My Favorite Martian

Well, I am done with the small batch of new comics I picked up recently.

Time to head back to the backlog!

Here's one from Free Comic Book Day 2012.

Title: My Favorite Martian
Date: 2012
Publisher: Hermes Press
Writer: Paul S. Newman
Artist: Dan Speagle

Free Comic Book Day 2012 offering from Hermes Press, which specializes in reprints of vintage comics and newspaper strips. This is reprinted from a Gold Key comic from 1964, a tie-in with the popular TV Show of the same title.

I enjoy watching classic TV shows, especially SF, but My Favorite Martian is not one that I've ever really sat down to watch. It seems like pretty standard fare: a comedic take on American society at the time, as seen through the eyes of the stranger, in this case a martian named Martin.

Martin would like to get home to Mars, but he can't quite get the formula right for the fuel for his flying saucer, which is currently hidden in the garage of Tim O'Hara, the newspaper reporter who is the only human who is in on "Uncle Martin" secret.

When the fuel formula gets mistaken for soup and "spiced up" with onions, pepper, and ketchup, the result is, well, not what Martin had been hoping for.

So it's on to plan B: Hitch a ride on a rocket that the space program is sending to Mars. All Martin has to do is to convince the rocket scientists that he would make a better pilot than DAN (Dyno-Automated Navigator), the space program robot who is scheduled to make the flight.

There is a really blatant instance of lazy writing at one point where Martin is thinking "This will take some fast talking to convince them.", and then instead of actually showing the dialogue, the next panel skips to the scientists being convinced with a caption that reads "After some fast talking..."

But other than that, the plot flows pretty well, and even though the reason for Martin failing to return to Mars ends up being pretty absurd, it's absurd in an amusing way that is in keeping with the flavor of the show.

Backup features are a pair of b/w gag strips that I believe are reprints from the My Favorite Martian newspaper strip. Both were funny for what they were. There are also some photos from the TV show included.

This was amusing and nostalgic, which was pretty much the point.

Rating: 6.5/10