Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Muppet Show #4

The Muppet Show #4 of 4
Boom! Kids Comics
Langridge

Roger Langridge wraps up his four issue look at the Muppet Show this week with a case study of Miss Piggy. As we’ve seen in the previous three issues, the character has a small plot built around them to showcase their personality mixed in with various Muppet Show skits which don’t always have to do with overall dilemma of the main character. This month’s effort is very good because the plot that is created for Piggy also manages to hook in plenty of the other characters giving the comic some depth. I also found the comic to have more subtle humor during the character’s interactions. I definitely enjoyed this comic a lot and it might be my favorite of the four.

The issue opens with Scooter and Kermit debate who to have on as the main guest. The humor here is the creative names they spew out like Kim Jarrey of Ace Fedora Hat Detective fame. They eventually settle on a psychic named Madame Rhonda.

Madame Rhonda proceeds to tell the various Muppet cast members their fortunes while she steals money from them. Her con artist tricks have Muppets mostly feeling great about their futures while they don’t realize they are being had. Piggy, though, finds her fortune to be frightening as she is told she’ll be parting with something green. She takes this to mean Kermit and not the cash. This sends her into a panic as she finds new levels of paranoia while spying on Kermit.

The comic has some excellent skits, like Sam the Eagle, Veterinarian’s Hospital, Talking Houses and the constant staple; Pigs in Space. For the most part, Madame Rhonda stays out of the skits as she is working the Muppets behind the scenes. However, some of the skits do deal with mind reading skills to keep the general theme.

Eventually, Piggy begins to put things together and all is returned to the normal status quo.

The comic is very good for a few reasons. First of all, the plot is a good one because the con artist hits up so many Muppets that we have the focus of attention bounce around putting a ton of personalities on display. Secondly, the skits manage to entertain without having to involve the overall plot, but giving some humor and a break in the fortune telling scam. This technique worked really well to show some time lapsing as more and more Muppets make their way in to have their fortune’s read. Finally, the comic works well because it shows all the sides of Piggy that you’d expect to see. You see her feelings for Kermit, her vanity complex, her anger, her distrust of outsiders and her love of entertaining. This comic really nails her entire array of emotions very well.

The art is again excellent. Langridge is known as an excellent cartoonist and you can see why. He’s made to draw the Muppets. He captures so many of the skits perfectly as well as showing off their proper facial expressions. All you need to do is check how well he does with the Muppet Labs skit. He hit all the right characteristics with Honeydew and Beaker. The art just couldn’t encompass the Muppets any more than it does in this comic.

Miss Piggy had her day in the sun this issue and it was terrific. A simple plot that allows many, many Muppets to get some involvement, all while running an excellent isolation look at the complexity of Miss Piggy. This might be the last of this mini series but with issues like this it sure would be a shame to not continue the momentum of good storytelling that’s presented in this comic.

4 out of 5 geek goggles