AFTERLIFE WATCH

There is a new comic book that has strange themes similar to LOST's story construction.

It is called The Life After by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Gabo, on Oni Press.

The central theme of the story is religion in the surveillance age.

At the start of The Life After, a young man named Jude breaks the monotonous routine of his life, forcing his way off the bus he takes every day to chase after a woman he’s never met. What seems like a romantic moment of a guy getting up the nerve to meet the girl of his dreams quickly turns into an even bigger moment that begins to reveal Jude's world for what it really is. When he then meets deceased novelist Ernest Hemingway, the only other person who sees the world for what it truly is, that's when the comic really gets started.

The premise is a twist on a story about religion - being watched over by a higher power - but using modern technology of the surveillance age to show that events in an afterlife are all false.  That in this world, faceless individuals monitoring and orchestrating every person's  move.

LOST dealt with big concepts of life and death, but in either a bloody plot twist fashion or a overreach of white light conclusions.

One similar key is that the characters in the comic and the series may not be aware of their true existence. They go about their business like they are alive, but in fact their own perception of themselves and the world around them is false. LOST was filled with clues telling the viewers that the events they were watching were not real, an illusion, imaginary, or a deception. Individuals with sketchy backgrounds like Eloise seemed to be watching over and manipulating the characters.

But LOST did not sort out or judge the characters by good or evil. People "died" whether they were good or evil. Whether the watchers did it more amusement or for another purpose is unclear.