The premise alone is enough to sell you on Chris Roberson and Rich Ellis’ Memorial, which just had its second issue hit stores from IDW Publishing. It’s a book about a woman whose past is a mystery even to herself, but whose future seems bound to an oddities store with a magical green door. It’s been called (by Roberson himself) as “a kind of cross between Doctor Who and Sandman by way of Miyazaki,” and that’s pretty close to accurate–a plane exists in Memorial on which any idea that ever could exist, does, and needless to say that’s fertile ground for conflict as not every idea is going to coexist nicely.But I’m getting ahead of myself.Ellis’s clean lines and approachable designs are fantastic but familiar; they make the introduction into the strange and often surreal world of Memorial an easy transition, even for those (like myself) who are somewhat put off by fantasy stories.Roberson, who was able to admirably salvage the wreckage of Superman last year when saddled with wrapping up Grounded so that Straczynski could move on to his next project, and whose iZombie has been one of the most patently awesome titles Vertigo has launched in the last decade, is doing the best work of his comics career here. Like Sandman, or some of the smarter and more impenetrable work from guys like Grant Morrison, there’s a healthy (if somewhat confusing) dose of abstract concepts that act as characters with their own (admittedly vague) motivations.Those concepts are also powerful enough to have foot soldiers–including shadow people with mysterious and substantial powers, statues that can come to life at the order of an animate puppet, and “pirate” called Hook (whose relation to an elderly shopkeep named Peter is thus far ambiguous). With a pedigree in both historical fiction (his prose novels) and mythology (his Eisner-nominated Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love), it wouldn’t be any particular surprise to see that particular relationship come to fruition, but Roberson has wisely let it simmer at least for this first couple of months, allowing the reader to speculate on the nature of the characters and their relationships, rather than rushing right into developing the most potentially-marketable aspect of the book.
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