Vern, Custodian of the Universe

Easygoing Vern becomes the unsuspecting caretaker and savior of universes on the brink of climate collapse in this trippy but oddly low-energy debut from Waiters. After returning home to Florida from San Francisco, Vern’s enigmatic grandmother gets him a custodial gig at her previous employer, Quasar—a dodgy corporation whose moneymaker is a pill that induces inter-universal travel. Jess, one of his grandmother’s former colleagues, escorts Vern on a tour of Quasar’s headquarters and instructs him to start cleaning. He plugs in a machine that accidentally activates a portal to The Void, Quasar’s galactic enemy. Following a brief confrontation—The Void philosophizes, “What is the point?”—the hapless custodian discovers he’s brought about a multiverse collision. Psychedelic drawings and bright coloring radiate as Vern evades The Void and travels to unstable versions of Earth—one governed by gator-people (“Go back to your own planet, squishy man”), another lorded over by a “giant wire computer dude” (resembling a Doctor Who cyberman) who blames humanity’s demise on “blind ambition”—to clean up his mess. The laid-back characters contrast sharply with the impending doom, as Waiters’s slow-building environmental commentary envisioning worst-case scenarios played out doesn’t quite reach a satisfying conclusion. Meanwhile, predictable twists and narrative gaps trip up the oddball hero narrative. Still, it’s a quirky romp, and fans of Luke Pearson will dig all the wonderfully weird planets. (June)