Too Cool to be Forgotten

All Andy Wick wants to do is quit smoking. Pressure by his wife and kids, Andy goes to a holistic center to kick the habit through hypnosis. But things go sideways, and he finds himself in 1985 as his 15-year-old self. With a rudimentary knowledge of science fiction, Andy figures that refusing his first cigarette will send him back to the present as a non-smoker . . . but with unruly hormones, a high school crush and past memories resurfacing, it won’t be that easy.

Too Cool To Be Forgotten (Top Shelf Productions, $14.95) is Alex Robinson’s latest offering, and it will no doubt be as highly regarded as his other major efforts: Box Office Poison and Tricked. Robinson goes for only one point of view this time with Andy, and adds on a fantasy element reminiscent of Quantum Leap and Peggy Sue Got Married (or a reversed version of 13 Going On 30, if you’re not into Kathleen Turner). While the world of 1985 sees Andy as a teenager, his mind is strictly adult. He now knows for certain that he doesn’t need the math he learned, the school’s authority figures seem a lot less threatening, and he now has the nerve to ask out the girl he crushed on. The bad news? Andy frets over the fate of his kid sister, he almost loses it remembering the family dog that died years earlier, and a makeout session ends with a severe guilt trip over age difference. And when Andy’s plan to go back to the future falls through, he faces the horror of having to relive the next 25 years of his life, unable to walk the exact path he did the first time.

Robinson does a superb job with the dialogue, channeling his own high school geek through Andy. There’s no need for a primer for the Eighties, as references to the decade aren’t too obscure, topping out with a running gag (emphasis on “gag”) involving singer Billy Ocean that remains in the background. The artwork is good enough, occasionally switching from Andy-as-teen to his adult self when needed. The artistic peak comes early with Andy’s train of thought during the hypnosis session, where his face is formed by two sets of dialogue, one of which is meant to be read backwards. The climax seems to come out of left field at first, but it is foreshadowed stealthily by Robinson, including once by accident; a typo that the author kept in the book.

The bottom line: It will be a long, long time before Too Cool is forgotten by anybody . . . at least until Robinson’s next book.

Check out our interview with Alex Robinson.

-Jason Borelli