Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency: The Salmon of Doubt, Volume 1

It’s All Connected (Well of course it is!) (Who are you?) (I’m you, but from a mirror universe. I’m here to help you review the Salmon of Doubt.) (I don’t need any help.) (Believe me- you will.) (Oh joy…)

   It’s taken me 40 years to finally understand the word ‘holistic.’ (Dummy!) I stayed away from holistic medicine all this time thinking it was something performed by a witch doctor. (You are such a fraidy cat!) Yet the word means literally to approach from all angles in terms of interconnectivity. So in the world of medicine, one might look at physical, mental, and social factors in relation to one’s health. When it comes to the detective Dirk Gently, it means something much more complicated.

    Dirk Gently is a holistic detective in which he attempts to understand how the universe is connected. (It usually involves a cat.) In the Salmon of Doubt, Dirk and his sidekick (No, don’t call her that!) (Don’t call who what?) (Sally Mills, don’t call her a sidekick!) (How about assistant?) (No, she hate’s that! Never call her Dirk’s assistant!) (Girlfriend?) (They haven’t even kissed yet!) (What about partner? Is that okay? Hello? Okay-…

Dirk and his partner Sally Mills go to visit a professor of Dirk’s. The detective hopes that his former mentor might explain why he’s been experiencing memories than aren’t the one’s Dirk remembers having as a child.

     A fight between Dirk and Sally (I told you not to call her an assistant!) (I didn’t. Dirk did!) (I know, I was just pointing it out.) (Well, could you stop? I’m trying to write a review here.) (Your loss….) (Anyways, where was I? Oh yes-…

A fight between Dirk and Sally results in the pair being transported throughout a multiverse of Dirk Gentlys. Separated on a world similar but not quite their own- the pair must find help in order to get back to their home universe. (This is where that cat I mentioned earlier comes in…) (I am about this close to beating you to death… Anyhoo-

Worlds Collide

        Based on the characters created by the master of sci-fi comedy, Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and the Salmon of Doubt seeks to tie together the IDW series of Dirk Gently comics with BBC America’s 2016 smash comedy hit starring Elijah Wood. Salmon of Doubt is supposed to be the last IDW series based on the original Adams manuscripts. (Salmon of Doubt was supposed to be the name of book 3 of the Dirk Gently series.) (I was just getting to that.) (Well, you could have got there quicker. Instead, I had to tell all these find readers about it.) (I don’t need any help.) (Actually, I think you do…) (Fine- do you want to write this review?) Well, since you asked….

    Salmon of Doubt is supposed to be the last IDW miniseries based on the original Adams manuscripts. His final work, a Dirk Gently novel titled Salmon of Doubt, was left unfinished before Adams’ untimely death in 2001. After this series, any new Dirk Gently books will (supposedly) be based on the TV show. It is very fitting that a series about a detective who looks for how everything is connected in the universe is both an ending to the original books and a prequel to the BBC America TV series. It all gets a little trippy but regular Dirk Gently writer Arvind Ethan David manages to keep things sorted out quite well. (Can I speak about the art?) (By all means…)

Two Sides of One Mirror

    The art by Secret Identities’ Ilias Kryiazis was an odd mix. The parts based on the comic book miniseries were very abstract. They had almost a Central European feel to them in that Dirk’s hair looks like a out of control smoke stack. (The character of Dirk Gently is supposed to be Central European.) (Maybe that’s why he looks that way.) (How do you draw someone to look Central European? That’s like saying you can draw someone to look athletic!) (You can draw somebody to look athletic!!!) (You can? Nevermind….)

    Okay- back to the art. As I was saying, there’s a very abstract style to the Douglas Adams novel versions of characters. But the live-action versions of everybody look amazingly life-like. Kryizais’ covers that blend the two Dirk Gently universes together are pretty cool looking as well.

A Literary Ouroboros

     IDW Publishing still has a couple more issues of Salmon of Doubt left to put out. This volume only collects the first five issues. For someone who might have all of the episodes to Dirk Gently on their DVR and haven’t watched them yet, (such as you…) such as I, this is a great starting point. Like a snake eating his own tail, this is the beginning of the end (or the end of the beginning) for IDW’s take on Dirk Gently and his holistic detective agency. So far, it’s a very good introduction to the BBC America show. Volume 2 will probably dictate whether this is an acceptable ending to the Adams’ original novels.

But for now, this series (and volume 1) is very much—
Worth Consuming! (Worth Consuming!)  
(Hey, we agreed on something!) (Yeah, we did. I don’t like…) (Me either…) 
Both versions of A Madman With A Book would like to rate Salmon of Doubt as the following:

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

This article was originally published June 22, 2017 on outrightgeekery.com