Mnemovorous

Mnemovore #1 beguns a brand new Vertigo series by writers Hans Rodionoff and Ray Fawkes, and artist Mike Huddleston. It's about a young woman waking from a bad fall, having lost her memory. We follow some of her progress and tests, and then when she goes back to her apartment, something very creepy and memory-loss-related happens to her boyfriend, and then her. Depending on your grasp of Latin, the title of the book should tell you that there's a creature that eats memories. I like this so far. I'm guessing some of the inspiration comes from the rise of Japanese horror cinema and manga, with its wealth of unsettling, disturbing images, but this is pretty straightforward so far. Huddleston does a good job, drawing Kaley as cute but with some definite intelligence and wit behind her eyes. It's not that apparent yet, but she's pretty dazed right now, so I'd expect some one-liners to happen next issue when she gets more of a grasp on what's going on. Jeromy Cox does his usual quality work on the colors, but special kudos for the detail he gives the creature--it has a creepy texture unlike anything else in the book. I did think the scene at Kaley's grandmother's house could have been a little better. I know what they were trying to do with it, but it didn't really resonate with me. All in all, though, a good start.

I'm also keeping up with Joe Casey's The Intimates and The Infantry. I'm not holding out hope for the latter to really get anywhere before the axe falls, but despite three different artists in four issues, I'm still enjoying it. It's not as good as his Wildcats, and a big action scene in issue #4 was kind of dull, but it's pretty good. Jim Muniz, the latest artist, is a much bigger fan of glowering faces than he is of drawing backgrounds, and the thin widescreen storytelling could have been mixed up a bit, but he's got promise. As for The Intimates, I admired the smash-cut storytelling experiment in #6 as I've admired the bottom-of-the-page info scroll, as I admire, um, soy milk. Useful, fills a need, and may be present a real change from what came before, but not that tasty. I've been with the book so far, but must admit I didn't care about any of the revelations of character development in this issue.

One book I do care about is the trade collection of Teenagers From Mars by Rick Spears and Rob G. I cracked it at lunch today and didn't look up until page 96, which has to be a good sign. I'll review this when I'm done with it. Going to a martini party tonight, so I doubt I'll get much reading done later.