Bad Planet
Written By: Tom Jane and Steve Niles
Published by: Raw Studios
ASIN: B004S2XUPI
Where to buy:
Amazon, Raw Studios Store, and other fine book retailersPublisher’s Comments:
Throughout the Cosmos, there is a term, a combination of two simple words, spoken in over 40 million dialects which bring fear to countless living species. It is a phrase of warning, of dread, of imminent and ancient destruction. Entire civilizations have fallen under the label and disappeared from existence like a wisp of smoke on the solar wind. Now Earth itself has been designated by these two deadly words and we can only pray for a quick and painless end to everything we have ever known. Welcome to Earth . . . The next BAD PLANET. 3D section in Super-Terror 3D! Glasses included.
Hello readers,
Today I am proud to present minion Heather Royston’s review of the comic book Bad Planet written by Thomas Jane (yes, that Thomas Jane) and Steve Niles with artwork by one of my all-time favorites, Tim Bradstreet.
I hadn’t heard of this before (apparently I live under a rock) but now that I’ve read Heather’s review I know that I need to pick up a copy — because this just sounds way too fun.
Without any further ado, take it away, Heather!
-Marc
So a few years ago when I heard that Steve Niles, Tom Jane, and Tim Bradstreet were starting a new company and putting out comics together, I thought it was too much awesome to exist. Then I got Bad Planet and I was proven wrong. So very, very wrong. Bad Planet is everything about the horror and Sci-Fi genres that I missed out on growing up. Reading the single issues, I imagined that what I was experiencing was what it would be like to see the old drive-in movies. It was exactly the right mix of action, gore, schlock, and drama. I laughed, I cried, I threw up in my mouth a little. There was even a 3D issue! It was perfect. Then it was over, here and gone again in the blink of an eye. Until the day I received a package from the Editor Overlords containing a copy of the oversized trade paperback…
Bad Planet is a story that definitely holds up to multiple reads. The ride just gets more and more fun every time. The story is about a meteor that crashes on Earth and turns out to be a containment vessel for the worst kinds of critters in the galaxy. They overrun the planet in no time; and there is no shortage of carnage. As a matter of fact, the Earth is overtaken so quickly that the rest of the universe labels us a “Bad Planet” and we are written off as beyond hope.
Except by one.
A prisoner in a maximum security galactic prison hears a transmission about the incident and promptly stages a jailbreak and heads straight for Earth. There he meets our main human characters — two scientists and a small boy from an African village with a talent for technology. Together they stage a resistance and come up with a plan to save the planet and all that reside upon it. The inventions of Nikola Tesla play a huge role in this, and I love seeing him pop up in places so this tickled me to no end. I won’t go into what happens, but suffice it to say that it is spectacular and that it left me satisfied but with a longing for more.
The artwork is even better in this oversized edition; the details really shine in the larger pages. The 3D section appears to have been slightly redone, and as a person who has a hard time focusing on 3D images (I have really bad eyes) I found it much easier to see the action this time around, and boy was it worth it!
There is a huge “Art of Bad Planet” section containing concept art, rough sketches, pencils-to-finished examples of covers, and fan art. There are even pictures of a balsa wood glider that was used as a Raw Studios promotional item (I’d give my right eye for one of those!). This was probably my favorite section as there are some amazing artists involved with this book, and getting to see their work in all its stages was just too cool. The best part was the last few pages which were part of a Bad Planet script from Tom Jane and Steve Niles (some of the descriptors used were flat out hysterical, especially when it came to the creatures) and an interview with Tom Jane, James Daly, and Tim Bradstreet about the book. I loved having that little bit of insight about the process of creating something this crazy and amazing.
I also was lucky enough to receive a special edition Bad Planet: Apocrypha issue. This will be the first issue in a second series (which I hear is currently in production!) taking place in the aftermath of the first series. It flowed very well from the end of the last issue and I’m tearing my hair out from anticipation to see what happens next.
Final Thoughts:
Bad Planet is a book that no one should miss out on. It takes all the right ingredients from the genres, mixes them in a bowl of laughter, adds a dash of classic drive in, and bakes them in to a delicious funny book pie. I give Bad Planet 5 out of 5 tentacles and recommend that everyone pass their plate forward for a slice.
Heather Royston, Minion/Reviewer
