When I started reading this comic, I had some pretty major reservations. First off, there’s the title: Paradigm Shift. It’s ultra-generic. I could probably start a gaming comic or a furry sci-fi series with the same name and no one would bat an eye. A better title, for my money, would be CSI: Chicago Werewolf Division. (”A-wooooo, are you? Woo Woo, Woo Woo!” Yeah, yeah, I know. Kill me.)

Second, there was the weird decision to make the central character, Kate, look more manga than manga. Most of the character and background designs are fairly conservative (hewn close to “serious” manga like Akira and Appleseed). Kate, on the other hand, sports a pointy Masaki Kajishima hairdo and a serious case of dilated anime eyes. If I were to hazard a guess at series’ direct influence, by the way, I would guess Gunsmith Cats, which also featured (less mature) doe-eyed police girls operating in Chicagoland. (Hmmm… can a Kate/Rally crossover fan fiction be far behind?) Never having read the series, I assume that this style suited Gunsmith Cats, which was meant to be viewed with less gravitas than Paradigm Shift.

Third, the Chicago of Paradigm Shift feels, well, not like Chicago at all. I appreciate Dirk I. Tiede’s incredible attention to detail. He replicates the Chicago skyline and signature buildings with an architect’s precision. However, Paradigm’s Chicago feels very sterile and lacks the city’s unique vitality. It could be because Tiede is photo referencing pictures from postcards and coffee table compilations, squeaky clean images taken on perfect days and sifted from rejects where conditions were less than ideal. I might come off as nitpicky, but there’s a disconnect in mood between the intimacy of the character close-ups and the clean-as-a-whistle cityscapes, as if the former was shot in a studio and the latter was filmed by the Second Unit.

However, despite all these reservations, I really enjoyed Paradigm Shift. A lot.

There are many, many webcomic artists out there who attempt to mimic the manga look to varying degrees of success. Tiede totally nails it. Paradigm Shift feels so authentic, it could be printed in Shonen Jump and no one would be wise to its origin. He gets the fine balances between simplicity and detail and between photorealism and stylized cartooniness. But the authenticity doesn’t merely come from Tiede’s illustrations. He gets the timing. He knows how to space action sequences and how to hold a scene to give the reader a sense of urgency or dread. There were times that the build-up was so effective that I did feel like jumping out of seat.

I don’t know how experience Tiede has with law enforcement, but the scenes featuring cops interacting with each other feel authentic. At least, in that “I remember seeing something like this from NCIS!” sort of way. A common pitfall here would be to stick to well known caricatures, but Tiede is skilled enough to throw in some curveballs. The appearance of an FBI agent in a cop story, for example, usually means we’ll be treated to a one-dimensional character who sneers and keeps secrets from the local law enforcement. Here, The FBI agent is a more reasonable and pleasant fellow, and you start to wonder if Kate and Mike, the series’ other protagonist, are right to keep secrets from him.

“That’s all fine and well, El Santo,” you say, “but unless that police procedural is scored by The Who, I find them boring with a capital ‘B.’” Ah, my young friend, Tiede might have included an age old hook that might just change your mind. This particular police force is plagued by what seems to be vicious animal attacks. As Kate and Mike investigate further into the matter, possibilities involving any big cats seem to become more and more unlikely. Perhaps it’s a human killer covering his tracks by mutilating his subjects, or perhaps its something … supernatural. Meanwhile, Kate is plagued by strange dreams. Dreams about the victims, dreams about blood on her hands, dreams about a powerful half-man, half-wolf. And as these dreams become more vivid, her personality begins to change as she becomes more aggressive and feral.

In other words, we’re entering Dean Koontz Country.

You know what’s really surprising? I think Tiede does a better job.

Rating:

Paradigm Shift
by Dirk I. Tiede
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/dirktiede/ps/series.php

review by Larry “El Santo” Cruz

(4 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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(with apologies to Warren Zevon)

Paradigm Shift

by Dirk I. Tiede

http://www.webcomicsnation.com/dirktiede/ps/series.php

reviewed by Anthony R. Cardno

Anyone who reads my book reviews on my own blog knows that I’m a sucker for a good mystery. Or even for a bad mystery. And I definitely have no problem with the “tall and thin / big eyed / motion lines” form of manga – it’s not my favorite art style, but it doesn’t annoy me at all as long as it fits the style of story being told.

Still, something about Paradigm Shift doesn’t work for me. It should – it’s a straightforward police procedural with supernatural or super-scientific overtones. The main characters are Detectives Stuart and MacAllister, partners in the Chicago PD. One mundane case leads them into an X-Files-ish world that possibly contains werewolves and the Chinese gangs. Stuart and MacAllister are not exactly Mulder and Scully though, although they each have their share of secrets. MacAllister has nightmares which are either inspired by the crime scenes or are buried memories of them. Stuart has a background that seems to involve martial arts and black ops training.

The pace of the story is fine – things are developing in a timely manner and there aren’t any real diversions or digressions. Even the subplot – the mundane case that starts the story off – looks like it will eventually tie into the main plot nicely. Even with the good pacing, something just doesn’t click. It might be the main characters themselves. I don’t really believe their cameraderie, and their banter seems forced. Individually, MacAllister’s confusion and Stuart’s zen-like calm are good character points, but they don’t feel fully rounded. It feels like they serve the story rather than the story serving them.

There are aspects of the art that are fantastic. Tiede takes every pain to make the Chicago locales true to life. Panoramic shots of the city, detailed shots of the Lincoln Park Zoo and other real places, all add verisimilitude to the goings-on. Character art is, as I said, that sort of stereotypical “serious manga” look, which does not really detract from the story … except in the visual for Detective MacAllister. She is for some reason burdened with pointy bangs on her head that sometimes extend down to her cheekbones. I find this incredibly distracting, not to mention slightly unbelievable – how many working female cops let the front of their hair flop down in a way that may possibly obstruct their view when they’re on the job? And how many use enough gel to turn those bangs into theoretically deadly weapons?

Paradigm Shift is not a bad comic, but it’s not one I’ll be coming back to frequently to check on the progress. Warning: each individual page is comprised of several “regular” pages, so scrolling to the bottom tends to feel a bit endless. http://www.webcomicsnation.com/dirktiede/ps/series.php?view=archive&chapter=18397

[rating= 2.5]

Paradigm Shift
by Dirk Tiede
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/dirktiede/ps/series.php?view=archive&chapter=10435
review by Talekyn
(5 votes, average: 4.6 out of 5)

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Let’s talk about the main characters first. Katie McAllister and Mike Stuart are detectives in the Chicago police force. Katie is the impulsive hothead and Mike is the stay-cool type. By the conversations they have, it appears that Katie is more-often-than-not causing the two of them trouble. Apparently, she was promoted to detective very quickly, so she’s a pretty sharp gal. Mike, of course, is just as smart but has other resources due to his past. I wouldn’t go so far as to say these are totally original characters but they aren’t all cookie-cutter archetypes either. We get little bits of information about them as the story progresses. We’ll get to the story in just a second. Before that, let’s talk about the art.

As you can see, the drawing is fantastic. Except for the chapter covers, it is all black and white with grey tones. There is excellent, well researched background detail in all the panels. I can tell you that it takes a long time to draw a citiscape like this, especially with good photo reference. Paradigm’s art is based on real places in Chicago, so there’s an air of realism added.

There is a street map page where you can zoom in and see where a certain event happened. The neighborhoods are color coded and the crimes are pinpointed with thumbtacks. It’s a fun prop that adds to the police procedural side of the story.

Ah yes. The story. I prefer to let you, as the reader, discover the bigger reveals for yourself. By now I’m sure you’ve read a number of the other reviews and they’ve spilled the beans about a werewolf or maybe a werelion. I really don’t care for stories about werewolves, so it’s the rest of the story that held my little bit of interest. You may like the fact that Katie is having very disturbing dreams about being a werewolf but it’s just overdone to me.

I can summarize it by saying that Paradigm is partly a police-procedural type of story. These two detectives are doing their bully-the-criminal things when they get wrapped up in something far bigger than running guns or selling crack. They are a little better than the standard cop, so they react quicker and smarter and things don’t dead end as fast as they would otherwise.

As you might expect in a werewolf story, there is also evidence at the crime scenes that doesn’t add up to a normal crime. It felt a little weak to me but that might be because I’ve been watching House on dvd lately. There might be forty seven ailments that could produce wierd hairs, for instance. They leave that plot-clue hanging for pretty much the entire run of Paradigm so far.

That strikes me as odd, because the storytelling itself is pretty crisp with good pacing and action. Any other plot-clue has been mentioned and then let go until the moment to reveal. Wierd werewolf hairs defying easy classification stands out to me like something that should have been glossed over with a seemingly-at-the-time reasonable excuse and left until solved. A good counter example is how Katie throws up at a grisly crime scene and the Coroner sends her away and collects samples of the vomit. That part is done very subtly and will play itself out later, I’m sure.

Actually, maybe that’s not a good example. Please, ignore the fact that vomitting at crime scenes is totally, totally out of character for her and the others let it go without more than a murmur. Never mind that by this time she’s been shot in the gut and hospitalized, shot point blank in the chest, banged her head and blacked out, keeps having waking hallucinations, can’t sleep well and has been out drinking after work. All in the last two or three days.

I know. It’s a comic. No one really flies and animals don’t talk and the Flintstones couldn’t walk their car one foot forward. It’s just that you see examples where Mike quotes something like ‘bend to the wind’ and it comes up a page or two later when Katie has something difficult to deal with. It makes sense and it comes together at the right time. So maybe I’m jumping the gun and it’ll all come together later.

One last thing. Paradigm has that police procedural sort of setting. You expect very witty dialogue that pushes your point of view around, sort of like “oh, I hadn’t thought about it that way.” Paradigm is almost there with certain lines being perfectly delivered. I’d just like to have seen it a little more often.

That may leave you with the impression that I didn’t like the comic. Aside from the werewolf thing and the inconsistencies it introduces, Paradigm actually has a solid story told very well. You’ll probably enjoy it just fine. You’ll want to start reading it here, at the beginning. [ratings: 3.5]

Paradigm Shift
by Dirk Tiede
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/dirktiede/ps/series.php
review by Delos Woodruff
(3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)

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Easy review this time, and right to the point. Was the comic bad? No. Was it for me? No. Why? I’ll tell you in 3 easy points:

1. Anime. I don’t care for anime/manga, or the style. Over sized eyes, hair that does really strange things and SPEED LINES really don’t have a big place in my heart. They also don’t have a big place in my head, since they usually make it spin. I think it was because I was forced to sit through Akira as a kid or something. Was the art bad? No, not at all - actually it was very clean and crisp, and well detailed. It just isn’t art I like to look at.

2. Cliche. Cliche abounded. “Petite yet smart-assed and can kick yours for you, too” female cop paired up with typical straight man partner. I could watch edge of your seat drama like The Closer and get my dose of that, thank you. That’s just for openers. I’ll let you find out the rest.

3. Storyline and exposition. Not bad, not a bad thing in and of itself - just too much for me. It may be that I’m more of a Garfield or Peanuts type, or just that after the 300th page I tend to wander a bit, but I’m not a tremendous fan of deep, involved story lines in a web comic.

Now, you’re probably thinking I’m going to give it a bad score. You’re incorrect, in this case. The comic itself is well done, and the art is good. The fact that it doesn’t appeal to me simply because of style isn’t enough for me to rate it badly. This is one of those “If you like that kind of comic, read it!” types. There wasn’t any horrid language that I saw, nor anything else that would make me want to warn people away from it. On the basis of the artwork and story, I give it 4 stars, even if it isn’t my particular cup of tea.

Note, however, that saying “it’s not my type of comic” isn’t a cop out to avoid saying anything negative, either. In this case, the negatives dealt more with my personal taste and not with things inherent in the comic itself. Rating:

Paradigm Shift
by Dirk Tiede
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/dirktiede/ps/series.php?view=archive&chapter=10435
review by the Doctor
(5 votes, average: 4.4 out of 5)

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