I’m guessing Larry couldn’t believe that Katie and May stole and mounted Bolts’ brain.
Moon Freight 3 Volume 3: Messing With Heads
FEATURED COMICS: Aug. 18,2010 – Aug. 17,2011 WRITER/ARTIST: Luke Foster COVER COLORIST: Tom Chu LOGO DESIGN: Brian Cross
Things changed for the better and worse for our characters. Our last new character made her debut, Kim Cho, the new inspector on Moon Freight 4 but a hater of unions (she’s so anti-union she makes me look practically pro-union in comparison). Which makes her perfect for the new management position even though Larry is the only one who applied.
As for Larry Forest, the isolation and monotony finally starts to crack him but a therapist is called by Bolts, who prescribes a two-month visit to Earth, where he meets up with an old friend. In addition to the aforementioned application, He also tries to search a bit more for Simone, the girl he nearly got together with and seems to have disappeared. That thread was never resolved due to the comics ending. The collection also ends on a cliffhanger as living on the station for four years has led to another problem: thanks to new laws Larry hasn’t been on Earth long enough to be considered a citizen and now he’s a man without an official homeworld!
Meanwhile, Katie starts dating a boy who turned out to be a playa…at least until he started dating Katie. Learning about his past she distances herself for a while, but the intended reunion was dropped. He states that some fans didn’t like Charlie, but since I like a good redemption story I’m sorry he didn’t follow through as planned. Instead we get Katie visiting May for the summer in the homeland of the sentient rats, Tahiti. Foster suggested he wouldn’t mind doing more of these two in Tahiti and frankly I wouldn’t mind seeing that, either. Also, Katie adopts a kitten that appears in their closet. At school. On Pluto. With a rat roommate. How did this NOT end poorly?
Bolts has an interesting year as well, as he tries to deal not only with Larry’s issues but X’s, as the robot starts feeling his own mortality and slowly regressing into the paranoid revolutionary, which would be resolved in year four. With Larry gone he and X had to deal with drunken rat pilots crashing into the station and painted the doors blue (again, the cartoonist using the story to explain new additions to the design).
The art style evolves to his final form as Foster appears to have finally found his preferred style (also used in his current The Center Of Somewhere, featuring a re-imagined Kim Cho actually), which he still uses to this day and as I mentioned was one of the influences for the Jake & Leon style, mostly the eyes. The book also includes how to draw segments for Kim, X, Ben, and the rats as well as promotional material (including the time-traveling wacky neighbor Abraham Lincoln from one of Larry’s shows) and the cover design for the book.
As I write this you can contact the author directly for the sale through Twitter or Tumblr. Afterwords it will still be up on IndyPlanet, along with the fourth year, which I don’t currently own. (I want to, though. I’ve gotten drawings of Larry, Bolts, and X. I want to get Katie on the last one.) Moon Freight 3 is a fun approach to the “average working man who happens to be in the future” group, and if there isn’t one there bloody should be. Pick this series up as soon as you can or read it online. Either way, check it out and his other works, which I’ve reviewed in the past.
Next week? “Yesterday’s” Trade starts looking at one of my favorite manga series.
BW Media Spotlight 