique and diverse group of people can work together successfully (and hilariously) to do this.Overall I absolutely loved this graphic novel and plan on continuing the series. The storyline is bizarre, amazingly creative, and incredibly engaging. I don’t even really know who to recommend this to, just read it! This was a such a fun read and I loved the crazy supernatural elements to the story as well.