It ain’t easy being green.
In a town that worships gold and concrete, you stick out like a fresh bruise: too alive for the pavement, too honest for the smoke.
It’s Time to Play the Music
It is 15 minutes to curtain for the Muppet Show. Backstage, it is sheer chaos, as you would expect. Kermit the Frog is trying to wrangle his motley group of performers while also trying to come up with a new show for the next season. It is not going well. He even snaps at Miss Piggy when she tries to offer him a slice of pie. Then there is the piccolo-eating panda.
Needless to say, there is a lot going on. Kermit needs a break before he has a froggy aneurysm. Scooter takes him off to the side to rest for a few minutes. He plops down in a comfy chair and starts to read a few pages of a Rip Marlin noir novel. Then he gets hit in the head with a stray brick. Gonzo always told him to never read if he was not wearing a crash helmet.
This is just the first four pages. Like I said, there is a lot going on here. Thanks to the possible concussion, Kermit is now getting some much-needed shut-eye. He dreams about himself as a Private Investigator, Flip Minnow. He even does his own noir voiceover narration. Flip is hired by the Queen of Pies, Dolores Crustworth, to find her missing niece Meringue. She bears a striking resemblance to Miss Piggy, if you ask me.
There is even a musical number in a printed comic book. After leaving her place, Flip decides to eliminate the obvious option first. He asks a stranger clad in a trench coat and hat for directions to the police morgue. They look a little bit like Meringue and Miss Piggy. Flip finds his investigation brings him across the paths of Officer O’Bear, Razzles the Coroner, the ticketing-happy Officer Eagle, and night club operator Gonzini. Each answer that Flip gets leads to more questions. The deeper he gets into the investigation, the more Flip feels a kind of kinship with the missing Meringue. Be careful, Flip. In your line of work, feelings like that can be a liability.
It’s Time to Light the Lights
If you love the Muppets, then you will love this book. It is that easy. Having a love for, or at least a passing knowledge of, noir tropes would add to your enjoyment, but it is far from necessary. The way the book captures the chaotic energy of the Muppets on the printed page is nothing short of impressive. The fact that there is a musical number sounds so weird, but it works so well.
The actual mystery is nothing special. It really just checks the standard boxes of the genre. However, the importance is not the story here. It is about the characters, the strange situations you find them in, and the gags. There are so many gags. There are so many sight gags, background bits, and wild dialogues that I had to read the issue twice before I sat down to write this. I wanted to make sure I caught at least most of them, and I am sure I still missed a few.
One of my favorite bits is at the Alexandrian Bistro. It is a diner named after the famous library where the patrons are all there to read. Because of this, the place is deathly silent. They still have a pianist, even though he does not play anything. They keep him because if they did not, the place would look cheap. That is a classic Muppet gag right there. There is even an EERIE SILENCE sound effect when Flip and Officer O’Bear first enter the room.
This is one of those books where I am struggling to find things to say without gushing way too much or giving away all the good bits. Much like being green, it is not easy.
It’s Time to Put on Makeup
One-man band Roger Langridge is the writer, artist, and letterer for this Muppet Show production. He’s no stranger to licensed properties, having done books based on Betty Boop, Labyrinth, Doctor Who, Garfield, and so many more. His far-too-short-lived Thor, the Mighty Avenger is still one of my favorites takes on the character, and I recommend it to anyone who will listen.
As far as the writing side of things, I’ve already gushed about the gags more than enough. The characterization is perfect, everyone sounds exactly like they should. The staging sequence (no pun intended) at the Muppet Theater perfectly encapsulates the chaos of what backstage at a huge show like this must be like, multiplied by a factor of “Muppet.” The actual plot of the dream sequence is nothing special, but the noir-style narration works really well, and the different takes on the various characters are creative and often hilarious.
On the art side of things, everything works so well. Everyone looks exactly like they should, and they still retain their inherent puppet-ness, if that makes sense. They don’t look like they’re made of felt, but Langridge didn’t try to make them look “realistic,” either. The visual gags are all over the place (I love the number of times Flip is right next to Meringue and doesn’t notice, thanks to a mustache or other small visual change). And Gonzo - sorry, Gonzini - gets shot out of a cannon through a wall. Gotta have that in there.
Dearbhla Kelly is our colorist, and overall, her work fits the tone and the artwork perfectly. There’s a little bit of a filter over everything that adds to that noir feel, and a lot of the various backgrounds are rendered in grayscale to add to that effect. If I had a complaint, it’s that the colors in the Muppet Theater framing sequence should be brighter and not have the noir filter on them, since that part is taking place in the “real” world. But in the grand scheme, that’s just peanuts.
It’s Time to Dress Up Right
Run, don’t walk, to the nearest comic shop and ask for a copy of Muppets Noir #1. Tell them I sent you. They’ll reply, “Who?” and then charge you regular price, but at least you’ll walk out with a copy of the book. And it will be worth it.
It’s not always an easy feat to convert a property from medium to another. Oftentimes, something gets lost in the transition. That’s what it makes it so impressive how this book is able to capture the rapid-fire, chaotic pace of the Muppet Show while still telling its own story and establishing its own identity. Too often in licensed comics, it just misses the mark in terms of what made the original work. Here, I could hear the characters’ voices in my head (the classic ones, of course), hear music, feel the energy… against all odds, the whole thing just works.
When you look at the cold, hard facts, Muppets Noir #1 is an absolute blast of a comic book. Any book that can include a musical number, and make it work, is aces in my book. The characterization is on point, the noir plot is true to the genre but still retains that Muppet feel, and the rapid-fire barrage of jokes and sight gags hit way more times than they miss.