“Yesterday’s” Comic> Fraggle Rock #1 (Star Comics)

“Look, there’s the Circle K. And some guy in sunglasses.”

Fraggle Rock #1

Star Comics (April, 1985, as collected in Archaia’s Fraggle Rock Classics volume 1)

“The Magic Time Machine”

WRITER: Stan Kay

ARTIST: Marie Severin

LETTERER: Grace Kremer

EDITOR: Sid Jacobson

I used the animated intro because the comic uses the cartoon series, which aired on NBC’s Saturday morning lineup around the same time as the original HBO series, as the character models Severin uses resemble those character models rather than trying to emulate the look of the HBO series, right down to not showing us Doc’s face. Whether that’s for rights issues with actor Gerard Parks or hiding that the international versions of the HBO Muppets included different forms of Doc and Sprocket for each country for local flavor, I can’t say. I have no problem with this, since it’s an existing 2d representation of the Muppet designs, so why not do it the easy way?

Onto our story. Doc tries to use a metronome to help with his piano timing. When it doesn’t help his playing he puts it away, but Gobo thinks it can help Boober, Red, and Mokey with their jump rope timing, as Red jumps too fast and Boober turns too slow. However, Gobo breaks the control knob while running from Sprocket and the “magic time machine” ends up making everyone move too fast while the ticking drives them nuts. It gets worse when it falls onto Echoing Rock, but between Gorg sized string and Gobo reading one of Uncle Matt’s postcards calming everyone down, the Fraggles manage to retrieve it just as it finally winds down.

What they got right: I’m of two minds on this one. On the one hand, if you haven’t seen either show at the time this comic tries to introduce as much of the lore and characters as it can (there’s no time for Marjorie The Trash Heap and her attendants, for example). We get a good introduction to everyone we need to know for the story.

What they got wrong: By necessity, however, that means that the dialog is a bit clunky at times. “I need to get Travelling Matt’s postcard, so I have to go into outer space and hide from the silly creature.” Not actual dialog but lines are written like that to catch up the audience but falls into the “as you know” territory.

What I think overall: It’s a fair introduction to the comic, and the two shows if you haven’t seen them previously. Though why you would pick this up unless you’re either familiar with the shows or just like comics about unusual creatures I’m not certain.