The following originally ran in the Weekly Planet 9/12/18.
For decades, the best name in making fun of bad movies has always been Mystery Science Theater 3000. Though there’s a whole cottage industry around it now, it’s not even a competition. Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot, and their bevy of human companions are the gold standard. Whether it was in their original run, their beloved replays and marathons on places like Syfy, or their successful Kickstarter-cum-Netflix revival, MST3k is known to comedy fans as an institution. And it’s about time they jumped into the comics world.
MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 #1 is finally here. With the help of Joel Hodgson and tons of the comedic minds that have made the show so great these many years, the lovable captives of terrible film on the Satellite of Love are making their jump to sequential art. Set definitively in the world of the reboot with Jonah Ray as our human center, Felicia Day as Kinga Forrester, and Patton Oswalt as TV’s Son of TV’s Frank, old fans and new bingewatchers should be excited about a great team bringing this classic properly to our shelves.
I suppose at this point you might be asking…. how?
Why, the bountiful world of public domain comics, of course!
Before there were rules to comics, there were still comics. Insane, wonderful, off-the-wall bananas comics. Men turned into horses, criminals were evil to the core, and everything was a torrid morality tale. You’ve undoubtedly seen clips and panels from comics like these. Undoubtedly you’ve also laughed at them, cracked a few jokes. The world of comic books has been begging for a book like MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER for decades. And it’s finally here.
With another season just around the bend and a classic back catalog that has become a Thanksgiving tradition for so many, MST3k has become a pop culture institution. In a landscape that won’t let go to the properties of yesteryear, you can almost forgive the flabbergasting number of reboots for the joy that this cable (and now Netflix) mainstay continues to bring.
In every episode of MST3k, the lead singer croons “If you’re wondering how he eats and breathes, and other science facts/repeat to yourself, ‘It’s just a show. I should really just relax.’” I think that sort of attitude is pretty desperately needed in comics. MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 #1 debuts this week. It’s a unique series to add to your pull list and one that ought to delight you for a long time to come.
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