Spacetrawler Sequelitis

"Man steps in with a terminal grin
Blue skies turn to gray
Young men die
Children cry
Why is it always the same?
(Hang your head!)"

Devo - Some Things Never Change
 

One scene early in Spacetrawler's second full installment features Veff, a space pirate designed as an easy opening antagonist against whom the heroes can demonstrate their skills, returning to take revenge on them in his designated comically incompetent fashion. The author played up the humor in having Veff do a sitcom-style walk-on, blurting "hell-llllooooo!" to the deadpan weariness of the other cast members putting up with his antics. While it could've been a funny moment of whimsy, it dipped uncomfortably into self-parody in light of the sequel's more telegraphed, largely inconsequential plots and increasing reliance on running gags.

Christopher Baldwin has never been as popular as he deserves. His earliest major work, Bruno, while inspired and rather unique, was doggedly lacking in universal appeal if you ignored the occasional "artistic" boobies. After that he fell into running one project after another past critics with an eye toward syndication, and when one of those finally stuck he wound up writing a cutesy, mildly amusing family-friendly comic about a little girl lost in the woods with her animal friends, for several years.

The original run of Spacetrawler starting in 2010 marked a return to more interesting topics, a space opera centered mainly on character growth. It was also a surprising shift in subject matter for an author who'd never quite shown a taste for sci in his fi. Given Spacetrawler's success, it was somewhat less surprising that his two following webcomics followed suit: the more "young adult" oriented exploration story Anna Galactic and One Way, a first contact story which achieved the unusual feat of setting a stage play (restricted cast, props and environment) to comic panels. Given he backtracked after that to a Spacetrawler sequel, it's safe to assume those two projects didn't rake in the mega-bucks.* And the sequel... is a sequel, checkmarking superficial resemblances to the original while making no effort to rebuild its more substantive bits.

For one thing, while Spacetrawler never attempted any greater verisimilitude than the softest of soft SF, science fantasy for most purposes, the heroes in the first adventure were still bound by the limitations of outer space technology. Now, the new cast need only twitch their noses at a problem to solve it. In a single panel, with no need for preparation, the clever girl will pick any lock and steal any macguffin, the strong woman will intimidate any negotiation into a favorable outcome, the spring-tailed Pulcinello will slapstick any foe into submission, and let's not even get started on Magic Girl Sailor Eebongbong.

Unfortunately this lack of coherence or repercussions within their physical reality also makes them much less interesting. Much of the first cast's charm lay in their unpredictability. With the exception of Dusty, nothing about the way they were introduced could prepare fans for the trajectory of their development. Their replacements' inexplicable near-omnipotence instead yields a predictable routine of vacillating a few panels before saving the day via their singular superpower each and every time. Long before the halfway point, their adventures are sapped of any real tension and we're left with the tedious chore of watching them declare fee-fees at each other page after page, interspersed with a perfunctory press of the "I win" button here and there.

Which is not to say the sequel doesn't have its high points. Baldwin still pulls off a few triple-stacked punchlines ("Dude, is your mom.") and a decent amount of escalation. But still, the degeneration into sitcom drama and humor is unmistakable. Game-changing discoveries like telekinesis or dragon breath are simply taken at face value or glossed over in the rush to have characters elaborate on how they fheeeeeeeel about each other. Comic relief characters like Nogg or Zorilla, who were initially accorded at least a token share of dignity, are now reduced to the author's punching bags to a greater extent than even Dusty ever was. Plotlines are left dangling all over the place...

... and that's really the point. Because from all the effort the author sank into establishing characters and conflicts and the utter lack of effort he put into plots or interactions, it becomes apparent that this is only the beginning. Having supplied himself with innumerable plot threads, he can continue spinning Spacetrawler yarns for years to come, milking his cash cow for all it's worth. He's already started spinning them off with the Bikkie / Wezzle buddy comedy functioning as epilogue to the current series.
And it's working, if his quadruple-pledged Kickstarter to print this degradation of his own previous work can be taken as any indication.
And, I don't seem to have a problem with that, surprisingly enough, as long as getting paid for trashing one of his previous intellectual properties frees him up to begin experimenting again, as long as the endlessly reiterated, episodic, unchangeable Spacetrawler sitcom will be bankrolling more creative projects.

I'll just look forward to the next big thing.










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* Which is quite sad, because even though I wasn't crazy about Anna Galactic, I did think One Way deserved a better reception than it got at the hands of a public incapable of accepting anything other than a Hollywood happy ending.