Review by Ian Keogh

Vern is a reflection of hard times, having moved from the family home in Florida to San Francisco in search of work, but without any luck, so he returns home. He thinks his Gran is just nutty when she says she’s applied for a job in his name with the Quasar Corporation where she once worked, but it does the trick and Vern is soon employed as a Custodian for a company that’s invented a pill enabling instantaneous transfer to another universe. That’s not for Vern, though, as it turns out the Custodian works with a mop and pail. Still, as the sample art shows, around the Quasar Corporation clean-up isn’t the usual task.

Security and training seem on the slack side as Vern finds himself in a succession of situations that would have anyone less grounded banging the walls in frustration as he goes on his own personal journey of discovery.

Tyrell Waiters has one hell of an imagination and puts it to good use in joyously taking Vern places no-one else has ever been, maximising the possibilities of alternate universes. Good-natured and adaptable, Vern takes everything in his stride as he accepts a mission to undo a situation he’s accidentally created, and Waiters has considerable fun drawing the mind-warping consequences. The results are creatively funny with Vern experiencing all sorts of ways humanity might have turned out, and what might still happen if we don’t get our act together as far as climate control is concerned.

Just when you think you have Vern, Custodian of the Universe figured out as creative diverting fun, Waiters starts introducing philosophical points via looking at the future when artificial intelligence is all that’s left, and the place of the individual within their society. Hanging over everything is Vern knowing that at some stage he’s going to have to figure out what the point is. A pleasing circular route surprises at almost every turn and Waiters ensures readers will be thinking long after they’ve finished reading.