Voyage to the Stars #1
Written by James Asmus and Ryan Copple
Drawn by Connie Daidone
Colored by Reggie Graham
Review by KrisK
Podcasts are the sun-dried tomatoes of the decade. Talk Radio on the internet went from an early novelty to an omnipresent media in its own right. For many people, podcasts have overtaken music, filling everyday with opinion and facts on everything from current events to decades old TV shows. This website, of course, belongs to a family of podcasts centering around comics, games, and Dungeons and Dragons.
The media adapts though, perhaps most surprisingly, into original storytelling. While much of the original storytelling revolved around a tabletop game, such as D&D 5E and Pathfinder, now outright original radio shows occur in podcast form. Horror, Sci fi, and Fantasy serials exist across the medium. Voyage to the Stars, in its podcast form, rules as arguably the most popular Sci Fi podcast serial on the internet. Voyage to the Stars, the comic, not so much.
The comic opens after the bumbling crew manages to make it back to Earth just in time to see it obliterated by the entity, The Nothing. The crew searches for The Guide to find The Something, a weapon to destroy The Nothing. The crew is captained by a hapless insurance agent who stumbled into the role. An irresponsible science agent who shows a little too much interest in strangers. A lazy janitor. A mech suit driving Red Panda alien. And an AI named Sorry. They…are fine.
I never listened to the podcast, and if I did, maybe this would land different, but I left this comic feeling nothing. No laughs or emotion. No action or wonder. I can describe comics from a year ago better than I can this issue. While they aimed for charming with the concept and story, none of it landed as funny.
The art worked better, and I honestly enjoyed the colors. The style played nicely with the sci fi and comedy elements, fusing them organically. The art team clearly had fun creating this comic.
Verdict: Pass. The comic may offer more to fans of the podcast, but as a newcomer to the story, this issue was a bust. The story left me with as much an impression as unflavored popcorn, and while the art shined, it wasn’t enough to make this worth the cover cost.
