It parodies the biggest science fiction films of the last thirty years, but it wouldn’t exist without the most popular science fiction comic strips of the 1930s. Captain Brewster Rockit looks like Flash Gordon, but has the brains of Homer Simpson (if that, thanks to regular alien memory wipes). Rockit should no longer be entrusted to lead the R.U. Sirius space station, but his first officer, Lt. Pamela Mae Snap does her best to up-manage him, enduring the kind of workplace chaos Earthbound readers can easily understand. Tim Rickard’s Brewster Rockit: Space Guy! still survives in first-run syndication, twenty-two years after its July 5th premiere, which is really saying something these days.
Indeed, Rockit probably wouldn’t know what to make of a newspaper if he ever saw one. To be fair, he has a lot on his plate, given the constant danger posed by the insectoids and his archnemesis, Dirk Raider (commander of the Stormtroopers). Aside from Snap, his crew isn’t much help either. Frankly, the chief science officer, mad scientist Dr. Mel Practice is more of a threat than an asset. The engineer, Cliff Clewless, is even more incompetent than Rockit. Poor junior crewmember Winky largely serves as Practice’s hapless guinea pig, while the South Parkian Red Shirt-esque Ensign Kenny gets killed over and over, just like his name suggests.
Although Brewster Rockit is more of a gag-a-day than a continuity strip, it typically features one- to two-week loose story-arcs, usually satirizing a blockbuster franchise. For instance, Brewster is recruited by the good wizard Glenn Goofoff to join the fellowship of the Ruby Ring in a Tolkien-Oz mash-up. It does not turn out well for the Scarecrow or the Lion, by the way. Indeed, their fates aptly represent Rickard’s take no prisoners brand of humor.
It is hard to maintain a readership for strips while newspaper circulations continue to plummet (for both editorial and distribution reasons). Yet, it wouldn’t surprise if Brewster Rockit gets above-average daily traffic online at GoComics. There was one collection, the highly amusing Close Encounter of the Worst Kind, but it is out-of-print and hard to find second-hand. Regardless, Brewster Rockit is one of the few comedic strips that might actually make you laugh. If it had been available in the early 1990s, favorite Brewster Rockit strips would have been affixed to every geeks’ refrigerator or bulletin board and it would have sold boatloads of page-a-day calendars for the holidays. It is still alive, so give it a shot while you can.
