Buffalo Rising Online

Jun 24th 2008, 6:41am By Tom Waters

High school reunions have a way of bringing out a grand mal mid-life crisis that makes all of the other introspective bumps in the road seem laughable. With his own 20-year reunion looming in a year, Alex Robinson headed his teenage years off at the pass with a fictional blast to the past.

Andy Wicks (the central character in Too Cool) finds himself trapped in his former 15-year-old body after a visit to a hypnotist for help in quitting smoking. Looking at his awkward sophomore year through the eyes of a teenager with the mind of a grown man proves to be confusing, hormonally challenged and bittersweet in turns.

While this may sound contrived and heavily borrowed from an episode of The Twilight Zone or Back To The Future, the pacing never falls too far into the trap of over-nostalgia or petty revenge fantasies. Wick (or Robinson, take your pick) touches on some painfully universal insights for those of us who look forward more often than back. If you knew then what you know now, how would you conduct yourself? If you were stuck living your life a second time, could you orchestrate all of the random, insignificant events that led to the life you have now?

The 125 page black and white graphic novel also touches on the death of Andy’s father. The panels are cartoonish in the style of Kyle Baker or R. Crumb yet endearingly human and heartfelt in a manner that Robinson’s perfected with milestones like Box Office Poison and Tricked! The overall story is also a growth spurt of sorts for the writer/artist, whose father character laments that "It’s a terrible irony of life that the deepest truths can’t be expressed without lapsing into cliché."

Many ‘slice of life’ writer/ artists play fast and loose with sloppy artistic habits or disappear once they’ve released their first (and last) magnum opus. This isn’t the case with Robinson. He continues to take his time sharpening his stories and his artwork. Many critics compare his stories to the directorial flair of a Robert Altman, but I see more of Raymond Carver with the breadth and scope that Carver never had.

Pure, raw, relatable human experience: foibles, warts, post-pubescent pimples and all. In a veritable smorgasbord of capes and cowls, it’s a relief to the older graphic novel reader to find Too Cool To Be Forgotten on the menu.

Tom Waters is a local writer, commentator and now radio personality on ThinkTwiceRadio.com. He will be submitting reviews of graphic novels regularly to Buffalo Rising.

Look for his interview with Alex Robinson in the July issue of Buffalo Rising Magazine, on shelves July 1st.

Welcome, Tom!