Nantucket Brown Roasters: The name says it all. Rolls right off the tongue, no? Not so much.

One of my favorite things about this column is finding new and exciting projects to write about, while another is revisiting projects that have resonated so deeply that you just can’t wait to get back to them.

Oftentimes, circumstances surrounding events lift them up on pedestals, painting pictures of memories that aren’t exactly true, but ring sweetly with echoes of falsehood. Yet it is with writer and artist Jason Asala’s “Nantucket Brown Roasters” that I’ve longed for, without even knowing it.

NBR is an odd bird to say the least, so odd that the name of the bird from which the title is derived may not even exist. The truth can be a tricky subject. And that’s exactly what we get in these five short series of mini-series.

Asala’s characters are unreliable as narrators, to say nothing about the author himself. What we’re dealing with here: a 6,000 year-old incarnation of the Egyptian pharaoh Khufu. Khufu’s assistant, a murderer named Ahab, who also goes by Jerry. Daisy Red Buttons, a living doll, who has the soul of murdered Becky Palmer. But not by Jerry. Oh, and a talking fish.

Nantucket Brown Roasters follows the master plans of Khufu, hell-bent on the destruction of the world. He’s lived long, and obviously had plenty of time to get cranky with the state of the world. He’s no longer achieving this through overt means, having used Hitler, Lenin, and Aaron Burr for his means. Covert operations are his bread and butter now, all chronicled in a notebook labeled Red Herring.

While the storytelling is fantastic, there are blanks that are longing to be filled, and do so over the five issues. It’s like watching an episode of Lost, finding out just a little with a tease when all the while new characters and situations are dropped in, begging you to stay on the line.

Art is oddly reminiscent of Mike Mignola (of Hellboy) and done in what Asala dubs as “Spectacular Gray-O-Vision,” while the fourth volume Two Years looks great in color.

Asala’s independent publishing schedule has allowed for some very neat storytelling techniques (think Watchmen’s Tales of the Black Freighter) and a connection with readers by relating stories how he’s come up with his characters and stories.

While there may have been an issue I’ve missed in The Third Twin, I’m not finding any reference to others, nor is Asala’s website domain currently active. It’s been 15 years, but I’m clamoring for more. This story’s not finished, and I need to read it.

“The Oracular Beard,” aka Jared A. Conti, resides in the upper echelon of nerd-dom, meditating on comics and the like for sustenance.

He currently is at work on a post-apocalyptic young adult novel series set in central Pennsylvania, as well as a superhero short story collection. His alter-ego is a barista at Avenue 209 Coffee House in Lock Haven. “The Oracular Beard … So you wanna be a comic book nerd” typically runs the first Thursday of each month in the Showcase.