I don’t think a bridge made mostly of concentrated radish powder counts as a safety net, guys.
Fraggle Rock #4
Star Comics (October, 1985)
“The Doozer That Wanted To Be A Fraggle”
WRITER: Stan Kay
ARTIST: Marie Severin
LETTERER: Grace Kremer
EDITOR: Sid Jacobson
Fraggles play, Doozers build. That’s how things work in Fraggle Rock…unless you’re Cotterpin Doozer. She prefers drawing to building and now thinks she’d rather do fun things like a Fraggle. So she seeks out Red to teach her how to be a Fraggle, but outside of a few interests, Cotterpin still has a Doozer mindset, especially when it comes to not swimming. However, rather that being a builder, the chief architect sees potential in her as his apprentice.
What they got right: While I could complain about the changes made between this story and the episode it adapts, “All Work And All Play”, the important details are still there. Most of the scenes are intact, and so are the names. Kay even adds a scene showing that Cotterpin still has a repair mindset when Red crashes into one of the bridges, which wasn’t in the episode and is a nice addition.
What they got wrong: This is the second issue in a row that is an adaptation rather than an original story and we’re only four issues in. Did Kay burn out already? He also adds in the other Fraggles when only Gobo and Red are in this story. Not every issue has to feature all five Fraggles, since the episode you’re adapting didn’t.
What else is there: Also missing from this adaptation is the sidestory of Sprocket wanting to be a horse, which is amusing and plays into the theme within the Rock but ultimately wouldn’t have fit in the page count and wasn’t necessary. There’s also another Travelling Matt postcard, but it doesn’t play into the theme at all, as Matt just comes across a video arcade. This is also the last issue I have access to, but I will review the trade I’ve been using for these reviews in the next Clutter Reports article.
What I think overall: I looked ahead via the Grand Comics Database (where I’ve had to get the cover scans because the Arcana book is hard to scan from and altered the trade dress into “chapters”) and the other eight issues of this run are also adaptations of episodes rather than original stories. I can see why the comic didn’t do as well considering they still reran old episodes on HBO while the NBC cartoon gave them all new stories. It’s a shame because they are good stories and the two original tales showed what the comic could have been.
BW Media Spotlight 
[…] The Doozer Who Wanted To Be A Fraggle: Another adaptation, this time “All Work And All Play“. In fact, the four issues that would be in the second collection are also episode adaptations. As I said, after the first two we were probably better off but it’s still disappointing that all they had were adaptations. Thundercats and Silverhawks fell into that trap as well before the Star runs ended. In this story we actually get a look at Doozer society through Cotterpin, a Doozer who doesn’t want to build because she’d rather draw and relax. She decides she’s better off as a Fraggle and chooses Red as her role model. However, she soon learns that while she doesn’t want to be a builder she’s still a Doozer. When the Architect sees Cotterpin’s work he takes her on as an apprentice. This is my favorite of the stories presented. Cotterpin finds her own place in the world and in Doozer society, and it’s one of two times in the show that we see the world inside Fraggle Rock from the Doozer perspective. […]
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