Hey! Kid's comics!

I've waited to post something about those new "Star Wars" DVDs for two reasons. 1) I'm lazy, and 2) I wanted to deliver something new, something that would be interesting yet related, and that's not easy when you're talking about movies that came out almost 30 years ago.

At first, I thought of linking to the notorious X-rated Threepio trading card, or writing something about the legendary 1978 holiday special. But even those obscurities have been endless reviewed and rehashed in cyberspace. You're sick of hearing about them. I'm sick of hearing about them. I wanted to post something new, something you hadn't seen before.

Well, I found it. And I hope you appreciate it. Because it's pretty damned embarrassing.

First, a bit of background (because, as frighteningly extensive as comics history gets on the Web, it never touches on this): Like many funny book fans, I made my own comic books as a kid. Unlike most, I took it to the extreme, creating a whopping 64 issues of FROG between 1978 and 1983. Frog was my version of an action hero, and I was a child of 1970s pop culture. He was a cop in Los Angeles (though it snowed in my version of the city, especially in the series' pair of Christmas issues), carried a laser, drove a flying car with a big F on the side and happened to be bionic. Hey, it was the '70s. Everything was bionic.

Anyhow, after I saw "Star Wars," being a bionic cop with a laser and a flying car wasn't enough. He had to go into space, he had to have a robot, and he had to blow up a space station. I can't remember why I didn't immediately rip off "Star Wars" in the first issue (I'm sure I'd seen the movie by then), but by issue 6, the Force was with me. So here, for your edification and amusement, is a condensed version of my own "Star Wars" swipe, "Space Force Frog."

Please, be gentle.



Some cover, eh? As you can see, Frog was pretty much a regular guy, aside from being six feet tall and green. I think he was just fun (and easy!) to draw. The guy he’s facing is his arch-villain, Clyde Johnson, who never again wore that Darth Vader-ripoff helmet, but always wore that white hat with the black band (mostly so you could tell him apart from the other characters). I think I swiped that hat from "Bugsy Malone."

PS: Here’s a tip for young comic book artists: If you want to keep the identity of the masked villain (or, as I liked to say back then, “badguy”) a surprise, don’t reveal it on the cover. Like I just did.



On the first page, Frog enters the “modernized” Space Force building and gets his mission from a man dressed suspiciously like a poorly drawn version of Han Solo, with a mustache so we can tell him apart from everyone else. “Star Station with the ultimate in destruction rays”? Where have we heard that before?

And, as long as I’ve got Frog travelling through space in his own ship, why not swipe the “Luke practices his light saber” scene, and give him an R2-D2 rip-off while I’m at it? Why not indeed?



Here’s the thrilling sequence where Frog’s spaceship is sucked into the tractor beam. The fact that the “tractor beam” is really a giant vacuum cleaner with the word “HOOVER” on it is merely evidence that I was once a very devoted CRACKED reader. You gotta love that caption on the fourth panel, though.



Finally, after being imprisoned (“Darn! I’m in a cell!” he says) and escaping, Frog confronts the badguys, tipping over a big table (and spilling a drink, just as we saw on that cover!). Threatening that they'll all "get it," he demands to know who their leader is:



In the next panel, Clyde reveals that the helmet is really a "Jet escape controller," which, in a footnote, I helpfully told readers was abbreviated "J.E.C.". He flies away, jumping into a door labeled "CLYDE'S SHIP." Everything was on a first-name basis back then. It was a more innocent time.

Then, after pressing a button in his ship conveniently labeled "TRACTOR BEAM DESTROYER," Frog escapes from the space station. Remember how, after Luke, Han and the gang escaped the Death Star, a thrilling space battle took place? Same here, except there are more smoky explosions and the weapon on the villain's (excuse me, badguy's) ship is conveniently labeled "RAY."



After the Space Force saves Frog's bacon, they run out of ammo (huh?) and it's up to Frog to blow up the station. He does so with a single shot ("BALLOOEY") and finally heads home.

When he arrives (“in 2 hours,” as I felt the need to make clear), he finds his friends, Toad and Turtle (don’t ask) watching a movie (not a video – this was 1978, remember). And what movie was it? Do you even have to ask?




I think I used a version of the same “joke” every other issue. Always reliable for a last panel, and never even remotely funny. …unless you’re 11 years old.

So that's it. "Space Force Frog." Not the greatest science fiction epic you're likely to find, but it's still better than "Attack of the Clones." A few years later, in FROG #43, I ripped off the ice planet stuff from “Empire Strikes Back.” If anyone out there is dying to see it, let me know and I’ll be happy to humiliate myself again.

And hey -- may the Force be with you.