While Cuyler Keating’s comics have fantasy elements, it would be more accurate to say that she is truly a medievalist. What that translates to is great misery, death, disease and misery. This is certainly the case in the first two issues of his series. Forgotbut Keating goes one step further. The setting is a world where the empire is in ruins, plagued by a disease that ultimately causes those afflicted to lose their memories. For some, this is worse than death: the total destruction of self and memory.
Keating centers this around two scavengers: a one-armed former knight named Ollie and his young friend Remy. They choose battles and tombs in an effort to obtain enough metal and jewels to provide food and lodging. Their relationship is familial, with an easy sense of mockery between the two. In the first issue, they find armor and weapons they can sell, but encounter a knight in armor who begs them to tell him his name. The second issue finds them selling the loot they found, and Ollie attempts to woo the blacksmith’s daughter.
Keating’s line is fluid and focuses on the work of clearly delineated characters. Ollie draws with a rakish smile but also with an occasionally hollow gaze. Remy is still young and full of hope, but one gets the feeling that Ollie doesn’t see any future. In fact, the red-soaked flashbacks, filled with violence and past battles, reflect that Ollie welcomes the idea. One gets the feeling that Remy is the only thing keeping Ollie tethered to reality and day-to-day survival. It looks like there’s a long way to go in this series and things are only going to get worse. Keating has a strong sense of design on top of everything else, and the decorative aspects of the cover and inner covers add to the overall aesthetic of the comic.