The original comic can be found here.

The first Minus comic begins simply enough:

It is significant that the entire comic series begins with a panel of a white ball and Minus. I do not think that I can adequately verbalize the importance of the symbolism found here. Nonetheless, I will do my best to expound upon it.

The circle has, of course, been a symbol of completeness, infinity, and perfection since ancient times. As a symbol, the circle has become increasingly important to postmodernity, which incorporates more Eastern philosophies than any previous Western worldview. Where Modernity views time linearly, many Eastern religions and philosophies view time as a circle or wheel, forever repeating.

This, too, was the ancient grecian perspective of time. However, the circle held weight for them for another reason as well: The circle is the mathematical ideal, it is Perfection. So here we see Minus, our protagonist, reaching out in restrained curiosity for the Ideal. Of course, in a sense, this is representative of the struggles of all human cultures through out all of time. However, as we will come to see, Minus is the physical manifestation of the power of imagination, faith, mysticism, and spirituality that belongs to Postmodernity and which makes it strikingly different from the Modern perspective. Specifically, then, this panel shows the struggle of Postmodernism to understand and attain the Ideal and make it actualized.

The next panel brings up an interesting tenant of Postmodernity: the acknowledgement of human limitation. In this panel, as in the rest of this strip, Minus is never depicted touching the ball. Though she may manipulate it (as it flies and bounces about), and though she finds delight in struggling with Perfection, she may never attain it. To touch on the Ideal would be to spoil its perfection, the very thing that gives it value. The purpose, then, for Minus–as well as for Postmodernity–is not the ultimate acquisition of the Ideal, but rather, in the struggle for and journey to that Ideal. Alone and unpreverted by the confines of reality and the harsh criticisms of the naturalist, Imagination (Minus) finds a great joy in this neverending chase.

However, this kind of joy is never left unchecked for long; neither in our world or Minus’s. So enter our antagonists:

The first of these two nameless boys enters with a question, an inquiry (“Hey, that’s the new student playing there, right?”). It is then immediately apparent that these two are the ambassadors of Modernity for this strip, deductive reasoning being the hallmark and basis of all Modern thought. Referencing her as the “new student” further concretes in our minds Minus as the representative of Postmodernity, the metaphorical “new student” of all history’s schools of Philosophy. The immediate condescension and skepticism displayed in their dialogue are typical of Modernity’s skepticism of Postmodern assertions.

In the fifth panel we have a startling turn of events that serves to truely highlight where Postmodernism has diverged from Modern thought. Modernism has always held that the Ideal is attainable and that through means of Reason and Science the Ideal will be attained by humankind. Minus, then, shows Postmodernity’s skepticism of the attainability of the Ideal or any ultimate Truth. However her skepticism is expressed quite differently than their’s (as we see in panel six), rather than harshly dismiss his “success” in attaining Perfection, she graciously concedes that he may have dones so and simply expresses her desire to continue to search for it on her own. The contrast serves to indicate Postmodernity’s acknowledgement of the subjective nature of Truth.

As we see in the following panels, in their desperate struggle to attain and manifest the Ideal, their humanity (and, dare I say, desperate assertion of Objectivity?) has perverted and twisted the Ideal, turning it into an instrument of violence. This is easily seen as a criticism of the West’s historical movement of Imperialism, however, I believe the metaphor stretches beyond this. In the past, Modernity has insisted that through Reason humanity shall attain Perfection. History, though, has shown that every scientific break through has resulted in an equal amount of setbacks and advances for the race as a whole. Postmodernity, in response, insists that no Perfection will ever be attained, nor any Absolute Truth made known. However, it maintains that the search and struggle to acheive those goals still holds value, particularly when one acknowledges the futility of the search. This is why it is the domain of Imagination, rather than Reason.

Finally, we see that the natural world–which Modernity has historically sought all its answers in (refusing to acknowledge anything metaphysical) and sought to harness in their search for Perfection–is an instrument in the failure of Modernity. Of course, this is a reflection of the drawbacks of Industrialization (and perhaps even the issue of Climate Change) and its role in the increasing obselescence of the Modern perspective. The natural world that Modernity has always been so sure it understood is shown to subvert the very goals of Modernity while Modernity remains pleasantly ignorant. Postmodernity, in its humble acknowledgement of the importance of care for the natural world (as well as her inability to fully understand it) is the only one who remains. And so, as Modernity and its violent critics begin to pass away, Postmodernity–the imagination, the drive for the mystical–is left to continue her search in its simplicity: a game in which she delights.