Farscape: D'Argo's Lament

BOOM! Studios continues their excellent Farscape comics with Farscape: D'Argo's Lament. Once again, it's based on a story by Farscape creator Rockne S. O'Bannon and scripted by the excellent Keith R. A. DeCandido, although this time it takes place during the show's third season.

It's a great a story. KRAD shows how well he can capture the tone of D'Argo and Jool, who aren't in the regular Farscape comic. D'Argo is one of the characters I'd miss when I'd go a while without watching the show... I'd just find myself thinking, "I wonder what D'Argo's been up to?" like he was a real person or something, and then I'd start watching episodes again. So it felt good to revisit D'Argo here.

It really feels like a lost episode, right down to the fact that you never see Crichton, Aeryn, or any of the other characters even when D'Argo and Jool are on Moya-- because, obviously they're busy filming the other comic at the same time. ;)

The artwork is by Tommy Patterson and Neil Edwards, and it's also excellent. There are two other Luxons in the story, and you never wonder who's who.

So I really feel bad that I'm going to have to stop reading the D'Argo comics.

BOOM's approach seems to be that there's always two Farscape comics being published a month, one of the further adventures of John Crichton, and one of flashback tales of D'Argo. I almost passed on D'Argo's Lament when it was solicited, because I'm trying very hard to keep my comic book budget down to $50 a month. But I decided to get it anyway because, (1) I figured what happens to D'Argo in the flashback comic might end up becoming important in the "main" comic, and (2) as I mentioned above, I always liked D'Argo.

But my comic book orders keep coming in a t $61.60, so something's gotta go. And unfortunately, this comic was so well written that I realized I didn't need to know what happened in it to enjoy the main comic. D'Argo's Lament references a TV episode that I couldn't remember, but it did such a good job of giving me the information I needed to know that it didn't matter. Since KRAD writes both comics, I trust that if the events of any of the D'Argo comics come into play in the regular comic, he'll give me the info I need to know. Which in a way, I feel is very unfair to KRAD-- he shouldn't be punished because he's a great writer.

But the bottom line is I just have to stick to my budget, so I have to get tough. I'm already not buying BOOM's second Muppets comic, Muppet Robin Hood (soon to be followed by Muppet Peter Pan) because I just can't afford both that and The Muppet Show Comic Book. Same thing with Dark Horse's Star Wars: Clone Wars comic. Other titles on the chopping block are the Doctor Who Ongoing comic (because the one-shots coming out at the same time keep sounding more interesting) and Star Trek: Alien Spotlight. And the shame of it is, they're all enjoyable comics, there's just too many comics of the same series each month. If the D'Argo comics and Muppet Robin Hood were the only Farscape and Muppet comics being published that month, I'd definitely be buying them; as it is, since I have multiple comics to choose from for each series, I'm going to have to start getting pickier.

I'm still going to read the next D'Argo series, D'Argo's Trial, because I was already ordering it before I read D'Argo's Lament, and Lament was so good there's no way I'm going to bail on it in the middle of a story. But sadly, after that, I'm just going to have to learn to let D'Argo go.