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O L L E C T I B L E S |
New Collectibles •11/01 - The Muppet Christmas Carol Pop! Figures: Bob Cratchit with Tiny Tim, Mrs. Cratchit, Charles Dickens with Rizzo, Fozziwig, The Marley Brothers, Scrooge
•10/24 - The Muppets Take Manhattan 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray with Frank Oz Commentary •10/1 - Supersize Count von Count •10/01 - Sesame Street Action Figures Wave 1: Ernie with Rubber Duckie, Bert with Bernice, Count von Count, Yip Yip Martians •9/1 - Fraggle Rock Action Figures Wave 1: Gobo, Red, Traveling Matt, Architect and Cotterpin, Flange |
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Comic
Books
Fraggle Collectibles
Fraggle Rock Comic Books (1985-1986)
A subdivision
of Marvel Comics called Star Comics produced several
comic book series based on popular children's TV programs. Fraggle Rock
was among them.
The series consisted of only 8 issues. The first 2 issues were original stories, but with number three, they decided to do comic book adaptations of the HBO series. The titles were changed along with a few details from the episodes, but for the most part they were the same. Only issue 7 kept the same title as the HBO episode.
With the exception of the cover to issue one, all of the artwork was done by Marie Severin who would later go on to do the two page Fraggle Rock comics in the later issues of the Muppet Magazine. Her artwork was very well crafted and she also did all of it; the pencils, inking and coloring. Her characters also stayed true to the puppets as well. She had a very close attention to detail. Stan Kay wrote all of the issues.
When the animated series debuted on Saturday mornings, Marvel reprinted the series in 1988 without the Star comics logo. Unfortunately the series only made it to issue 5.
The Magic Time Machine
This
is an original story where Gobo steals a metronome from Doc's workshop.
The device gets stuck in the "on" position and keeps going faster
causing the Fraggles and Doozers to also move and work at increasing speeds.
This story almost seems as if it were a rejected episode for the HBO series.
#1 (Number One)
In
this story, Red Fraggle makes the claim she's "number one" at
everything possible in Fraggle Rock after performing the greatest dive
of all time. Of course this goes to her head and her ego gets the best
of her. Gobo takes a collapsible top hat from Doc's workshop this time
and Red uses it to hide from her fans (that only existed in a nightmare).
This is a somewhat typical story line for comic books like this and could be why Marvel decided to do HBO adaptations starting with issue 3.
The following are adaptations from the HBO series. Each has a few minor differences from their television versions. The episode titles are in parentheses.
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The
Monster That Could Be Anything (Believe It Or Not)
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The
Doozer Who Wanted To Be A Fraggle (All Work And All Play)
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The
Mean Genie (Wembley And The Mean Genie)
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Exploring
The Unknown (Gobo's School For Explorers)
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The
Great Radish Caper (Same title as episode)
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The
Greatest Race There Ever Was (The Beanbarrow, The Burden And The
Bright Bouquet)
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Marvel Age, The Official Marvel News Magazine (1984)
Volume 1, Issue 19
October 1984
Before
there were Web sites and computers, Marvel comics kept in touch with their
readers with a comic book style magazine called Marvel Age which featured
information about that month's comic book issues.
In issue 19, Marvel unveiled their new line of comic books geared towards a younger audience called Star Comics. Star was mostly comprised of books based upon the popular cartoons and toy lines in the mid 1980s. Muppet Babies, the Muppets and Fraggle Rock were among them.
This
issue features a two page article devoted to the Fraggle Rock series that
pretty much just explained the characters and the phenomenon. Worthy of
notice to the Fraggle fan are the two pictures featured in that article.
One seems to be a Michael Frith illustration of Gobo who has had a Doozer
construction built around him. This picture is almost identical to one
of the Fraggle Rock puzzles made in the UK by Hestair Puzzles. The other
picture is a rough pencil drawing of one of the first pages in issue one
of the comic book series. It's interesting to compare this to the final
version. Instead of Marie Severin, this page was drawn by a Marty Taras,
possibly a change of artists or perhaps just the artist that does rough
layouts. Gobo Fraggle's head also appears on the cover of this issue.
Go back to Fraggle Collectibles.
Section
compiled by
Nick Bondra, Cindy Chapman and Phillip Chapman
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