Amazing Animation: Space Ghost meets Batman!

Amazing Animation: Here's a great cartoon worth spotlighting. Find more on Mondays & Fridays!

I love starting off blog-columns with Space Ghost! This new cartoon one is no exception. Batman: The Brave & The Bold is a cartoon targeted toward younger viewers, but gained an older audience because of it's willingness to showcase esoteric DC heroes who could never have a cartoon of their own (Blue Beetle, Metamorpho, Bat-Mite!). In 2011, Paul Dini and friends wrote Space Ghost into the series. As it turns out, Batman has a totally badass space ship, he can breath without oxygen, and he's friends with Space Ghost. This cartoon is probably the best Space Ghost has looked in any of his cartoon-iteration; in the old 1960s Saturday morning series, he usually used one power per episode as to not go over budget. In this cartoon, he uses every power in his arsenal to stop the space dinosaurs. The cartoon ends with a really morbid pun. Check it out!

Mini-Mania: Serious Space Ghost!

Mini-Mania: Taking a look at limited series of comic books for fun and thought-fodder.

I started a column about individual comics about Space Ghost, so for parallelism's sake, I'm starting off a mini-series column with a review of Joe Kelly's serious Space Ghost adaptation. I recently bought the issues on eBay (as they're easier to find than the trade), unsure wether the story would be good but certain the Alex Ross covers are awesome.

Ross's covers seem to set the visual style of the comic. While Ross' paintings are intricate and detailed, the series interior art is bold and digitally colored. And the series makes nice use of neon accents as evidenced by this picture of Space Ghost lightining-punching your face.

The narrative tries to match this visual depth with character depth. It doesn't entirely succeed, but fans of Coast to Coast can scoff at the silliness. An Amazon reviewer suggests reading in George Lowe's voice whenever the comic takes itself too seriously. Like the first page, for example, which posits thoughts on entropy, "The universe tends toward entropy. This is commonly considered truth, taken to mean that at its heart, the cosmos is inherently corrupt flawed, because it cannot hold it's center. What are we then, children of stars and earth, but symptoms of this great chaos?..." Entropy kinda relates to everything, but usually people just make it mean "chaos" or in this case, "space chaos" Fun! We learn, Space Ghost's origin is riddled with revenge, justice, and ultimately discovering how to be a moral person (specifically for a super-powered post-mortal space traveling crusader type of person).

The first issue reads like typical space opera. An advanced space civilizations run by intergalactic politics is conducting a space war. Thadius Bach, (nod to Thad Ghostal from Coast to Coast, probably) is a rookie space fighter unwilling to compromise his morals.and fully throw himself into the intergalactic ideology.  So, Thad's superior officer murders his wife in front of him and frames him for the crime--weird, right? This superior officer thinks the empire should preemptively attack alien races and reap the spoils of war. Thad abandons the ghost-warrior brigade a meets a gruff, hard-boiled alien dude--who has both a heart of gold and an invisible spaceship. Drunk with anger, Thad steals the ship to go creepy-space spector on the general who betrayed him.

Thad flies to attacks his military nemesis in issue 3, but an army of Zorak mantises get in his way! Joe Kelly made Zorak suitably menacing, perhaps even adding to the Zorak's of other SG cartoons. When the 1960s cartoon made all the Zoraks look the same, everybody assumed it was because Hanna and Barbara were cheap lazy schlubs who only wanted to pay for a on villain drawing per episode. "Just make more of the bug guy!" Joe Hanna drunkenly screamed at his tepid brother (I assume). Coast 2 Coast goofed on the many Zoraks by showing the Mantis' many shades. But Kelly's comic takes the idea of Zorak clones in a cool direction--a race of would definitely look similar, as well as strong and creepy. This Zorak can also exchange his consciousness within any of his minions, making him effectively a Bug-God

Zorak destroys planet with his mantis army. Then, Space Ghost finds two little orphans who lost their parents in this war--it's Jan and Jayce! Space Ghost's teenage wards, practically the main characters of the 1960s and totally non-existent in Coast to Coast, are helpless orphans. Issue 5 is all about Space Ghost becoming a father to Jan and Jayce--it's goofy, if not boring. The faces Thad makes are right out of Coast to Coast. Jayce, presented as a scared baby boy, say Thad is like a Space Ghost, the legendary ghost from space who attaches bad kids to the moon for punishment (stupidest urban legend ever). 

In the last issue, Space Ghost confronts Zorak and his nemesis. He smashes the intergalactic ghost-army ship into Zorak's and saves the day. He ominously confronts the council of space-elders, and effectively says, "Stop being evil. You're entropy, but I'm justice--and justice beats entropy. It's pretty bad ass.

This mini-series was alright. Mostly, the art was cool and the story was hoaky. But I don't regreat reading it, and I'll probably thumb through it occasionally just to remember Epic Serious Space Ghost!

3/5 Franchise Reboot Robots out of Five 

Incidental Issues #1: Space Ghost edition!

When I was 10, and eBay was new, I bought 400 random comics for about $100. Since then, I’ve bought even more random comics at garage sales, etc. and I never read most of them. But now, I will read them all! Welcome to the premier post of Incidental Issues--Space Ghost Coast to Coast edition! 

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #9
Released: May 2000, by DC Comics
Original price: $1.99
IMHO: 5/5

Space Ghost has been one of my favorite shows since age 6; I remember buying these two comics at Walgreens, perhaps at the same time (but unlikely since they were released years apart). Issue #9 is REALLY good, revealing the first time Space Ghost met Zorak. The script was written by Andy Merrill (voice of Brak) and C. Martin Croker (Zorak's voice) drew pencils (with help from DC Kids veteran, Robert Pope). We fade in to see Space Ghost, Zorak, and Moltar looking at old photo slides (Space Ghost and Zorak went to the St. Louis Arch; Zorak carved his own face into Mount Rushmore). Then, Space Ghost remembers the first time he met his best pal/arch-nemesis, Zorak--plus his teen wards, Jan and Jace! Sometime in the 1950s, Space Ghost promised to babysit for his mentor, Space Hunter, who is going out for the night with his wife. Space Ghost and Blip Sr. (as it is revealed Blip from the cartoon was Blip Sr.'s son, whose father died after being hit by a train) must babysit the extra-young super-duo, Jan and Jace. Zorak takes revenge on Space Hunter for stealing his Ultimate Universal Power Orb and making it a decoration in the Space Hunter living room. Zorak and his army of Zoraks (once again, a nod to the old cartoon and more specifically a nod to how cheap Hanna-Barabara studios was in their recycling of character models) kidnap Space Hunter. So, Space Ghost must stop Zorak by punching him. It's pretty funny, there's some good jokes, and the drawings are nice. The story ends for an excellent Brak-up...the weird cat monster reprints a childhood comic, drawn in crayon, about going to the store on a horse to buy milk. The book's last page parodies the old ads that tricked kids into buying/selling plant seeds, but these Space Ghost seeds are evil and promise to grow into mind control flowers. Really weird idea...Overall, a very satisfying comic. 

Space Ghost Coast to Coast #13
Released: November 2002, by DC Comics
Original price: $2.25
IMHO: 4/5

In issue 13, Space Ghost finds a lucky penny in a pay phone. This leads to good luck for the superhero/talk-show host like, getting an extra wanton in his Chinese food, drinking the last soda, and surviving a shot to the face with a flame thrower. Eventually, Brak gets ahold of the penny and buys licorice with it and Zorak blows up Space Ghost’s spaceship (which doesn’t seem to bother him since he can teleport). Overall, the mediocre story allows room for silly visual gags, like this one

The main story is only 14 pages long, which gives room for a glorious 8 page Brak backup. Brak decides to start his own talk show with merely a microphone (so a podcast, basically), but everybody gets mad at him because he’s weird, kind of autistic, and always breaks things. Space Ghost schedules Anti-Matter Man, a reformed space criminal, to appear on the talk show. But, when Anti-Matter man comes to the studio, Zorak mocks him for no reason so he blasts him with anti-matter rays (fitting punishment). Really goofy stuff. Overall, this issue is not as good as #9, but there’s still some choice gags. Like revealing that Space Ghost irons his cape while still wearing it:

Overall, these are quality kids comics. I’m always on the lookout for more Space Ghost books (in fact, I’m bidding on some now with nickmartinlovescomics@ebay.com).