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krpalmerI'd supposed for a while that this week would mark the release of the first issue of the "Star Trek meets the Transformers" comic I took note of a little while ago. It was easy enough to plot out my journey to the nearest comic shop, just as an indulgence. On getting an email from the digital-comics site Comixology (which I've bought some electronic manga from when the volumes get discounted further below "seemingly slightly less expensive than buying them in a bookstore would be"), though, I didn't seem to see the issue promoted. A bit of searching turned up that the comic was to show up later this month; I wondered for a while just how I'd become mistaken before managing to sort out via the "history" function of the "Transformers Wiki" it had been pushed back for whatever reason.
The email, anyway, did promote a second comic book I'd also heard about before. I don't know if I'd been quite as amused to hear there was going to be a comic book version of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 revival; the show itself attracts my attention where I hadn't been paying attention to other Star Trek or Transformers comics. Still, it was available this week, so I headed over to the comic shop. There were plenty of both cover variants there, and I decided on the standard one. (I don't want to say too many bad things about Steve Vance, the cover artist of the Shout! Factory DVDs, but his Crow never seemed as expressive as the puppet itself could be for me.)
I had noticed Joel Hodgson promote the comic through the updates that get sent to people who pledged for the Kickstarter. He'd explained that putting a "shadowramma" silhouette at the bottom of each panel had seemed obtrusive in a way it isn't on screen, then talked about how a "character in the story" would become "a Mystery Science Theater character dropped into antique comics." That, though, did have me thinking less of those amiable days of "MSTings" than of a possibly obscure TV show I'd happened on some years ago. "Steve Smith's Playhouse," from the creator and performer of the Canadian sketch comedy icon Red Green, involved a B-movie (some included in the MST3K canon) being chopped down to twenty-four minutes and Smith redubbing the voice of the protagonist.
It turned out, though, that extra word balloons "in the Mystery Science Theater tradition" were being dropped into the comic, subtly labelled to indicate they were additions, in addition to Tom Servo's gumball machine head sticking out of the "teen reporter" protagonist's shirt collar. Beyond that, Gypsy and the two new robots Growler and Waverly also made appearances in the panels. Growler (basically a "robot Rowlf") did evoke a few "I should really just relax" thoughts, as he'd first appeared in the last episode of the revival, which had ended on a cliffhanger. Waverly was that much more of a surprise to me, though: Joel had mentioned "building new 'bots" in his Kickstarter update, only for the first of them to apparently get smashed to bits in his single "host segment" appearance. That he wasn't just "an elaborate but quickly concluded joke" did get my attention.
The comic did feel like changes have been rung on the familiar formula, although all in all I can see how they could take getting used to. There is the thought of "waiting for the trade paperback collection" from here on; there's also the thought of wondering if it'll show up through the electronic borrowing service my city library makes available, although it didn't right away for all that some Dark Horse comics are offered through it.
The email, anyway, did promote a second comic book I'd also heard about before. I don't know if I'd been quite as amused to hear there was going to be a comic book version of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 revival; the show itself attracts my attention where I hadn't been paying attention to other Star Trek or Transformers comics. Still, it was available this week, so I headed over to the comic shop. There were plenty of both cover variants there, and I decided on the standard one. (I don't want to say too many bad things about Steve Vance, the cover artist of the Shout! Factory DVDs, but his Crow never seemed as expressive as the puppet itself could be for me.)
I had noticed Joel Hodgson promote the comic through the updates that get sent to people who pledged for the Kickstarter. He'd explained that putting a "shadowramma" silhouette at the bottom of each panel had seemed obtrusive in a way it isn't on screen, then talked about how a "character in the story" would become "a Mystery Science Theater character dropped into antique comics." That, though, did have me thinking less of those amiable days of "MSTings" than of a possibly obscure TV show I'd happened on some years ago. "Steve Smith's Playhouse," from the creator and performer of the Canadian sketch comedy icon Red Green, involved a B-movie (some included in the MST3K canon) being chopped down to twenty-four minutes and Smith redubbing the voice of the protagonist.
It turned out, though, that extra word balloons "in the Mystery Science Theater tradition" were being dropped into the comic, subtly labelled to indicate they were additions, in addition to Tom Servo's gumball machine head sticking out of the "teen reporter" protagonist's shirt collar. Beyond that, Gypsy and the two new robots Growler and Waverly also made appearances in the panels. Growler (basically a "robot Rowlf") did evoke a few "I should really just relax" thoughts, as he'd first appeared in the last episode of the revival, which had ended on a cliffhanger. Waverly was that much more of a surprise to me, though: Joel had mentioned "building new 'bots" in his Kickstarter update, only for the first of them to apparently get smashed to bits in his single "host segment" appearance. That he wasn't just "an elaborate but quickly concluded joke" did get my attention.
The comic did feel like changes have been rung on the familiar formula, although all in all I can see how they could take getting used to. There is the thought of "waiting for the trade paperback collection" from here on; there's also the thought of wondering if it'll show up through the electronic borrowing service my city library makes available, although it didn't right away for all that some Dark Horse comics are offered through it.