Review by C.J. Bunce
Somewhere at the midpoint of a Venn diagram connecting Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s We3, David Petersen’s MouseGuard, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Little Mermaid, Jay Faerber and Scott Godlewski’s Copperhead, Netflix’s Below streaming series, and Kenneth Graham’s The Wind in the Willows (phew!), you might find Jason Brubaker’s reMIND. reMIND is what today you’d call a limited comic book series, and it emerged as a webcomic like many we’ve reviewed here at borg (it has elements in common with Castle Swimmer). The Complete Saga of Jason Brubaker’s reMIND, a 15th anniversary over-sized hardcover collection, is now available here at Amazon and at local comic shops from Titan Comics. It’s a story for all ages, and if you like any or all of the above titles you may want to give it a try.
The story begins with Sonja, a young woman whose father is gone, leaving her a lighthouse to run. In her not so idyllic fishing village, the locals are quirky, and rumors of lizard men draw unwanted crowds. As a few locals set up a viewing area near her lighthouse, Sonja’s cat named Victuals (that’s pronounced ‘vittles” as in food) disappears. At first readers will think the story is about Sonja tracking down Victuals, or uncovering a local sea creature mystery in the vein of Loch Ness, but Brubaker takes us on a much different, much stranger adventure.
Brubaker began his story at age 20, and while working for DreamWorks Animation he developed it into what became a webcomic, then an indie published Kickstarter project. As a young writer and artist, his story is completely unrestrained, and his tale seems to follow the swooshes and squiggles of his individual style.
It turns out there is an entire kingdom a la The Little Mermaid off the coast and at the bottom of the ocean. Sofia’s father spoke of an underwater world of lizard people but he was mocked by the locals. It turns out he was right. But this isn’t a place of happy songs. A king is experimenting with brain transplants, and puts the mind of a loyal warrior into Victuals. This is closer to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles than We3 or the third Guardians of the Galaxy movie, but it’s still a bit disturbing because Victuals–who he was–is no more. Brubaker seems to miss this point, or ignore it, although his heroine Sonja is left with this loss.
When Victuals returns from the ocean he houses the mind of the warrior lizard, and his heart is set on returning to the down below in search of his lizard lady. The Doctor Moreau elements make this the stuff of science fiction, but all of the anthropomorphic characters, who speak and who Sonja can understand, seem more the stuff of a big fantasy world.
The story is filled with action, and the star attraction is poor Victuals, who has at least three different minds circulating in his noggin before the finale. Where is the real Victuals? It is the cliffhanger of the story, and readers will be left wondering if a future for Victuals will ever arrive. If there is more to the story than a lizard in a cat’s body struggling to return to his real body, it’s difficult to discern. This is a graphic novel where the sweeping art and underwater fantasy world imagery takes over from the story.
I really liked Sonja and the original Victuals skulking around in her very Stephen King’s Haven-like seaside village, and would like to see more of the goings on there. Victuals is drawn as an expressive, cool cat, and Sonja resembles Jennifer Connelly in Labyrinth. Something of the coloring work evokes Michael Turner’s Fathom series. This edition features an appendix of exclusive behind-the-scenes material showcasing Brubaker’s creative process.
For anyone looking for a break from superhero comics, check out The Complete Saga of Jason Brubaker’s reMIND, a 15th anniversary over-sized hardcover collection, now available at Elite Comics, your local comic shop, or here at Amazon.
