Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Sether in the Morff Issue #9

Strap in...

Get ready, folks.  What follows is the longest issue of SITM, clocking in at a robust 12 pages (granted, about half of them are splash pages).  I really wish they weren't double-sided notebook pages, but the die has been cast.

Title Page


Fffff...
Right out of the gate, I lie to you.  I claim this is an '11 page specile,' (sic) when it is in fact 12 pages.  Even basic counting skills eluded me at the tender age of 8.  

The title depicts what appears to be a purple, sausage-shaped airplane of some kind, in front of (or behind) the 'Seth symbol.'

You may have noticed that all of the title pages feature that crappy smiley-face rectangle in the upper lefthand corner.  It's an attempt at recreating those rectangles on real comic book covers, whatever they're called.  This was very important to me, as that rectangle made it a legitimate Comic Book in my young mind.

Page 1

Bonesaw is ready.
We begin this epic with a splash page, featuring a nameless control panel man.  I don't know who he is, and he never shows up again.  Him and his giant, featureless cube are Mission Control for Team Seth.  He probably should be Prometheus or Doc, but neither of those characters existed yet in these, the earliest of the comics.  

Why is he wearing a helmet, if he is on the ground?  Maybe he's in some sort of mothership?  This page sucks.

Page 2

SPACE SHIPS
I was really awful at making speech balloons.  My crabbed dialogue overflows from the too-small bubbles.  While that 'ya' should probably be a 'yeah,' so far we're not doing too bad in the spelling error department.

Apparently I drew the body of my red spacecraft/plane thing before drawing the wing, so the wing will always appear transparent.  Also, once again the airlock has a doorknob.  While this is one of the earliest versions of it, my red spaceship will pop up again throughout the series, and remains relatively consistent.  

Page 3

Apparently we all have German accents?
My brothers accompany me on this Space Mission.  My older brother, Zach, is the green one.  This would be his earliest appearance in the series; that lighting-bolt icon on his ship is the 'Zach symbol.'  Certainly cooler than Jess's sneering face.

Zach and Jess's ships would undergo some minor redesigns in later issues.  I enjoyed drawing and designing spaceships, largely out of love for the dogfighting sequences in Star Wars.  I had Micromachines models of X-wings, Y-wings, TIE fighters, etc., and something about the concept of multiple different kinds of spaceships fascinated me.  I vaguely recall naming these ships the 'S-Wing,' 'J-Wing,' and 'Z-Wing.'  

The page bleed through foreshadows our target...

Page 4

Please don't sue me!
Ah, yes, the Death Pod.  This is another example of Double Plagiarism.  This is clearly a ripoff of the Death Star.  However, this is ALSO a ripoff of the Death Egg.  Yes, Sonic the Hedgehog ripped off the Death Star before I did; I was just copying Sega.  A giant, spherical battle station reminiscent of the villain's head; the story checks out.

Page 5

Grand Moff Tarkin quote FTW!
I'm not even trying to conceal how derivative this is.  I even imagine Dark One saying 'You may fire when ready' in Tarkin's voice.

The Death Pod then fires LASERS OUT OF ITS EYES OH MY GOD THIS IS AWESOME!

I like how chubby Dark One looks on this page.

Page 6

I like my lasers THICK.
Our heroes dodge out of the way of one of the giant death-beams.  I'm actually pretty pleased with the underside of the S-Wing on this page.  Such action!  Things are getting good!

Page 7

Splash pages for days!

The Death Pod sends out interceptors: Fighter Pods.  These are the TIE Fighters of this scenario.  Aside from a color change, these enemy ships stay pretty consistent in design throughout the series. Ovals with rocket-fish-tails.  Sweet.

Page 8

Oh no!
One of the fighter pods lands a hit on Zach.  Oh, the horror!  His ship seems to have lost its side engines.  I like the little puff of smoke.  Note also the use of green marker for the lasers, rather than crayon.  Did I just have one green marker?  Why didn't I use red for the earlier lasers?  I'm guessing laziness had something to do with it.

Page 9

Yay, teamwork!
In the nick of time, Seth deploys some grappling hook thingies to save Zach.  His ship grew another side engine, it seems.

Page 10

Scribbles = explosion
Zach's weapon systems still seem to be working.  Together, we shoot down a fighter pod (that has no rear engine).  Jess flies by, giving us his two cents.  Again, I use actual markers for the lasers... I guess I had a purple and blue marker as well?  

Page 11

PERSPECTIVE ARRGH!
I think this is supposed to be the S-Wing shooting at a fighter pod from a head-on perspective.  My drafting skills were not up to the task.  I like that the lasers are not one continuous beam, but a bunch of little lines.  Pew pew!

Page 12

Mission accomplished?
As the fighter pod explodes in lazy red scribbles, the Brothers Three fly off into the sunset.  The End.  Are we retreating?  Did we win?  I don't know.  Perhaps we couldn't continue the mission with Zach's Z-Wing crippled.  Mission Control Guy has the answers, but remains silent on the subject.

Thus ends the first SITM 'special' issue.  This is the last of the lined notebook paper issues, thank God.  It also represents the last of the oldest comics.  The next issue will see a change in the art design (marginally for the better), and I believe a decent amount of time passed in the interim.  I can't be certain, because I kept no records of when they were produced, but this might be the last offerings of my 8 year old mind.  I took a break from SITM for some reason, but I would make a triumphant return.

Onward, to 1996(?)!


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