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Mind the Gap #1

Mind the Gap is a comic whose first issue I’ve had for awhile, but just never got around to reading it for whatever reason. The series was on hiatus for about a year, but according the the creator’s Twitter, he’s back in action! Which means readers have plenty of time to catch up.

Ellis, the heroine, was brutally attacked for reasons that are a mystery. The attack lands her in a coma, but her spirit still exists in an in-between world called The Garden – so named because a majority of souls stuck there are in vegetative states. While there, Ellis can see and observe things around her, like her family and friends visiting her in the hospital. She also has a charming guide named Bobby, who flirts with her pretty heavily and she’s not having it.

Ellis dressed up as the bee girl from Blind Melon's "No Rain" music video — She’s saying, “Shit.”

Music seems to play a big role in the comic, or at least in the first issue. I picked up that Ellis and her friends work in theater in some way. There are references to Shakespeare and Cats. And I loved these little references because they lightened Ellis’ awful circumstances. My favorite panel is Ellis dressed up like the bee girl from Blind Melon’s “No Rain” music video.

However, the first issue has a lot of action packed into fifty pages and it felt like getting whiplash. There’s this overlying mystery of Ellis’ attack, but other questions come up, too. Like why is her doctor hiding things in her report? What does Ellis’ brother hate her? A lot happens and at the end, I was left feeling a bit disoriented as I tried to make sense of what the hell was going on.

A lot of the transitions, I felt, were very abrupt and jarring, which often took me out of the story briefly while my brain tried to catch up. It’s an intense start to Mind the Gap and it was as if the comic wanted to get all of the mystery setup out of the way in the first issue. But I really loved the art (the colors!) and musical/literary references.

– Amanda

After Elle Peterssen is mysteriously attacked on a Manhattan subway platform, she is left in a coma, the only clues to her attacker trapped inside her mind. No one knows the identity of the person behind this brutal beating or where they will strike next.

In this ALL-NEW ONGOING series, everyone is suspect, and no one is innocent. USAToday calls it an ‘anxiously anticipated modern thriller…Whodunit? McCann’s done it again.’ Eisner-winning writer JIM McCANN joins RODIN ESQUEJO (MORNING GLORIES) and SONIA OBACK (S.H.I.E.L.D., The Defenders) unite for a psychological thriller that will leave you guessing at every turn!