Trekker: Chapeltown

Earlier this year, I wrote about Ron Randall’s Trekker, a longtime favorite science fiction series telling the adventures of Mercy St Clair, a future bounty hunter, or trekker. At the time, Randall was raising funds on Kickstarter to self-publish—for the first time—the latest volume in the series, Chapeltown. That campaign was a rousing success, and the resulting publication is a fine one indeed. He is currently raising funds for the next volume. That campaign blew past its initial goal in less than a day, so its success is already a sure thing. But the more money he raises, the nicer the book will be. So I thought this would be a good time to talk about Chapeltown, to help shine some more light on the series.

Spoilers after the jump; this book has a bunch of pretty drastic changes to the status quo of the characters, and I don’t think I can discuss the book effectively while trying to tiptoe around those.

While Chapeltown is the thirteenth Trekker story, as Randall has numbered them, and the book is the fourth collection, it is a good representation of the series as a whole. The book contains four stories. Over the course of those stories, we get a sense of the breadth of style and tone that Trekker (the series) encompasses.

The first story, The Volstock Payoff, takes place in Mercy’s home turf, the city of New Gelaph on Earth. It’s more of a future crime noir adventure, with the focus as much on a somewhat reluctant member of New Gelaph’s underworld as it is on Mercy. This tale showcases the depth of Mercy’s character; she isn’t a heartless mercenary just out for money, and she isn’t a self-righteous do-gooder who only sees morality in good vs evil/black vs white terms. Perhaps some of this is informed by the truths that she is learning about her mother, and the questions those truths have raised. Regardless, it’s an effective story that reminds us of the status quo before the next story upends it.

The second story is Chapeltown proper. Mercy says goodbye to New Gelaph and her friends, including her uncle, Alex, as she prepares to follow a lead off-planet to Chapeltown to find out more information about her mother. However, she’s not leaving alone. Not only will she have her pet, Scuf, along with her, but her best friend Molly completely surprises Mercy by saying that she will be coming along.  She knows that Mercy isn’t planning on returning to Earth, and isn’t prepared to say a permanent goodbye to her friend.

Chapeltown is like an old frontier town, and this allows Randall to tell what is essentially a Western with science fiction trappings. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this genre in the series, and part of me wants to see Ron Randall tackle a traditional western at some point. However, as his creation, Trekker is clearly the story he wants to tell, and I give him all the credit for creating a series with a broad enough scope that he can switch from a noir crime story like The Volstock Payoff to a western like Chapeltown, and they both fit completely comfortably as part of the same series.

Chapeltown introduces us to Sheriff Pell, and he and Mercy get off to an expectedly rough start. She needs information from a couple of suspects that Pell has in custody, and Pell doesn’t know or trust her enough to let her do whatever she wants. However, once those suspects are murdered, and Mercy and Pell’s interests are aligned, we get an exciting heroes vs the environment tale as they track the killer. 

As thrilling as the adventure part of the story is, the best is yet to come, as Mercy realizes that she has something in her life as important as her quest to learn about her mother: Molly.

That this ending comes as both a complete surprise and completely expected is a testament to the character-building that Randall has done over the course of this series. This is a relationship that feels like it has naturally developed since the very first time we saw Mercy and Molly together. It doesn’t feel exploitative and it doesn’t feel unnaturally grafted on. It just feels natural for these two characters, and it’s a development I applaud.

The third story, Hand of Kindness, focuses more on the supporting cast than it does Mercy. First, Randall touches base with the characters left behind on New Gelaph, and I hope this means that we haven’t seen the last of Lasmusi or Uncle Alex. He also reminds us that the mysterious Council is pursuing Mercy, and I feel pretty sure that’s a storyline we’’ll see more about in the future. 

Then we see Molly and Sheriff Pell meeting up, and get some of Molly’s perspective on the latest events in her life. Randall does some subtle storytelling with Molly in particular here, both in body language and expression, truly showing instead of telling. Pell agrees to help Molly unlock the data sphere Mercy retrieved in the previous story. Of course, Mercy ultimately gets involved, but Randall roots this story much more in character than action. Here, he sheds more light on the characters and their new relationships, as well as setting things up for the next book.

The final tale in this book is a short adventure called “Tricks of the Trade.” This is a bit more of a curiosity; while a perfectly serviceable Trekker adventure, it also showcases a group of high-level Kickstarter backers whose pledge rewards included being drawn into a story as Trekkers alongside Mercy. As such. the story exists more to showcase each contributor in turn, but it also works as a fun story. Plus, it involves cats, so I’m satisfied.

(Honestly, if I had unlimited funds, I would have supported either this book or the new one at a level that got me included in a story.)

Randall rounds out the collection with behind the scenes sketches and other features, including commissions and sketches he has done over the years. Overall, it’s another great collection in a great series.

As I mentioned at the beginning, Randall is currently running a new Kickstarter campaign for the next book in the Trekker series: The Darkstar Zephyr. The campaign passed its initial goal in the first day, and is headed towards its second stretch goal as I write this. I really recommend this series for comics fans looking for a strong science-fiction action adventure series, particularly one featuring a strong female lead, and a strong same-sex relationship. 

I listen to fans whining about how their corporate-owned favorite superhero comics don’t feel like they did 30 years ago, and I have to wonder: if you are looking for consistency over the years, why aren’t you supporting creator-owned series that represent a single point of view, instead of comics that will change at the whim of the corporate owners and the marketplace? You can either whine about not getting the things that you want, or you can support the things that will give you what you are asking for. (And, in the case of Trekker, you can read it for free.) Unless, I guess, what you are really asking for is that Fantastic Four be exactly like it was in 1964; in that case, just shut up and read some reprints.

For the rest of us, I’m glad that comics like Trekker, and Atomic Robo, and Section Zero, and Hellboy, and Savage Dragon, and so many others exist. I like the Marvel and DC heroes I read, too, but those are ephemeral. I’m glad to see books like Trekker receiving the support they do on Kickstarter, because that shows that there is a demand for these comics. And I’m glad that there are talented creators like Ron Randall willing to meet that demand.

No Pop of the Week this week, because I’m tired and just don’t feel like taking a photo. 

That’s it for this week. Hopefully I will see you next Sunday!