#4

Safe and sound on the Pragmatic, Orson proceeds with plans for Barbara's court martial. Snikt inexplicably serves as prosecutor, drinking heavily throughout the trial. Lip pleads the defense, and falls in love with Barbara, as if you couldn't see that coming. As the trial concludes, the ship unexpectedly lurches into warp drive again, heading into deep space...

...and into the frightening frontier of self publishing; this was Ken and Anthony's last handmade issue. This installment is intimidatingly filled with teensy pictures and big word balloons filled with itty-bitty type, but don't let that fool you; this may be the funniest issue of Spaced - The Captain Pike parody has put people in the hospital! The script for this issue was so rich that even after severe editing, it was still dense enough to require averaging 8 panels a page; I still think it would make a great live action piece. I can say that because I had a co-author, therefore it isn't vain. Right? Well, whatever.

#5

Lip goes hull-walking in an attempt to fix the Pragmatic's antenna--look, have you ever seen 2001? It's the old crazy-computer story. God tries to whack Lip since he's in love with Barbara, which just screws up everybody's day--Oh, and then the Pragmatic crash lands on a strange planet.

No longer printed by hand on beautiful white paper, this marked the beginning of Spaced's attempts to look more like a "normal" independent, including the modified and repositioned logo. I had decided to smack the Pragmatic into a planet because I was sick and tired of trying to draw hallways and all sorts of boring and difficult mechanical things. Looking at it now, I can actually see my drawings transform from thick and cluttered to a more open and illustrative style in the last 5 pages. Of course it wouldn't be long before I was sick of drawing trees...

#6

Orson and Barbara explore the new planet In Search Of Lip, who was thrown from ship and is lost in the alien wilderness. Lip meets Potato Head, an all-eyes-and-mouth life form whose primitive language sounds strikingly like doo-wop music. All are pursued, and in fact captured by the foul smelling Smerks, who look strikingly like smurfs with bad personal hygiene .

One of the best looking issues, and introduces the very popular and extremely fun to draw Potato Head. No doubt if I tried this today Disney'd sue my ass off, forcing me to call him Spud Dome or something. Potato Head would stick around for the rest of the series; not so for the Smerks. I took a LOT of heat for introducing a smurfs/elfquest/hobbit parody, for everyone had decided to spoof them simultaneously. And it is such an easy target. John and I quickly turned the Smerks into muppet parodies in the following issue, which is one of my favorite stories...