The paramedics came. Said they’d never seen anything like it. The doctors in the ER said the same thing. Their daughter wasn’t dead. She just wasn’t waking-up. She’s been asleep for a month and they don’t know what to do. Things are getting desperate in The Moon Is Following Us #2. Writer Daniel Warren Johnson, artist Riley Rossmo and colorist Mike Spicer delve a bit deeper into their dark action fantasy in an issue that delivers a little bit more of the backstory to firmly establish the grounding for an impressively deep emerging serial.  With all of the basics established, the series feels a bit more fully-rendered at the end of the second issue.

Their daughter Penny is caught between NREM and REM sleep. Permanently. All she’s doing is dreaming. Doctors haven’t ever seen anything like it before. Medical science doesn’t seem to be of much help, but it’s not like they’re not trying. Then in the middle of the night, an owl show-sup at the window with a note tied to its leg that seems to have been written by someone who wants to help the girl. Penny’s parents are going to have to meet the person on the roof...

Johnson completes an outline of the basic premise of the series with some degree of grace and precision. The war in Penny’s dream world is kind of an interesting idea that speaks most prominently to Gen X and millennial parents. Who wouldn’t want to go into the fantasy world of their daughter’s dreams to save her life? It’s a powerful fantasy. The deeper psychological drama of the series will likely take some time to fully play out, but it’s been a great deal of fun moving through the first couple of issues. The adventure within awaits. 

Rossmo’s art really thrives in worlds of weird fantasy. The earthbound darkness of a cold, uncaring waking world don’t ever really feel as grounded in reality as they should. A greater contrast between Rossmo’s rendering of the two worlds would improve the visual reality of the series considerably. Penny’s dream world fees rich with fantasy and danger in a richly visual reality that engages Rossmo’s art quite well, but the listless life of parents dealing with the life of a child in a coma never really makes it to the page on the visual level.

It’s an interesting concept that could continue to be a great deal of fun as the issues continue. There’s a powerful sense of action that shoot s across the page. There’s a real sense of danger...even in the gooey weirdness of Rossmo’s visuals. With all of the basics developed, the series could really fall into a generic high fantasy mode if Johnson and Rossmo aren’t careful. It’s been a lot of fun so far, but it will be interesting to see where Penny’s parents go from here. There’s great potential for exploring their relationship and their relationship with their daughter in the weird tableau of her dreamworld. 

Grade: B+