You Never Heard Of Me #1: Good Days and Bad Days

There are good days and bad days over the course of a lifetime. What qualifies as the best or worst moment in one’s life changes as time goes on. No one knows when those moments will happen or what they will be. But what if someone could see them and in doing so help improve the course of your life? You Have Never Heard of Me #1 ponders exactly that.

At any given time, one person in Will’s family possesses the ability to touch someone and see what the best and worst moments of their life are. When You Never Heard of Me #1, Will’s grandmother, the family member who currently has the power, is dying. Will’s father is preparing for, almost obsessing over, when the ability passes to him. But when Will’s grandmother dies, the power skips his father and is instead passed on to him. Will’s life as a teenager just got a lot more complicated.

The concept behind You Never Heard of Me #1 is a clever twist on fortune telling, but the most compelling part of the comic is how it uses this supernatural ability to tell a recognizable life experience story. Living in a family that moves frequently, Will is already awkward as the perpetual new kid. He doesn’t have any friends, nor does he show any signs of trying to get any. His schoolwork is similarly a low priority. In You Never Heard of Me #1, this withdrawn behavior on Will’s part (along with his father’s overbearing attitude) is motivated by his grandmother’s death.

Certainly things are complicated by the supernatural power she possesses that will soon pass on, but it’s also very recognizable. Living in the shadow of a close relative or friend’s imminent death is difficult. No matter how certain that journey’s end is, there is only so much preparation that can truly be done. It becomes a very strange waiting game with catharsis perpetually out of reach. Will and his father experience this in different ways. Will reacts emotionally while his father, expecting to inherit the family power, is focused on a kind of practical preparation–as though he’s psyching himself up to take over a family business.

The rest of Will’s arc in You Never Heard of Me #1 is merely that of a teenager. He’s been given a responsibility that he doesn’t want. His dad is so concerned with his own problems that Will feels he can’t talk to him. And he’s confronted with the choice of what kind of person he wants to be. This is the true heart of the issue.

You Never Heard of Me #1’s cover is actually an informative and helpful resource for the series. With the story’s focus on Will and the power he inherits, very little else is set up for future issues. The supporting cast especially is lacking any kind of exposition here. The cover sets the reader up to recognize these characters the moment they appear in future issues.

Romboli is particularly effective at getting characters’ moods across–especially in Will’s case. As noted, Will is a typically moody teenager. The art reinforces this. It’s especially useful in helping the reader understand what Will is feeling in moments such as when he realizes he has the new power and when he tries to talk to his father who in turn is caught up in his own emotions.

Color choices in You Never Heard of Me #1 do a good job of separating the world seen via first Will’s grandmother’s abilities and then his own. The individual visualizations aren’t psychedelic, but the combination would have that effect (the explanation of Will’s grandmother’s powers appears in orange and purple while Will’s utilization of his powers appears in blue and yellow). It’s a striking contrast.

Zanfardino’s lettering is successful in some ways but not in others. Dialogue bubbles are well organized, but caption boxes are less so. While they do not obstruct Romboli’s art, they do distract from it in places.