The Muppet Show Comic Book: Meet the Muppets

A TV musical variety puppet show that's been off the air for more than 25 years is an unlikely source for a comic book. Fortunately, Langridge is the perfect cartoonist for the job: his sense of humor draws so heavily on vaudeville, light verse and absurdist blackout sketches that it's as if the franchise were created specifically for him to play with. His timing is impeccable, and his visual style has exactly the right mix of dignified gravity and dizzy silliness. (As with the TV show, we almost always see the Muppets from the waist up only.) Each of the four episodes collected here has a little bit of a narrative through-line (an insurance investigator trying to find out exactly what kind of creature Gonzo is, for instance), but they're mostly an excuse for Langridge to fire off a fusillade of recurring routines (The Swedish Chef! “Pigs in Space”! Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker!) and single-page inventions, gracing nearly every panel with little bonus sight gags. Langridge's command of the Muppet characters is so deft and witty that this volume is as good as having more episodes of the show. (Oct.)