"I'm dreaming of a time we have an ongoing series and only one cover per issue."
Fraggle Rock Vol. 2 #1
Archaia Entertainment (January 2011)
COVER “A” (shown): Chris Lie COVER “B”: David Petersen LETTERER: Dave Lanphear MANAGING EDITOR: Tim Beedle CONSULTING EDITORS: Joe Le Favi & Paul Morrissey ACTIVITY PAGES: Katie CookLike the previous series, the new volume of Fraggle Rock is a three-issue anthology, with three stories each, and published more like a children’s book than a comic. While I still don’t understand it, that doesn’t make it a good or bad book. It’s what is inside that counts.
The first story, “Wembley And The Great Dream-capade!”, is written by Grace Randolph. The credits say that the art is by Caravan Studio, but then it breaks down into “pencils and inks” (Chris Lie, who wrote the “A” cover) and colors by Hendry Iwanga & Fandy Soegiarto. The story has Wembley unable to decide what to dream about when he sleeps. Other revelations I don’t remember from the show have the Fraggles able to visit each other’s dream, that Boober knows what jazz music is, and that apparently Red is still competing with Gobo, which I thought she grew out of early on in the series. All that aside it’s a cute story and has the best art in the book.
“Boober and the Gastly Stain”, written by Jake T. Forbes with Mark Simmons on art, is vintage Boober, as he tries to get a rather difficult stain out of Gobo’s shirt. The writer tries to get in a song, which happened a lot on the show, but much like The Muppet Show: The Comic Book, it doesn’t work in text if you don’t know what music to put it to. (Maybe jazz? 😀 ) A decent enough story, especially for a Boober fan like myself.
My apologies to Cory Godbey but while the art on “Brave Sir Wembley” would be decent on original characters, it just doesn’t work for Fraggles. Joe LeFavi takes up writing stories as Wembley and Boober have to go to Outer Space to retrieve a special Uncle Matt postcard for the Storyteller. (Gobo can’t because he’s in charge of a special celebration party.) It’s also a cute story but Boober’s a bit over the top with his worrying, even for Boober.
The book ends with Red talking about stretching before exercising and a coloring page. Over all, it’s an enjoyable little book, and I can recommend it to a young Fraggle fan, and with the series airing on The Hub, there may be some new ones now. I can easily recommend the show as well.
Tomorrow’s Comic> Stargazer Volume One
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- Fraggles – Muppet Wiki (muppet.wikia.com)
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