Serendipity On The Planet Of The Apes!

I've been on a Rocketman kick in the last several weeks. I have been finding and getting the Rocketman/Commando Cody serials. I all ready owned King Of the Rocketmen and have long had a copy of the ubiquitous Radar Men From The Moon, but recently picked up copies of both Zombies From The Stratosphere and Commando Cody Sky Marshall Of The Unviverse, the later serials/TV episodes with the classic Rocketman suit. This got me to researching and I learned of the Innovation comics based on the original King Of The Rocketmen and as previously reported found those issues for very sweet prices just last week.



That read got me to hankering to refresh my Rocketeer knowledge and I dug those out. I found my copies but discovered while I did have the complete saga, I didn't have the original comics anymore. I traded away my Rocketeer stuff from Pacific long ago, but had since picked up the Pacific Presents issues again. I needed the two issues of Starslayer in which the character debuted and I needed the Rocketeer Special Edition that wrapped up the original storyline. I do own all ready the Comico and Dark Horse chapters of the second story in NYC.

So what has all this to do with the Planet of the Apes? Stay with me.

So a friend calls me up and wants to go prowling some bookstores. I happily volunteer to tag along. This guy spends ten times what I do on back issues and it's fun to go to shops with him and watch the owners gleefully ring up his purchases. I on the other hand was looking for only those Rocketeer books. I found the Special Edition right away in the first store priced at $12 but in a dollar box. I raced to the counter, but not before finding the dvd collection of the animated series Return To The Planet Of The Apes. I've been wanting to get this for some time and the price and circumstances were just right. What I saved on the comic I happily applied to the dvd. Later in two other stores I found the Starslayer issues for small money and so I'm now able to read the whole Rocketeer saga in the original. It should be fun.

Here's the serendipitous part.

I got the Apes cartoon because I adore the work of Doug Wildey. He and Mo Gollub did the designs for the cartoon and while the animation is limited the cartoon itself is very mature in tone and content and actually adapts Pierre Boulle's novel more accurately than any of the movies. The society of the apes has 20th Century technology, so it's a very different Apes experience.

That said, I'd forgotten something very curious about The Rocketeer and Dave Stevens. He was an apprentice with Doug Wildey, and in fact Wildey is the inspiration for the character Peavy in the story. So ironically in seeking a comic inspired to some extent by Wildey and featuring a doppleganger of him, I found just by chance a wonderful cartoon developed by him.

As I said, serendipity.

I love collecting for just these kinds of offbeat connections. If you've stayed with my long-winded story this far, I thank you.

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