There are comic series I only hear about from other comic people. Not due to their obscurity or that they’re difficult to find—sometimes they’re kept in regular print. But with so many series being released and re-released, it gets difficult to keep abreast of everything happening. That’s why when a story or character hits my ear just right, it does warrant diving in a bit to see more of what it’s about or why it’s been off my radar for so long. And it’s in those instances that I heard about a story like Concrete: Think Like a Mountain by Paul Chadwick, Chris Chalenor, and Bill Spicer.

Concrete as a character has been around since 1986 in the first issue of Dark Horse Presents, but this particular story comes ten years later in the form of the fifth short series from Chadwick. But this is the kind of story that is quick to catch up any reader not familiar with the character or his background in just a few pages. Concrete, though, isn’t the kind of character that needs too much in terms of an explaining outside of his brain being put into a concrete body by aliens and his role as a well-known travel writer. It’s why, when Penelope, a member of the Earth First! group, he initially refuses, thinking mainly of his career. A fire changes his plans and mind as Concrete, Penelope, and the rest of her Earth First! troupe travel to the pacific Northwest to save the old growth forests of Hidden Valley, all the while worrying about staying incognito.

The unfolding of Concrete from staunch moderate to active monkeywrencher shows some clever development by Chadwick throughout this six-issue series. As the story progresses, we get these small glimpses of clearcutting happening in one area before circumstances provoke Concrete into action to the point where he has to dive into a bay to escape loggers and maintain his anonymity. He treks through the water to stay out of sight and witnesses the horror of the ghost net—an adrift fishing net filled with the rotting corpses of the fish and sea life. Coupled with a logger nearly running one of the Earth First! group over, we see this slow shift in Concrete over six issues. He was always sympathetic to an extent, but when confronted with the horrors often unseen from commercial fishing and logging, his mind slowly changes.

Despite being nearly thirty, Concrete: Think Like a Mountain is an evergreen story about the ways in which people can work in small ways to affect larger change, even in the face of the monstrous. The ways in which logging and fishing have adversely affected the world around us haven’t changed all that much, only shifted perspective to where it’s harder to see them. But all it ever takes is the right person seeing the worst of these industries to change a mind and potentially save a stretch of forest for the next generation to protect. 

Get excited. Get active.

Drew Barth (Episode 331, 485, 510, 651, & 674) resides in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida.