Page 45 Review by Publisher Blurb
Meet Captain Spaceington, deadly serious action man of no-nonsense derring-do for whom everything is one big frown!
Shake multiple hands with monocular Science Officer Plixx, she of the green, squidgey tentacles!
"She may not know the difference between a proton and a neutron, but she's always happy to whack them both with a hammer and hope for the best."
Bravo!
Duck as the most supercilious android of all time, Robot One, casts aspersions on our frail human inadequacies whilst covering up its own lo-tech leanings!
Then fjidbt jablyt when The Pilot sets course for it-gives-not-a-crap-where while attending to anything more interesting instead! That incluses grbatifleds, plimbragrs and blagandrars. Accuracy is irrelevant, disdain is all! Be careful where you leave your loved chocolate puddings.
These are your zero heroes on board Star Cat, the latest and most sophisticated spaceship in blistery whose Super Computer houses a mouse, a mallard and a fish. They will save the galaxy and many more chocolate bars besides from the vaguest of vampires, the worst ice-cream ever and that rage-prone rogue, the two-dimensional Dark Rectangle destined to fall flat on his back along with his paper-thin posse.
"Luckily I'm a Black Belt in Origami!"
"Ooh! Make me into a little hat!"
THE PHOENIX weekly comic for kids and its publisher DFC have become hallmarks of both literacy and lunacy, and this is no exception. LONG GONE DON, GARY'S GARDEN, BUNNY VS MONKEY, CORPSE TALK… even its art book, Neill Cameron's HOW TO MAKE AWESOME COMICS, is hilarious while its puzzle book, VON DOOGAN, is also a thrilling interactive comicbook adventure!
Nothing escapes the ever-ready eye of Captain Spaceington. Everything escapes Science Officer Plixx.
"Red alert! Raise shields! Evasive manoeuvres! Activate repulsor fields! Pack away the board games!"
"Aye aye, sir!"
*waggle* *turn* *press* *push*
"You have no idea what those controls do, do you?"
"None at all, sir!"
The cartooning is exquisite - almost every expression guarantees grins - while the timing is immaculate. Some of my favourite jokes revolve around their space ship being a cat.
"Pilot, activate Hyper Warp, Level 5!" commands Captain Spaceington.
"Sbejtift," replies that boss-eyed Pilot, yanking on a lever.
Cue external shot of the hybrid cat-craft, its gormless eyes staring to camera as a hatch in its head springs open. Then the final panel on the page reveals the elusive, rocket-science secret to the last-resort Hyper Warp 5: a dangling, giant, red ball of wool. The cat's eyes spy it in a perfectly pitched moment of silent ellipsis…
… And boom!
James Turner is in absolute command of these bottom-page ellipses. There's another in the very first episode when a space mouse in search of space cheese is considered space harmless, yet no one can work out why The Pilot is strapping itself in for dear life.
Clue: the pilot is also a cat.
As the space mouse passes outside, the Star Cat spaceship opens one eye and spots it…
