Too Cool to be Forgotten

Too Cool to be Forgotten, Top Shelf Productions
by Alex Robinson

I’m sure regular reviewers have to be objective, but to be honest, I knew I’d like Too Cool to be Forgotten before I even opened the cover. Alex Robinson’s Box Office Poison is one of my favorite all-time books. (In fact, if Jeff doesn’t have it in stock right now, somebody yell at him for me.) I’ve read BOP so many times that Robinson’s art is comforting to me, so all I saw when I looked at the cover of Too Cool to be Forgotten was the familiar Robinson-style character. I didn’t even realize the design looked like a pack of cigarettes until after I’d started reading.

That all said, it took me a while to warm up to Andy, the main character of the book. The frame story is that Andy’s wife has talked him into hypnosis as a way to quit smoking. Most of the story takes place when Andy wakes up back in high school in 1985 with his 40-year old self and memories crammed back into his fifteen-year-old body. I didn’t have much to connect with at first; I don’t smoke, I was in grade school in the mid-eighties, and while I probably hated high school more than Andy did, I liked having to sit through Math class. But Andy wins you over as he does what any of us would do in the imaginary situation--he uses his adult mind and experiences to try to set a few things right. He’s “watched enough ‘Star Trek’ to know that the first thing you do when you’re in the past is not mess up the timeline,” but he makes minor improvements: be nice to the kid sitting alone, stand out when you want to, ask the girl you’ve been afraid to talk to out on a date. High-school, being high-school, still wins and Andy realizes he hates being stuck there. He assumes that he’s traveled back in time to not smoke that first cigarette, and after he avoids it, he can go home. But again, it doesn’t work. By that time, I found myself rooting for him. I’m frustrated that he’s stuck there, I’m sad when he misses his wife, and I’m wondering along with him how he’ll get back. I’m wrapped up enough that the end of the story catches me by surprise.

Generally, when I read a comic, the artwork does enough to warn me that I have time to pull back emotionally before I get too caught up. When I see a panel like this one, I step away from the story a bit, and read it expecting an emotional outburst.

This time, though, I was all the way through the page before I had time to think about distancing myself and found my tears welling up as Andy’s do in the next few panels. Blame it on the weather, or the fact that I’ve been ready all week for this holiday with my family, or blame it on Alex Robinson’s ability to write a story like he made it just for you, but the last part of the book really touched me. I sniffled in agreement at the end of the book when Andy says, “It worked.”

If you haven't read Box Office Poison, go read it. And pick up Too Cool to be Forgotten while you're at it, too.

(These are my favorite panels from the book. Look inside the book itself to see how great these really are.)