The Muppet Show Comic Book: The Four Seasons Graphic Novel

[Drtooth]

It is with absolutely no fanfare that Marvel has released the final Muppet Show comics story arc in Graphic Novel format. Seriously. Beats the heck out of me, I just accidentally discovered it today.

So for those who haven't caught the 4 issue series or just waiting to collect it in volume form with slightly better paper, it's finally available.

 

[minor muppetz]

I thought I read that it was coming out, but I would have thought it would have come out in december (considering one of the issues is themed around Christmas). If it's just now released (as opposed to a few months ago) then I guess that explains why I hadn't been able to find copies at Books-a-Million (and just when I was about to lose hope that BAM would sell copies).

 

[Drtooth]

It wasn't in the comic store's new releases, that's for sure. I go to the comic store weekly, and this is the first I've seen of it.

 

[j3h]

This came out to comic shops the first week of December 2012 and shipped out from amazon.com shortly after. I received my copy on Dec 7th from Amazon where I had it on preorder for a few months.

 

[Drtooth]

It would have been nice if Marvel put the slightest effort into notifying anyone to the releases of the comic and the novel. At the very least, previews on Comic Book Resources, so we knew when the things were due in stores. Like I said, the ironic bad thing about the Disney/Marvel is that there's almost no Disney presence in Marvel publications. And whatever does manage to come out is released as an "Oh well, at least it's something."

 

[newsmanfan]

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Cool...haven't been able to stop by the comic shop in a while (no funds) but now I have an excuse to check in later this week! Thanks for the heads-up.

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[minor muppetz]

Well I finally found this today. I haven't read it yet, as I'm a bit too excited. But I am surprised, I expected to see this in the magazine shelves (as that's where the Marvel reprints were), and also expected this to be magazine-sized (again, like the Marvel reprints). But it was in the graphic novels section, and the size is more like the Boom-released trade paperbacks, only a little bigger.

 

[Drtooth]

I give them credit for trying to be consistent with the Boom releases. I wouldn't have minded if Four Seasons was made directly into a magazine format, but even though that would be cheaper and more accessible, I'm glad they went for the standard comic format. Though I could have done without the ad layout they chose... and the crappy magazine print paper.

 

[minor muppetz]

Well, I just finished reading it. I liked the summer and winter issues the best. I feel like it turned out to be a good thing that winter was moved to the end as opposed to the beginning, as it's a better finale to the series than fall.

I wish this would have included more obscure characters who hadn't appeared in previous issues. I think Luncheon Counter Monster is the only such character to appear. I don't know how much of the storyarc was completed when Roger Langridge decided to leave the series, but it would have been great if he'd have tried to include more characters who hadn't appeared in previous issues, like Doglion, Lips, Timmy, Marvin Suggs, Gaffer, Fleet Scribbler, and so many others. I know he once said that he didn't know what to do with Lips but would include him if he thought of a way... He could have put Lips with the band in the final shot of the spring storyarc. During the "twelve days of Christmas" in winter, Rowlf is put with the Electric Mayhem for "six people playing"... They should have put Lips there instead of Rowlf, or put them both in and made it "seven people playing".

When I look at the summer cover and it's obvious that Animal is holding a camera at him and the gang, I felt like it would have been great if that was Walter instead. Seems like something he'd do, and the covers were made after The Muppets came out so it's not like it was done before Walter was created.

There's quite a few original characters who I heard performer voices in while reading. The gorilla's trainer I kept hearing both Frank Oz (his Sam the Eagle voice) and Richard Hunt (his British voice) as. I kept hearing Steve Whitmire as Pops' nephew.

 

[charlietheowl]

I finally got my copy of this from Amazon today. I thought the stories were a little thin compared to some of the other ones in the series (like Family Reunion or Meet The Muppets), but the art was good, especially in the title pages for each of the seasons.