Don’t get me wrong, I love Spaceballs as much as the next guy, but my favorite Star Wars parody is a much deeper cut. Back in the 1980s, there was an explosion in independent comics. Developed as an alternative to DC and Marvel’s mainstream superhero comics, these books spanned every genre, from gritty action comics like Grimjack to absurd comedies like The Flaming Carrot. A good lot of them were also what’s known as “funny animal comics,” a term that really just applies to anthropomorphized animals, which were only sometimes comedic. The best-known example is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but there were also properties like Usagi Yojimbo, a series about a samurai rabbit that’s still running today, and still independently owned by creator Stan Sakai.
In that vein of independent funny animal comics was one that was actually quite funny: Ken Mitchroney and Mark Cantell’s five-issue series Space Ark.
The comic is about the crew of a ship called the Space Ark, which is part of the Fur-Bearing Alliance. Called “FURBALL” for short, the Fur-Bearing Alliance is basically an organization of galactic police officers organized into small crews. It primarily consists of mammals, though not entirely.
The Space Ark is run by a mostly incompetent crew led by egotistical fox Captain Stone. There’s also a self-important science officer owl named Dr. Whoot and a dog named Barker who appears to have navigational duties, but mostly just obsesses over food. The ship’s engineer is a cigar-chomping degenerate gambler named Brooklyn, whose assistant is a snake named Slinx. The first mate is Kitty, the only one who seems to know what she’s doing. Finally, there’s Boltz, a non-speaking all-purpose droid that performs much of the crew’s busywork and janitorial duties (albeit poorly).
Each story is a silly standalone adventure in outer space. The first issue sees the Space Ark do battle with the Bucoids, a disgusting race of mucus-y aliens. Issue two makes Captain Stone into a bit of a lothario, trying to woo a bunch of female space cats. Issue 3, my favorite, is all about Brooklyn losing a ton of money at an outer space horse track. Issue 4 has Boltz getting replaced by a villainous robot. Finally, the fifth issue sees the Space Ark pulled into a big galactic war. Sadly, those five issues, which spanned from 1985 until 1988, were it for Space Ark, aside from an eight-page crossover in the back of Usagi Yojimbo issue #22 from 1990.
That crossover is actually how I found out about Space Ark to begin with. Back when I was in high school, my first job was at a comic shop, and I used my employee discount to try and catch up on as many issues of Usagi Yojimbo as I could. That’s when I found that backup story and recognized the name of Ken Mitchroney, my favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles artist from when I was a kid.
Mitchroney was one of the main artists on the Archie Comics-published title Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, and I loved his style, as it brought a more elastic, Looney Tunes-like sensibility to the Turtles. When I found out about Space Ark, I did what I could to locate the books, though it took me a few years — they weren’t exactly easy to find. The same is true today, though occasionally the issues, which have not been reprinted, will pop up on eBay. While I have no idea how many copies were printed back in the ‘80s, I do know that the first two issues of Space Ark, which were in full color, were printed by AC Comics out of Florida, while the latter three issues were printed by Apple Comics out of Connecticut, neither of which were huge publishing houses.
What I liked — and continue to like — about Space Ark is the full embrace of that classic Looney Tunes sensibility, with no regard for logic or physics. For example, there’s a great gag where Brooklyn tries to stop Boltz from entering the ship, but Boltz simply pulls down on Brookyln’s shirt, releases it, and Brooklyn gets wrapped up like a window shade.
It’s also full of my favorite kinds of topical gags: really, really dated ones (even back then). The book opens with a reference to comedian Shecky Green, who was big in the 1950s and 1960s. There is also a ridiculous gag where, to disguise the ship, the Space Ark is dressed as Groucho Marx.
With its setting being a spaceship that gets tangled up in all kinds of high-stakes space battles, Space Ark is clearly a loving parody of both Star Wars and Star Trek. When I first got the comic, though, it most reminded me of the classic Chuck Jones Looney Tunes short Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century. Space Ark was like an ongoing Duck Dodgers series done a couple of decades before Cartoon Network actually made exactly that. Duck Dodgers was a parody of Buck Rogers, a sci-fi hero who originated in 1929 in newspaper strips, and directly inspired Star Wars. There seems to be some Buck Rogers influence on Space Ark as well, particularly with the adventurous Captain Stone.
Despite how adventurous the crew of the Space Ark was, they only ever got those few adventures. I’m not quite sure why issue #5 was the last one, as it even teases the next issue at the end, but Mitchroney got pretty busy with Ninja Turtles in the late 1980s, and in the 1990s he went on to work for Pixar.
That said, there seems to be something going on with the Space Ark property, as Mitchroney has been teasing some kind of revival on his Instagram over the past few months. He showed himself cleaning up the original comics, possibly for republication, and he references what sounds like a potential animated series. What comes of it remains to be seen, but I welcome Space Ark’s return in any form. As far as I’m concerned, that kind of unapologetically silly, Looney Tunes-inspired brand of comedy is in short supply nowadays.
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