Space Ghost #1: Back Together Again

A “dialogue heavy issue” can mean many things. And indeed, Space Ghost #1 contains a lot of dialogue as Jace and Jan deal with a grandfather they don’t know but who has thrust himself into their life. The extended conversation between the three characters, and the lack of any dynamic art accompanying it, has the potential to keep this first issue from building any momentum. Pepose and Lau set out to keep that from happening in Space Ghost #1.

Pepose’s challenge in Space Ghost #1 is to fill in new readers while not overloading them with extraneous information or boring old readers with an extended info dump that brings the story to a halt. An easy solution, which Pepose employs, is to tell two stories in parallel. Space Ghost fights the Toymaker while Jace and Jan talk to their grandfather. He also frequently delivers portions of Jace and Jan’s dialogue in caption boxes set against the action story arc featuring Space Ghost and Blip. On multiple occasions Pepose is able to thematically tie together what the kids are saying with what is going on in Space Ghost and Blip’s story thread. Finally, Peopse is able to infuse the conversation between the kids and their grandfather with an undercurrent of menace–a sense that the grandfather will attempt to separate the kids from Space Ghost. This begins almost immediately as the kids’ grandfather opines on how if Space Ghost found this discussion important, he would have been present.

The fight between Toymaker and Space Ghost will resonate differently with different readers. In and of itself it is entertaining, especially in those moments where Blip the monkey is providing crucial assistance in the fight. New readers are likely to place greater importance on the conflict because it is the first opportunity to see Space Ghost in action. Particularly fun are the various ways Toymaker fights. Shuffling Space Ghost and his reality like a deck of cards and trapping him in the Slaytopia House of Mirrors are just two of the unusual methods Toymaker employs. Established readers are likely to also feel the conspicuous absence of Jace and Jan, made even more acute thanks to how Pepose overlaps their dialogue on Space Ghost’s sequences.

As entertaining as fight sequences are, though, Space Ghost #1’s highlight is the issue-long conversation between Jace, Jan, and their grandfather. The vast majority of their discussion is Jace and Jan trying to communicate the importance of their relationship with Space Ghost. Pepose hits on the emotional truth behind everything the kids say. It’s a very effective piece of writing that elevates the issue beyond the worst possibility: an extended fight sequence with limited character development and a “previously on…” component.

Lau’s art contributes heavily to making these Jace and Jan sequences work. Indeed, his work in the closeup panels sells much of the emotion behind the corresponding dialogue. In previous Space Ghost issues, Lau generally avoided accentuating Jace and Jan’s features with shading, even in closeups. When he did use shading it was minimal and light. In Space Ghost #1 he uses slightly thicker lines for Jace and Jan’s mouths, eyes, and so on. Patches of short lines, sometimes almost in a crosshatch, add extra dimension to the kids in closeup. The result is that Jace and Jan’s expressions are more nuanced overall and add weight to everything they’re telling their grandfather about their connection to Space Ghost.

Space Ghost, on the other hand, is basically the same in appearance as previous issues. Lau continues to use shading very effectively to showcase the character’s overall size, thus implying his power. Established readers will not be surprised by this, but it can be informative for new readers.

Dalhouse’s color choices contribute to the heavy contrast between the Jace and Jan sequence and the Space Ghost sequence. Dalhouse’s work is as bombastic as Lau’s during the Space Ghost sequence. At times whole pages feel explosive with the varied color palette and high levels of contrast between the colors and their corresponding shades. Space Ghost’s white costume always pops off the page as a result, a kind of beacon in the chaos.

Jace and Jan’s scenes, though, are quiet in color just as they are narratively and artistically. Dalhouse uses a very limited color palette, primarily composed of shades of blue and green. With the exception of the characters’ fleshtone, there is no real color contrast in these scenes. It’s a vivid but somehow static environment and one that established readers are not accustomed to seeing Jace and Jan in.

Those quiet Jace and Jan sequences leave Esposito with a lot of text to deal with. Not only does it fill panels in their scenes, but it spills over in caption boxes into Space Ghost’s scenes (which aren’t light on text themselves). Esposito does an incredible job keeping the dialogue bubbles and caption boxes as out of the way as possible. In many cases this means confining them to the edges of panels. At other times it means slipping them further into the panels, in spots between significant art. In some cases Esposito is even able to run the text bubbles and captions in vaguely vertical patterns, making them easy to track down the page, almost using them as pointers for the exciting art surrounding them. It’s no easy feat because many pages could easily become a disorganized jumble.