Mind MGMT #2

by Matt Kindt

Matt Kindt's Mind MGMT is one of the most exciting new series to debut this year, belonging in the ranks of Saga, Manhattan Projects, and The Massive as proof that the best comics are coming out of the smaller publishers who recognize the value of creator-owned properties.

This is one of those rare series where every word and image in the book, from cover to cover, is part of the larger story, including the fake ad on the back.  Kindt is slowly letting us into his world, where a group (company?  governmental organization?) of people with psychic abilities have been either running the show, or influencing it heavily since the beginning of the First World War.  There are a lot of qualifiers in that sentence, but that's because Kindt has been keeping much of what Mind MGMT is wrapped in secrets.  I feel like I learn more from the short 'Second Floor' strip that runs across the inside covers than I do from the main story.

In this issue, Meru, our easily confused True Crime writer continues to evade pursuit with the CIA agent she met at the end of the last issue.  They are being chased by a pair of 'Immortals', who apparently can't be killed except by a head shot, and who are not zombies (that's all we know so far).  Escaping them, Meru and Bill leave Mexico to travel to Zanzibar, trying to figure out the significance of the design Meru found on pots made by amnesiac Mexicans (yes, really).  There, they meet Perrier, a journalist who has been typing on a long spool of paper Jack Kerouac style for a very long time. 

It's a little hard to follow exactly what's going on right now.  Meru and Bill are attacked again, and after ditching their Immortal pursuers again, they decide they need to go to China to look for talking dolphins (when I type it, it sounds a little stupid).

I know how odd this series sounds when described this way, but Kindt has proven himself a master at the spy genre, and his ideas in this book feel very fresh and exciting.  I can't wait to learn more about the mysteries of the Amnesia Flight and just what exactly Mind MGMT is, and what they want with Meru.