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RASL is a pulpy adventure story about hopping between parallels earths and is nothing that you’d expect from the creator of Bone. Rob is an art thief who lives in our world’s underbelly, at least until he’s on the verge of being caught. Then he’ll simply hop to the next parallel earth. He’s also on the run from government agents of the earth where he helped develop trans-dimensional technology; they want it back, and want him dead. His existence of constantly running has warped his mind, causing blackouts and occasional visions of worlds transposing over each other, all of which are the coolest stuff in the entire book.

Above everything, I enjoyed being in RASL thanks to the odd choices Jeff Smith makes. It’s in his artistic choices, such that the government man chasing Rob looks almost half-alligator, and that Rob himself is an action hero, but also chunky-faced and nearly simian. It’s unusual for a parallel universe story to take place mostly in dive bars, college campuses and raw desert. Rob’s black outs and uncertainty about which universe he’s in is made so much more salient when he’s waking in what could be any of a million deserts. And beyond the feeling of losing our bearings in barren settings, you just don’t see these stories happen in these places. Rob and the crew he runs with, the everyday sex workers and book store clerks, make up a more working class SciFi. The work feels more casual, and its cast less prepared for the cross-universe chase they’re thrust into.

The personal still dominates the work, but it’s an angle. Rob can’t control things, only run from them, and make amends the best he can. There’s a real pang to him apologizing to another universe’s version of the girl he loved and will never see again. It’s knee-deep in some cheesy Noir tropes, including Rob’s affection for a particular prostitute, versions of whom he’s known for years. Yet it’s always earnest in its application of these ideas, of Rob’s descent into trans-dimensional dementia and wanting the best for people his life may eventually hurt. This plugs particularly well into the theme of the chase, and running away from his own discoveries, which Rob himself likens to Frankenstein. Frankenstein, he meditates, either has to kill his creation or be killed by it.

RASL’s weakest when it abandons Rob’s brooding and the chase motifs. There are two issues in particular that lean far too heavily on historical lectures about Nikola Tesla, much of it being ground the internet has already retread into common knowledge. Especially given that none of the classic scientists show up or participate in the story, they come across as massive tangents, and there’s the urge to skim or outright skip back to Rob’s chase, and to find out what oddities are haunting him. Those oddities in particular make the story fun and often fascinating to look at. Just figuring out the nature of the little epileptic girl he keeps seeing is worth the whole ride, though I can’t possibly her for you.