A woman walks through a forest to a ditch and watches as another female rises from the ground as if buried alive. The just-buried girl walks home and then tries to figure out what happened to her. She has a mark around her throat that her memory, which is extremely unreliable, indicates is a rope that was used to strangle her. Her eyes are very strange and her cat is afraid of her. Finally she is told that she is not who she thinks she is - she is not Rachel. Thus ends issue one.
Hot on the heels of the rather magnificent science fiction series, Echo, comes this seeming horror/mystery title from Terry Moore. Mr. Moore uses an effective narrative device here as the main protagonist is as clueless as the reader as to the events that led up to the start of the book. We learn as she learns, and at the end of the first issue this reader really wanted to get straight into the next issue to learn more about this girl and the whole mystery. Fortunately as I was late getting onto this series, my comic shop sent both issues one and two together (thanks Page 45). Sometimes being slow off the mark can have its advantages.
The second issue cranks the mystery up and expands on Rachel's world as she goes to visit her Aunt Johnny, who works at a mortuary and is a little mentally unstable. We get the impression that Rachel is dead as he lumps her in with all the other apparitions of dead people that he experiences whilst working in the mortuary at night. The mysterious woman from the start of issue one turns up again and encounters a sweet little girl, who suddenly turns extremely violent after the visit. We leave the issue with two questions - what has happened to Rachel and who is this mysterious woman?
Let me first say that I have always admired and enjoyed Terry Moore's work, from Strangers in Paradise through Echo and now onto Rachel Rising. He is an extremely talented cartoonist and his art is an unalloyed joy to look at. His storytelling technique is top level, and he always manages to leave you finishing an issue and wanting the next one immediately (something I've experienced with every Moore comic I have ever read). I do have one problem - his depictions of women.
Terry Moore's women all look stunningly beautiful, although not in a cheesecake style. The problem is that they all look very similar and it can sometimes be difficult to tell one blond from another. That causes some very minor problems here as I'm not sure if the mysterious woman is in some way Rachel, or whether she just looks like Rachel because they both have blond hair. It detracts a little from the enjoyment when you don't know whether something is as it is actually depicted, or if this is because of limitations of the artist.
That final criticism is very minor though, as this is shaping up very promisingly and looks, at this early stage, like it could at least be the equal of Echo and Strangers in Paradise, although it is closer in feel to the more recent strip. You owe it to yourselves as lovers of fine comics to pick this up either in the individual issues or when the trade is issued. If you can wait for the trade then it will read even better than it does now, but I can't wait that long and have to get as much as I can of this story as soon as is possible.
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