A Hectic Planet Reading Guide
PermalinkNavigating the deep space of Evan Dorkin's unsung series.
Evan Dorkin recently published an omnibus edition of Beasts of Burden — the Eisner award winning comic he wrote about a ragtag band of pets investigating the supernatural — and a decades-spanning collection of Milk & Cheese, Dork, and The Eltingville Club under the title Nerd Inferno: The Essential Evan Dorkin.
All of this comes on the heels of younger fans on TikTok rediscovering the Eltingville pilot from Adult Swim and creating animations, memes, and original characters. The fandom grew worldwide in short order, and I began to notice the original comics selling out or rising in price. Now the Nerd Inferno omnibus has sold out and is going to a second printing, and Evan is doing signings and convention appearances for the first time in years. No one in comics deserves success more.
In light of his recent wins and these two incredible collections, the biggest omission for me is a series that I wish he could return to, Hectic Planet, known for most of it's stop-start history as Pirate Corp$. It's incredibly unlikely, but a boy can dream. And given the spotlight on him now, it'd be understandable if new fans wanted to try digging into this series as well.
But this series may be a little difficult to get into for a few reasons:
- There are two series with overlapping numbers.
- The name changes at the end of the second series.
- Not only does the tone shift, but the cast of characters expands, minor or new characters take on greater prominence, and some early characters all but disappear.
There's a real sense of growth throughout, both in Evan's art and storytelling and in the world he's created. You come away with a sense that there's a universe of stories to be told, if only he had the time and luxury to tell them. There are laughs, excitement, and emotional gut punches along the way, and I absolutely adore it.
It has been collected, but not for some time and not completely, and the publication history also adds to the confusion for anyone trying to find and to read through the comics.
What follows is intended to help folks figure out where the various single issues and collections overlap and run in sequence. You may read the story through single issues, through collections, or through combinations of each, but the notes below will help ensure you're not seeking out duplicates and are instead able to piece together the series in the correct order.
This is not comprehensive, and in fact it says less than half of what I wanted to say, but it's long enough and accomplishes the main task, which is to make a little sense of the publication history.
TL;DR
Your best bet is to find the three collected trade paperback volumes (Hectic Planet, Volumes One, Two and Three) and the single issue short story collection The Bummer Trilogy.
Note: It is highly recommended that you start with “Postcard from Mr. Blue (An Introduction for You New Folks),” (see below, under Volume Two), which is the best introduction to the series. It helps to contextualize the earlier work, and does so in a way that's much more satisfying than the brief two-page introduction in Volume One, where Halby almost apologizes for the original Eternity series.
Volume One: Dim Future
Original Issues
The first series was published by Eternity from July 1987 to February 1988.
- Pirate Corp$ #1 (Eternity, July, 1987)
- Pirate Corp$ #2 (Eternity, October, 1987)
- Pirate Corp$ #3 (Eternity, December, 1987)
- Pirate Corp$ #4 (Eternity, February, 1988)
Collected
In 1993, Slave Labor Graphics (SLG) collected issues 1 and 2 as Pirate Corp$: The Blunder Years #1 and issues 3 and 4 as Pirate Corp$: The Blunder Years #2.
In August 1998, SLG collected all four issues as a trade paperback (TPB) under the title Hectic Planet Volume One: Dim Future. (On the spine, it's Hectic Planet: Dim Future and the cover says Hectic Planet Book One: Dim Future, but the copyright page has the official title.)
Volume Two: Checkered Past
The second series was published by Slave Labor Graphics from 1989 to 1992, beginning with a "special" and followed by a planned bi-monthly "money-losing" series. The schedule wasn't quite that regular.
- Pirate Corp$ Special! #1 (SLG, April 1989)
- Pirate Corp$ #1 (SLG, June 1989)
- Pirate Corp$ #2 (SLG, September 1989)
- Pirate Corp$ #3 (SLG, October 1989)
- This space intentionally left blank.
- Pirate Corp$ #4 (SLG, April 1992)
Now, just hold on a minute! What's with this space intentionally left blank between Pirate Corp$ #3 and #4?
If you can find it, you can squeeze in this little gem:
- "Alcoholics Anonymous" from Munden's Bar Annual #2.
This story has not been collected or reprinted due to questions around the financial collapse of First Publishing and Evan's fear of raising any potential legal issues for himself or his publisher. This fun story sees Blue, Hal and Fibby running into Milk & Cheese at Munden's Bar, which exists at the cross-section of all dimensions in John Ostrander's Grimjack.
Collected
SLG also collected these issues as a TPB in August 1998, this one under the title Hectic Planet Volume Two: Checkered Past. (On the spine, it's Hectic Planet: Checkered Past, and on the cover it's Hectic Planet Book Two: Checkered Past, but the copyright page has the official title.)
Volume Three: The Young and the Reckless
The final issue with the title Pirate Corp$ was reprinted later as Hectic Planet. Pirate Corp$ #5 and Hectic Planet #5 are in fact the same comic.
- Pirate Corp$ #5 (SLG, December 1992; later reprinted as Hectic Planet #5, September 1993)
- Vroom Socko: Paid in Full (SLG, November 1993)
- Hectic Planet #6 (SLG, November 1993)
Vroom Socko is modified and partly redrawn from a story that originally ran in Deadline [U.K.] #44 (September 1992), #46 (November 1992), #48 (February 1993) and #51 (May 1993). The Vroom Socko issue is branded with a Pirate Corp$ logo in the upper left corner, while the Hectic Planet issues have a new logo of sorts, which may be more like a tag line: 24 Hours a Day (as in there's no let up: it's a hectic planet, 24 hours a day). One can only assume that Vroom Socko fit more with the original tone of Pirate Corp$, while the main title shifted enough to the personal and internal lives of the main crew and no longer on their status as a crew of space pirates.
It's clear that more was planned, and the name change was supposed to spawn a renewed series with a different focus, but life gets in the way.
Collected
SLG collected these issues as a TPB in May 2001 under the title Hectic Planet Volume Three: The Young and the Reckless. (On the spine, it's Hectic Planet: The Young and the Reckless, and on the cover it's Hectic Planet Book Three: The Young and the Reckless, but the copyright page has the official title.)
The Bummer Trilogy
And that brings us to the final installment of the story so far. This was originally a series of short stories about love in three successive issues of the anthology Dark Horse Presents. In the anthologies, they're titled "Hectic Planet, part 1 of 3," etc., but the first two are titled on the page.
- Dark Horse Presents #118, pp. 1–8 (Dark Horse Comics, February 1997)
- Dark Horse Presents #119, pp. 9–16 (Dark Horse Comics, March 1997)
- Dark Horse Presents #120, pp. 19–26 (Dark Horse Comics, April 1997)
These stories were collected as a single issue comic called The Bummer Trilogy: three Hectic Planet love stories (SLG, April, 2001). In the Hectic Planet collection, they're given titles:
- "5 Years and Counting"
- "Shot on Goal"
- "Love You Madly, Elsie; or, Scumbag of Oz"
You are guaranteed to cry by the end, and that's not something you would have said in 1987.
It's been 20 years since Evan hinted on his LiveJournal (How Not to Make Comics, pt.1, May 22, 2006) that there was an unprinted issue #7:
For now, it joins Milk and Cheese #8, Hectic Planet #7, and Biff Bam Pow #1 as unprinted fever dreams.
"Fever dreams" might suggest it was only planned, but Biff Bam Pow #1 came out a year later, and the story these issues were said to be joining appeared in The Eltingville Club #1 (Dark Horse Comics, April 2014). Granted, Milk & Cheese #8 has been referenced in Evan's Patreon via sketches and notes for unfinished stories, so Hectic Planet could be in the same boat, but something must exist, even if it's an outline. Introductory notes in The Bummer Trilogy had this to say:
For the continuity-minded, the events in The Bummer Trilogy take place several months after those portrayed in Hectic Planet #6, or for followers of the collected volumes, Hectic Planet Volume 3: The Young and the Reckless. New Hectic Planet stories are planned for 2002.
Even if he never revisits the series, the characters are still with me like memories of old friends. I think of them fondly and hope they're doing well.