The Pull List – Captain Ginger #1
The next generation of space explorers isn’t human, it’s feline. Stuart Moore presents Captain Ginger, a new sci-fi series that takes place far after the human race has been wiped out and the cats have evolved to operate a starship. Captain Ginger features a group of cats on the spaceship Indomitable, lead by the titular Captain Ginger. The cats are exploring space and rediscovering forgotten human settlements. In opening issue, Captain Ginger and his crew are fending off an assault by the Lumens, an alien race that was at war with the humans. With Captain Ginger at the helm, the battle was fierce and successfully, but an opportunity arises for the crew to question their leader and the plans for their future.
Issue one of Captain Ginger is everything a cat-loving sci-fi fan would love. Captain Ginger is brought to life by Stuart Moore, June Brigman, Roy Richardson, and Veronica Gandini. This team presents a fun take on the militant space adventures with humanoid cats. The result is something like Battlestar Galactica with adorable cat traits (Not including the cat puking parts). Instead of exploring most of the characters and world by just lazily explaining detail after detail, the story becomes very dramatic after Captain Ginger has a disagreement with his second in command, Sergeant Mittens. Here, the tension between the two sides quickly covers how long the cats have been in space, their motives and what the common fears are. Plus it’s exciting to see cats firing space lasers and pawing at objects.
Included in this issue is a mysterious data log entry based in the Captain Ginger world, a comic panel by Shannon Wheeler, an essay about Ben Franklin and a Q&A with June Brigman by Hart Seely. The data log comes as the forward message from Scientist Cat to Captain Ginger called The Intrepid Files. The files appear to had been written by a human before cats have taken over, and it hints at how cats would have evolved. Shannon Wheeler presents a quick cat theme comic in her strip Too Much Coffe man, and it perfectly matches the silly playful nature of cats in this current issue. Grant Morrison goes over some facts about Ben Franklin in his piece called The Electric Sky Bear That Inspired Ben Franklin and explains what happens after Ben Franklin’s kite and key experiment made him famous. The Q&A with June Brigman goes over the artist’s love for animals and experience working in the comic industry for over 30 years.