Cosey's stories are not the classic comic adventure stories. His stories are not about heroes that save the world or catch the thieve.

Cosey's stories are about people looking for something or someone, about quests. Cosey's characters are looking for lost family or friends or are trying to rebuild their memory. Most of them are traveling or have to travel in order to get the 'solution' of their quest. The 'solutions' of the quests is at least some kind of reconciliation with the past, so people can live in peace with their memories. The 'solution' can also be a rebuild or a formation of a family.

Cosey is well aware of this repetition in his works: 'My problem, my way of working is that I never start from a theme, which maybe could allow me to avoid this type of repetition.' Cosey starts from loose ideas for elements he wants to tell about, and he tries to organise these ideas into a story. '... and finally, I manage to write my story from start to finish. And then, I should have a more objective reading to be able to say: 'Attention, I am taking the same theme again'.'

But even if the central theme of lost memory, lost family or friends is running through almost all of Cosey's works, the stories themselves are very different and continue to surprise the reader.

The main reason for this continuing interest is that Cosey keeps on experimenting with his storytelling and narrative structures. Already in his first Jonathan album, Cosey made an album radically different from the classic comic stories (although for modern readers the story may seem 'classic'), and ever since, he has continued to innovate.

These experiments are most visible in 'Saigon - Hanoi' and 'Zeke raconte des histoires'. In 'Hanoi - Saigon' two parallel narratives tell the main story of a Vietnam veteran (Homer) dealing with his past and the memories of his lost friend: first, there is a phone conversation between the veteran and a young girl; second there is a TV documentary the veteran and the girl are looking at, showing the meeting of USA Vietnam veterans and old Vietcong warriors; both narratives together tell the story of Homer's friend who was killed. All together, they show how Homer has to live with his memories, that the Vietnam war will never end for him. It is an intricate story, which makes use of the huge possibilities to combine images and text in comics, but highly readable.

In 'Zeke raconte des histoires', Cosey plays with these narrative possibilities of comics, and with the conventions that go with it. Although the main story is rather simple, the reader is confused by repetitions of brightly colored images that tell comic, absurd stories.

Other stories of Cosey may not be so experimental, but they have there surprising edge. Examples: a double quest in 'Orchidea', where three people are looking for their father, who in his turn is looking for family warmth; May who only knows what she has been looking for when the 'solution' is known in 'Joyeux Noël, May!'.

And maybe 'A la recherche de Peter Pan' can not be only read as the quest of Melvin Woodworth for his brother Dragan, but also as a quest for Cosey himself for some lost Switzerland.

Most of Cosey's stories are based on the quest for a lost memory, lost family or friends. The 'solution' is often a reconciliation with the past or the reunion or formation of a family. However, sometimes Cosey chooses the less obvious solution... which has caused painful moments for his readers.

This is most apparent at the end of 'Greyshore Island': Jonathan imagines very clearly what his life with Kate would be, but still, he decides to leave her. Another, even more painful, is the end of 'Le voyage en Italie', when Shirley is just too late to make up a family with Art and Keo.