I finally got a chance to read the Muppet Robin Hood I bought a couple days ago, and first of all, for me to get a real opinion on it, I'm gonna have to read them all together from the beginning.
But all I can say is, I think I enjoyed it a lot more than anyone else here, but I see exactly what people are talking about and why they aren't fans of it. I'm going to agree word for word with Tough Pigs's assessment... while the writing is Muppety, he's still saddled with the task of having to actually tell the story. So we get these long pages of exposition... mainly in the first and third issue. And I'm going to agree with the Narrator of the comic.... Robin Hood is such a deep, expansive legend.... it really MUST be hard to get it down to a 4 issue miniseries. Heck, It's probably a chore to get it into a long running series.
But this issue proved that it can be Muppety... the whole segment where the cast attacks the writer and forces him to rewrite a happy ending, causing a weird segment written by a guy who doesn't speak English and has a strange obsession with the Swedish Chef (which the book actually takes into the storyline)... classic. Absolutely. And referring to the "voice" in Janice's head as Jerry (even though he was drawn to be the Muppet Newsman) was just brilliant. The ending seemed a bit abrupt, though... but again... the legend of Robin Hood, and a fractured one at that in a four issue comic...
I'm sure I was supposed to get Fozzie's line "And they said it couldn't be done!" Was that a reference to a specific Robin Hood?
The art... well, I think I enjoyed it a lot more than anyone else did, but I see why people don't like it. The artwork itself looks like it resembles more of a Medieval style storybook quality... and there are clear and obvious manga influences (a lot of crosshatched anger marks... something even I use) and certain facial expressions. Some characters he gets down well and work in his stylization, others don't. And his Miss Piggy reminds me of that episode of Seinfeld with the woman that looks beautiful in the right lighting and angles, but looks completely unattractive in other angles. But I LOVED his Sal and Bobo. Hated his Clifford, except for that one close up, but I loved his Sal.
And I think at the end when they mention the aerodynamic pies, they should have been depicted instead of flying fish.
And for surprised guests...
How's Fleet Scibbler grab you? Not to mention Beauregard, Spamela Hamderson, Andy and Randy and... I think there was one more, but I can't remember at the top of my head.