Muppet Comic Mondays: Sesame Street #1

 Sesame Street Comic Book #1

James Gannon - In the fall of 2011, Ape Entertainment announced it had acquired the license for a Sesame Street comic book series. After BOOM!'s spectacular job with The Muppet Show and Muppet Classics, and Archaia's wonderful Fraggle Rock comics, it's great that the last of the major Muppet franchises finally has a series of its very own. Told in an anthology format with different writers and artists, this issue features seven... seven stories! AH AH AHHHHH!

Every issue will feature a different overall theme. This issue features different stories about imagination. As this is a comic geared for the younger crowd, Elmo introduces the issue with "How to Read a Comic Book" (Jason M. Burns/Scott Ball), with the issue's only appearances of Big Bird and Murray. This will be a recurring feature in every issue. The comic's main story, "The Anatomy of a Hero" (Jason M. Burns/Amy Mebberson) stars Elmo as he takes Super Hero lessons from Super Grover. Beautifully rendered by the fan favorite artist, Elmo learns an important lesson about what a hero is.

The one page short, "Little Castle Built by Prairie" (Jay Fosgitt) features Snuffy pretending to be a dragon, trying to knock down Prairie Dawn's castle. Prairie is also features in the next story, "Smog Day Afternoon" (Paul Morrissey/Scott Underwood), where Oscar fantasizes about the delightful possibilities of a weird stench that's wafting in. A miscolored Moishe Oofnik and Bodoque appear in Oscar's daydream, as does Irvine with his grouch family. In a different take on "If Moon Were Cookie," we see "A Dip in the Galaxy" (Patrick Storck/James Silvani). This time, Cookie isn't all that guilty to actually eat the cookie moon, and is quite happy it's not made of cheese. The key is, he doesn't finish it off, because it's a "sometimes food." Yeah, they reference that.

Rounding out the issue are "The Count Counts" (Jay Fosgitt) and "Imagination Runs Wild" (Jason M Burns, featuring stills of "Bert and Ernie's Great Adventures"). In the former, Count von Count daydreams of counting car parts, and buys a car at Nelson motors from a certain car salesman (a nice tribute). In the latter, Bert doesn't appreciate Ernie's overactive imagination, through re-purposed stills of the Sesame Street television segment. I personally prefer original artwork, though.

This issue is a great start to the series so far. Mercifully, the writing isn't in the form of Easy Reading, despite the obvious preschool audience. True to show and character writing is once again hand in hand with top quality artwork. It fits perfectly into the Muppet comics collection. Especially since Muppet artist mainstays Amy Mebberson and James Silvani contributed to this issue. Amy even provides artwork for the chase covers that expand to show the whole street and every single popular character currently on the show.

This comic also sees something that is rare in Sesame Street print media, background humans (including Alan and Maria). You usually see Sesame Street books with Anything Muppets in human roles. This adds a layer of realism, connecting it better to the show. Maybe in subsequent issues, some of our favorite non-Muppet cast members will contribute to the plot. While I'm on that subject, the one thing I'd like to see in future issues is a better presence of fan favorite characters that are no longer on the show, if only as background characters.  Prairie Dawn was in two consecutive comics. That's more than her presence on the show in recent years.

One last thing, if you didn't get the Free Comic Book Day reprint, it just features a reprint of the first story.  But I recommend tracking it down anyway. Not only is it a fun collectible, but it comes with an exclusive pin up of Super Elmo and Zoe.

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, muppetmindset@gmail.com

News Update: January 21, 2013

NEWS UPDATE: January 21, 2013

ESPN's SportsCenter has a brand new cafeteria chef who seems to get along famously with hockey player Henrik Lundqvist. Check out the video below for a fantastic example of Disney cross-promotion:



Ricky Gervais, confirmed human star of the next Muppet movie (tentatively titled The Muppets... Again), has been making interview rounds recently promoting some other upcoming projects. He was bound to talk about the Muppets eventually, and he did on the UK talk show This Morning. Check out the clip, handily cut down by our friends at Muppet Musings, of Ricky talking about how excited he is to be working with the Muppets!



Sesame Workshop has teamed up with mobile phone company Qualcomm to create an interactive, exciting new iPhone application starring Big Bird! Check out the video below for five minutes of awesome footage of Big Bird and a Qualcomm Birdkateer demonstrating the really cool app. Even cooler, Caroll Spinney came out to perform Big Bird for this presentation. Awesome.



Finally, we have an amazing first look at the five covers for the first issue of the upcoming Sesame Street comic book, due out in April. Check out the amazing spread of the five covers featuring just about every main character from Sesame (except Zoe for some odd reason), drawn gorgeously by our friend Amy Mebberson, below! Make sure you click the picture to see it in all its beautiful glory!

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, muppetmindset@gmail.com

The Return/Beginnings of Muppet/Sesame Comic Books

James Gannon - It's been a couple weeks of inexplicable Muppet Comics news. That's a phrase I haven't been able to say in a while.

Last year, BOOM! Studios' Muppet license (soon followed by the rest of the Disney licenses) expired, just before the final arc was ready for publication. Roger Langridge, the writer/artist for The Muppet Show Comic Book, was too busy with more important matters to get the comic done on time, but finished it before the license ended. Months later, kid friendly magazine reprints of the first few arcs of the comic were published by Marvel Comics to tie into the movie. These reprints were a great boon to those who weren't lucky enough to follow the line from the beginning, but many of those who caught every single issue were left wondering if we were ever going to get the last of the Langridge Muppet comics. After all, he planned to finish his tenure with the "Four Seasons" arc anyway.

Good news, everyone! Marvel is finally publishing the Four Seasons arc this July as a four-part miniseries, the way they were originally intended starting in July. That's all I ever hoped for, myself. I'm sure other fans of these wonderful comics agree. If this leads to new Muppet comics, that's great. If it doesn't, I'm fine with that too. What's important is closure. Better late than never, especially since many comic book storylines, even finished ones, go into limbo when licenses expire, titles get canceled, or the direction of the title changes. Meanwhile, Roger Langridge has moved on to new projects. If you love comics and you're not reading Snarked yet, do so.

But more inexplicable than the return of the Muppet series is the announcement by Ape Comics that they will be publishing a line of Sesame Street comics. Unsurprisingly, we're getting some of the same great Muppet comics talent in Amy Mebberson (her artwork graces the preview cover) and James Silviani. This will be the first actual Sesame Street comic book series. It's too early to say what we can expect out of this comic series, but keep in mind that Sesame Street's target demographic is just learning how to read. This means that it will either be an easy reader with less complicated language for the young ones, or it could be written with adults in mind to share with their kids.

Either way, with such fan involvement, you can almost assume there will be some great nuggets for the older readers and fans. It's too soon to say if we'll see some classic, fan-favorite characters, but there's no doubt we'll get some cameos at the very least. Remember, you don't have to recast characters when you're just drawing them. It's great that the last of the Muppet Big Three finally gets a shot at comics. I've been calling for a Sesame Street comic since the Fraggle Rock comics were announced. I just didn't think it was too likely.

All I can safely say is, it's going to be an exciting few months for Muppet Comic Book fans.

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, muppetmindset@gmail.com

News Update: April 12, 2012

NEWS UPDATE: April 12, 2012
Exciting news came from the likes of Ape Entertainment late last week when they announced that their line of comic books starring the Sesame Street characters would soon be coming to stores. USA Today broke the exciting story of how, for the first time, fans will be able to bring Sesame Street home in comic book form. There are some great quotes from Ape CEO David Hedgecock, but the really exciting thing here is the first-look artwork. Mostly the fact that the art is by the incredibly talented friend of the blog Amy Mebberson (Muppet Peter Pan, Muppet Sherlock Holmes) drew the art for the cover! We have since learned that even more BOOM! Studios alumni are working on the Sesame comics, including artist James Silvani (Muppet King Arthur, Darkwing Duck) and producer Aaron Sparrow. We at The Muppet Mindset are absolutely thrilled to see what exciting things will come from this! Check out the art below:

One of the highlights of awards season every year is The Webby Awards, which honors the best of the best of entertainment on the internet in the past year. Why are the Webbys a highlight every year? Because for the past four or five years, the Muppets have been winners or nominees each year. From "Ode to Joy" and "Bohemian Rhapsody," the Muppets have become Webby legends. Well, this year is no different! The Muppets received a nomination for their "Muppet Show Theme Song" music video with OK Go in the "Online Film and Video: Viral" category. The Muppets: Never-Ending Mahna Mahna Phenomena is also nominated for the "Movie and Film" category. SesameStreet.org is nominated for four Webbys including "Websites: Youth," "Websites: Charitable Organizations/Non-Profit," "Websites: Family/Parenting" and "Websites: Best Home/Welcome Page" Make sure you cast your votes every day and let's bring the Muppets yet another Webby win!

Speaking of awesome things on the internet... four incredibly dedicated Muppet/Sesame Street fans recently created a real-people version of the classic "Fat Cat Scat" song from Sesame Street starring Bip Bipadotta and three Anything Muppets. You have to watch it... right now. It'll blow you away.



Remember last year when all the hubbub was going on surrounding various Muppet t-shirt design contests at WeLoveFine and, most notably, Threadless.com? Well, Sesame Street has taken a major cue from The Muppets Studio because there is currently a Sesame Street T-shirt Design Challenge going on at Threadless!! From April 12 - May 3, 2012, artists can submit their own t-shirt designs inspired by Sesame Street! The entries will be voted on and a winner will be chosen and produced. The winner also receives $2,000 cash, a $250 Threadless gift card, a copy of My Life as a Furry Red Monster signed by Kevin Clash, a copy of The Wisdom of Big Bird (and the Dark Genius of Oscar the Grouch) signed by Caroll Spinney, and a copy of Sesame Street: A Celebration - 40 Years of Life on the Street signed by Joan Ganz Cooney. Can you say WOW?! Well what are you waiting for artists? Get out there and design the best Sesame Street t-shirt you possibly can!







The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, muppetmindset@gmail.com