Airlock #2 & #3 (Eclectus Ltd., 1991).
This wasn’t the first issue of this particular series that I’d purchased…it was #2, which had a Not-Safe-for-Work-ish cover I didn’t want to spring on you without warning.
Anyway, Airlock was a short-run black and white anthology series that I bought primarily because it contained “Taffy and the Pirates,” a humor-adventure strip by Cutey Bunny creator Joshua Quagmire:
There are other stories of note, too: issue 2 has “The Iluvlussey,” a funny and nicely-cartooned take on Greek myth by Tim Burgard, “Lost in The Jungle” by To Be Announced‘s Mike Bannon, and the Swamp Thing parody “Yuck Thing” by Jorge Pacheco:
It wasn’t all humor strips; there was an ongoing “Caligula” serial by Rod Underhill and Topper Helmers that was fairly elaborate and certainly mature reader-oriented, as you might imagine.
Issue three cover-features Panda Khan…or rather, “X-Khan,” as he’s known in the story within, and…well, I didn’t realize, or I’d forgotten, how science-fictiony these Panda Khan comics were, though looking now I see this cover of Mr. Khan on a meteor fighting a guy shooting a laser gun, so what do I know. I never read those comics, so beyond being vaguely aware of his ties to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, my knowledge of Panda Khan’s adventures is alarmingly deficient. This is also the most I’ve typed the words “Panda Khan” in my entire life.
The Taffy strips return and wrap up in this third issue as well. Quagmire (along with Dean Norton) also provides an illustrated prose short “Cyberfox,” which is some funny-animal sci-fi business.
There was a first issue, though I don’t recall having seen it, and that’s probably the sort of thing I should have checked for at the shop prior to writing this entry here. My usual sources don’t have any info on what was in the first issue, so I don’t know if I’m missing any Quagmire there. The “Taffy” story in the second issue pretty clearly starts there, and I’m also fairly certain the me of 1991 would have sought out that #1 if I’d known there was something in that issue I had to have.
I’m still going to check for it at the shop anyway.
“it was #2, which had a Not-Safe-for-Work-ish cover I didn’t want to spring on you without warning. ”
I like that cover better! :D
Is this #1, Mike?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Airlock-1-1991-Eclectus-Comics-Personnel-File-Copies-signed-Topper-Helmers-/261203789626?pt=US_Comic_Books&hash=item3cd0f5873a
Weird, never heard of this one. I’ll have to put those on the long list of stuff to get.
Doesn’t appear to be any Quagmire in #1 (http://www.atomicavenue.com/atomic/IssueDetail.aspx?ID=58356). It does look like there are two 1990s CUTEY BUNNY one-shots I don’t have. Those go higher on the list of stuff to get.
I had the Panda Khan figure but had no idea he existed outside of that. But at the time new Turtles figures were coming pretty quickly and always a strange new mutant that would make sense in their world so I didn’t question it.