Science Fiction

By Karon Flage
August 1, 2006

With Tart Tastes, we focus on great creators and topics within comics. This month, Tarts look at our favorite science fiction comics.

Rebecca Buchanan

I'm sure that other Tarts will discuss their love of Finder — so I won't. Instead, I'll bring a few other titles to your attention: Galaxion (Helikon), Rocketo (Image), and Runners (Serve Man Press).

Tara Tallan's Galaxion is a sadly-defunct series. I found a single trade paperback at The Golden Apple in California years ago. If you're lucky, you'll find that collection, too. Galaxion follows the adventures of the crew of an experimental space craft — which gets lost its first time out the dock. Lots of strong female characters, great artwork, a compelling story — and a weird alien world! Woohoo!

Rocketo is an on-going series, and the first collection is now available. Frank Espinosa's series is set in a pulpish, post-apocalyptic world in which humanity has clawed its way out of ruin and horror to create a new world. But that new world is a strange and dangerous place ... which is why men like Rocketo are needed, to map the strange places of this strange world. Fans of Golden Age science fiction will love Rocketo.

Finally, Runners by Sean Wang. Once again, I owe my discovery of this series to my comic shop guy (thanks, Daniel!). Weird aliens, blue-skinned alien girl, smuggling and other semi-legal activities, misfit crew, ethical crises. Throw in an intriguing mystery, terrific art and one heck of a chase sequence and you have a stellar science fiction comic. Anyone who likes Serenity will like Runners.

Wolfen Moondaughter

I love Top Cow's adaptation of Battle of the Planets, the (greatly-altered) American dub of the anime Kagaku Ninja Tai Gatchaman, about five "cerabonically"-enhanced teens who have been trained since birth to protect the Earth from invasion by evil aliens. In BotP, the team of heroes (who wear bird-inspired battle-suits) is known as G-Force, and the enemy is Spectra. Though it keeps the Americanised names of the cast, the comic basically re-injects the darker content that was edited out for television, making the series aimed at adults now, rather than children. There's also no 7-Zark-7, the little R2-D2-like robot; I actually liked him when I was little, but doubtless his absence makes a vast number of fans happy.

Without the time constraints of television, the comic series has been free to spend more time outside of the fancy bird costumes, and let us see more of the teens as people; basically, it's the great concept of the show with ten times the characterization and plot development. They've even thrown bones to the Princess/Jason shippers out there (like yours truly). The art stays very true to the style of the anime while actually making it better. The comics also feature cover art from the illustrious Alex Ross (he even designed a life-size statue of Mark in his battle costume a while back). There was a cross-over with the Thundercats at one point; I love it when unlikely franchises collide! Unfortunately, there hasn't been a new issue in like a year, but if you were ever a fan of the original American TV release (as opposed to G-Force or Eagle Riders), it's definitely worth tracking down the trades or back-issues!