Fresh from news that ’90s animation stalwart, Rocko is coming back for a very modern TV special, where he has to contend with all the weirdass blessing and curses of modern life, comes the welcome announcement that the humorously well-intentional but life-inept wallaby from O-Town is being given a series of comics.
Premiering 6 December from Boom! Studios’ Kaboom! imprint, the series will be written “by Ryan Ferrier (Kong on the Planet of the Apes, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers) [with] art by Ian McGinty (Adventure Time, Bravest Warrior) and backup stories by illustrators like KC Green (Invader Zim, that wonderful This is Fine dog), David DeGrand (SpongeBob Comics), and Tony Millionaire (Sock Monkey). (source: io9)
Refreshingly Rocko and his friends, Heffer (a steer), Filburt (a turtle) and the Bigheads (a pair of cane toads), won’t have changed all that much from their ’90s incarnations although there will be a modern twist to things and a little more introspection that an animated TV show allows, notes Ferrier and McGinty in a piece in The Los Angeles Times:
“The linchpin of the series is kind of how Rocko hasn’t really advanced much. That [sounds] very grim, but it’s also very funny too.
“In a comic you can kind of unpack characters’ motivations a little bit more than in a cartoon because a cartoon is so fast,” McGinty said. “‘Rocko’s Modern Life’ characters actually had weirdly complex personalities, and that’s what I’m looking forward to exploring a lot more.”
Given that approach it sounds like, sensibly, that the comics will mesh neatly with the 2018 reboot movie, the two working together to bring Rocko back to life in a thoroughly fun, clever, and yes of course, modern way.
