Memoir #1

Written by Ben McCool
Art by Nikki Cook

I suppose the easiest way to describe this new mini-series from Image is 'Twilight Zone-esque' (Twilight Zonian?).  This reporter, Trent MacGowan, travels to Lowesville, where apparently everyone woke up a year ago with amnesia.  It seems that the world's media has left the town now, and Trent is going there to see if there is still a story worth writing about.

The town is a typical middle-American place, (except that most of the businesses downtown seem to be in operation, so I guess there's no Wal-Mart) albeit more quiet than most.  People clearly keep to themselves, and no one is too interested in talking to Trent.  Then the random weird things start happening - the town's butcher tells him not to eat meat, and generally acts like a delusional schizophrenic.  Some other dude manages to dig up a large, body-filled coffin in the middle of the street.  Oh, and some lady in the library believes that all strangers are employed by the government.

This issue is mostly concerned with setting up the plot and creating atmosphere, so it's not all that easily judged.  The e-mail exchange that closes out the issue does seem interesting, but is it enough for me to come back for?  I found that the first issue of McCool's Choker didn't do much to impress me, and that was with Ben Templesmith handling the art.  Nikki Cook's work here reminds me a lot of Ryan Kelly (I saw one on-line reviewer refer to her erroneously as the artist from Local), but many of her figures come off as a little misshapen.  I'm not sure if that's intentional or not at this point.

This is a decent enough debut, but I'm not sure if there is enough happening here to bring me back for the second issue.