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Monday, July 09, 2012

Mind Mgmt # 2

You're high if you're not reading Mind Mgmt. Matt Kindt is putting out one of the most entertaining and engaging comics that is in stores right now. Mind Mgmt really dares the reader to pull at any and all threads of the tapestry that is being woven from page to page.


Its a mystery that surrounds a flight where all of its passengers, save for one, lose their memory mid-flight. Two years after the incident, Meru, a true crime writer, decides to break out of her sophomore slumb by investigating the strange disappearance of a particular passenger on the plane. Things get hairy when Meru runs into CIA agents and the 'Immortals' that are after both parties. Surrounding all of this, we are slowly introduced to members of Mind Mgmt, a clandestine group of psychics whose origins are tied to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand from the Great War. 


Bits and pieces regarding the Mind Mgmt and their motivations are given to the readers in the form of 2 page strips on the inside of the front and back cover and on the last pages of the book. The back cover of each issues teases one part of a six-part numeric code that will unlock a message at www.mattkindt.com/mind1. And on every page of the main story, there is a line from a Mind Mgmt Field Guide, providing instructions to an agent which are related, if only sometimes tangentially, to the panels of that page.


For most of this issue, the protagonists are running from the Immortals, all while finding more questions than answers. Meru runs into the first member of Mind Mgmt, Perrier, one of two psychic twins, who appears to be mentally controled to peck away at a type-writer, producing cryptic messages which speak to Meru in a peculiar way. There's a suicide. 'The Futurist', Jake Duncan (who was introduced in the case file excerpt from Mind Mgmt # 1) makes an appearance where he ruminates over the course of events that took place in the issue for a brief moment before citing his retirement as a reason for staying out of it all.


Mind Mgmt is interesting, odd duck of a book. Kindt delivers a story that seems like a simple enough mystery that only gets more and more confusing the more you look into it. Who are the Mind Mgmt? Who are the Immortals? What type of strange game have Meru and her companion from the CIA, Bill, unwittingly found themselves playing a part of? What do these fake ads for 'Mindjuice' and 'Clearhed' on the back of every issue have to do with the story inside? And what comic creator is going show up next month in the letters column, spouting off who knows what kind of nonsense?


Its a fun, well executed romp that you should be reading today. Period.


1 As of the date of this posting, the URL is serving up a GoDaddy 404 page right now. I imagine that will change once the 6th issue has come out

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i heart you.
c.

Spencer Carnage said...

thank you, kind sir. you're full of shit which is why I like you.