This was one of the items I got at the recently held Printer's Row Book Fair held in Chicago.My opinion in a nutshell: Strong on ideas, somewhat deficient in execution.My longer opinion: In this graphic novel, a group of secret agents have incredible mental powers. For example, one might have the ability to read minds. Another has tremendous powers of suggestion. A group of monks can remember whatever they experience, with total accuracy.The problem is that I found the book too info-dumpery. A good amount of the dialog is given to exposition.Here's an example from the book which I think illustrates the problem. We are *told* about a little girl who can communicate with dolphins, and we are *told* these dolphins are involved in secret government missions. Then, we are *told*, the little girl and another mentalist released the dolphins.Now, here was an opportunity for an wildly interesting sub-plot about dolphins in secret government operations. An opportunity missed.Frustrating. This book could have been on the level of the Saga graphic novels. I think I would have enjoyed this graphic novel more if I hadn't just read Lexicon by Max Barry. This book came out a few months before Barry's and I don't think it necessarily influenced it; I think the time is right for mind control books. Meru is a down-and-out-author who is looking for her next success. She wrote a best-selling true crime book two years ago, but now she can't pay her bills and her agent is just about to give up on her. She is intrigued by a follow-up news story about the passengers of a flight whose memories were all wiped except for a seven-year-old boy's and one passenger who is unaccounted for. Meru gets backing from her agent to find Lyme, the missing passenger and probably the cause of the erasure of the memories. She goes on an adventure, manipulated by Lyme, where she teams up with a CIA agent and travels around the world to find Lyme. Unless I missed something, which is entirely possible, we never find out why all the flight passengers' minds were erased (minus the boy's), which kind of seemed like the point at the beginning. Instead, information about Mind Mgmt, a secret and dangerous organization comes to light--not so much revealed, but kind of just spewed out for us--not a whole lot of investigation here.I can tell that the artwork is good, it is just not what I prefer. I found it a bit confusing and the light blue information from the Mind Mgmt handbook in the margins was distracting. Maybe I missed something, or maybe more answers will be revealed in the next few volumes, but I probably won't read them. In any case, the book held my interest. I just think this type of story was done better in Lexicon. I didn't really care about any of the characters in this book.
What do You think about Mind MGMT Volume 1 (2013)?
I'm starting to think I like Kindt's ideas better than I like his writing and drawing.
—bella
Epic mind-f*uck. Can't wait to read the next one in the series.
—Brendagtzll
