Ron Randall's Trekker

Recently, I was trying to remember how many creator-owned comics from the 1980s are still being produced today, still being created by their original creators. I could only remember a handful, and I was embarrassed to see that not only had I forgotten quite a number of them, like Mage by Matt Wagner and Elfquest by Wendy and Richard Pini, but they were all titles I am still buying and reading. What prompted this question? The launch of a new Kickstarter campaign to bring the latest volume of Ron Randall’s Trekker into print. I’ve enjoyed Ron Randall’s work since his early days, on a science fiction backup in the pages of DC’s Warlord, called The Barren Earth. And I’ve been a fan of his series Trekker, featuring a female bounty hunter in the future, since it first appeared in Dark Horse Comics Presents #4, from 1987. Seeing new stories coming out today, over 30 years later, makes me extremely happy, and I want to share some of that joy with you.

I remember those heady early days of Dark Horse Comics, when they were getting attention for their comics based on Aliens (perhaps the first movie-tie-in comics to be treated really seriously), as well as creator-owned series like Paul Chadwick’s Concrete, Chris Warner’s Black Cross, and, of course, Trekker. At the time, I hadn’t recognized how groundbreaking Trekker actually was. I always liked stories with strong female characters, and I liked science fiction, and I liked comics, and I liked Ron Randall’s art. Plus, the stories were featured in Dark Horse Comics, which I was buying anyway for Concrete. So reading it was kind of a gimme. 

What I didn’t notice at the time was that Mercy St Clair (“Trekker” is the name given to licensed bounty hunters in the future city of New Gelaph) wore clothes, including a top that completely covered her torso and arms, and pants that went all the way down. And they were drawn to look a little loose on her, rather than painted onto her body. I didn’t notice that Mercy works on her own. Sometimes she teams up with a male Trekker or cop, but she is never subordinate to him. I didn’t notice that, while she has a romantic life, the stories aren’t about that. I never noticed any of that, because it all just seemed natural. Looking back on the series, I now see how different from almost every other female-led series of the time Trekker was.

The first appearance of Scuf!

I haven’t read a lot about the creation of the series, but I know that it came about because Dark Horse offered Randall the opportunity to create whatever series he wanted. While it would be enough that he created a science fiction series featuring a strong female character, he also deserves credit for developing a genre series that encompasses a great deal of versatility. 

Space Western!

The initial story is very much a future crime noir, introducing us to Mercy, her supporting cast, and the setting of New Gelaph. Honestly, Randall accomplishes more in those first 24 pages than many series establish in 6 issues. However, once everything is put in place, he almost immediately follows it up with a story that is almost a Western, with Mercy pursuing a bounty out into the wilderness. Later stories embrace the space opera genre, with Mercy hopping from planet to planet, trying to stop the use of a sci-fi super weapon. 

Amidst all the action, there’s room for quieter stories as well. We get glimpses into Mercy’s personal life: her relationships with her uncle (a New Gelaph cop), her best friend Molly, who works in a music shop, and the cop she is dating, Paul. We even see the affection she has for her pet, Scuf, who is adorable. Everyone, even Mercy, has grown and developed over the course of the series. While giving us hints about Mercy’s background, Randall wisely waits a while before showing us extensive flashbacks into her past: like most people, Mercy’s “origin story” consists of a series of events and incidents throughout her entire life leading her to become the person that she is today.

These pages feel very Al Williamson to me.

If I had to describe the appeal of Trekker, it would be that it’s a series of entertaining, pulpy science fiction stories told in a classic style reminiscent of Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Star Wars, and the work of Al Williamson and Wally Wood, but with a contemporary approach to character and world-building. Randall has created a complex, three-dimensional world that allows for a series of varied and yet consistent adventures, and peopled that world with equally three-dimensional characters that live and breathe on their own. As a reader, I care about these people, and want to read more about them and their world. 

Look at all that stuff in the background!

While I have been a fan of Trekker since the beginning, and have read each new story as it came out, it was only rereading the earlier (pre-2013) comics, collected in Dark Horse’s Trekker Omnibus, that I appreciated the development of Ron Randall as a creator. The early stories are fantastic. The art and story and characters work together perfectly to build a complete portrait of Mercy St. Clair and her world. But the first Dark Horse color special, Sins of the Fathers, seems to represent a bit of a turning point. Randall’s art becomes a bit cleaner, with the backgrounds a little less crowded with detail, and the storytelling becomes a bit less ornate and more straightforward and clear. This story also features the first extended look at Mercy’s past, and really feels like it lets the characters breathe. 

Pages from Sins of the Fathers. Note the cleaner look to the art and storytelling.

I always find it interesting to step back and view the development of artists whose work I’ve been following for years. Because the changes in Randall’s work were gradual, it never really struck me until I had this chance to read it all at once. Similarly, because—after the first six issue series ended—Trekker stories appeared somewhat sporadically, some of the story-to-story character development had been lost on me. Reading the stories together in the omnibus gave me the opportunity to appreciate the depth of Mercy’s world to a greater degree.

Fortunately, in the 21st century, Trekker has been appearing a lot more regularly. Randall began posting the original stories as web comics in 2011. Once those were all available in 2013, he continued on with new material, and is currently putting up a new page every week. The comics are available to read for free at TrekkerComic.com, so you don’t have to take my word for how great Trekker is. You can check it out for yourself.

The first three pages from the new (2013) stories

I try not to complain about the current state of comics, because there’s not really much to complain about. If there’s something I’m looking for in a comic book, I can probably find it if I look hard enough. And if there’s something I don’t like, I just don’t buy or read it. 

I’m less charitable about comics fandom, which seems to be dominated by a faction of loud whiners. These are “fans” who seem to have reduced comics to only Marvel and DC superhero comics, and even then they only seem to want their Marvel and DC superhero comics to read exactly like they did whenever those readers started reading them. They claim they want to read stories about the characters exactly the way they remember them, not changed versions of them (which, really, is going to be the case with characters who have been having monthly adventures for at least the past 50 years anyway) but they don’t want to read the same old stories, either. They want to see consistency in storytelling and creative teams. They want to see the stories treated as one big, long consistent saga. Again, to expect this from series that have been running for 50 years or more, is, quite frankly, only going to end in frustration.

However, if fans are looking for comic book series that represents a single, consistent vision from a single, consistent voice, there are plenty of creator-owned comics still being published, some for decades. There’s books like Mage, and Elfquest, and Mister X, and Love & Rockets, and Groo the Wanderer, and Usagi Yojimbo, and Astro City, and so many more. And, of course, Ron Randall’s Trekker, still going strong after 30 years, all produced entirely by Ron Randall. (Well, all except for one story written by him but drawn by Dave Dorman and Lurene Haines. But if you’re going to have a fill-in artist, Dave Dorman is a fine choice.)

If you're going to have a fill-in artist, it might as well be one of the few comics stories by Dave Dorman.

As I mentioned in the beginning, Randall launched a Kickstarter campaign this past Tuesday to get the next book of Trekker into print. (The Trekker Omnibus and two collections of the newer material are all available from InStockTrades.com and other retailers.) I had planned on writing this blog to help him reach his goal, but the campaign blew past that in like 36 hours. So clearly, I am not the only one excited about this series. However, they haven’t quite reached their first stretch goal, which is to include another 24-page story in the book that has also never seen print. As I write this, they have less than $2000 to go to hit that goal. Anything I can do to help spread the word, I’ll do.

Besides, the title of this blog is This Makes Me Happy because I want to write about things that make me happy. I was bound to get around to writing about Trekker sooner or later; the Kickstarter campaign just motivated me to do it sooner.

This week’s Pop! of the Week is another two-fer: Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo from Mystery Science Theater 3000. 

I’ve been a fan of MST3K since Steve Bennett introduced me to it back in it’s second or third season on Comedy Central. I’ve stuck with it through the Sci-Fi Channel years, and backed their Kickstarter to bring it back to (ultimately) Netflix. I never in my life would have expected MST3K toys, but they’re here, and I’ve got them. And they’re adorable.

That’s it for this week! See you next week!