First glimpe of new Jem and the Holograms comic from IDW

[icon_uk]

Now amongst my other varied and sundry interests (and more of them in a forthcoming post), I have a soft spot for the old Jem cartoon (Which I now realise is almost 30 years old)... or more particularly for a couple of the aspects of the cartoon.

For those too young to remember Jem, it was the (and I say this now to avoid accidentally stumbling upon the term later on) "Truly Outrageous" story of Jerrica Benton, CEO of Starlight Records, who moonlighted as up and coming rock star Jem (With her little sister and friends making the group "Jem and the Holograms".

At any rate... there's a live action movie out next year (Which based on word of mouth is a little more low key and doesn't even include rival band The Misfits by most accounts), and in advance of that IDW have a new comic, and... it's not quite what I was expecting in terms of style....



and I LOVE that it's not what I was expecting.

Now Jem is nowadays perhaps best remembered for a number of things.

• The dual identity aspect, which would be later pretty much ripped off for "Hannah Montana"
• The hologram projecting earrings which were the remote micro-projectors of Synergy a self-aware "Audio visual entertainment synthesizer" Jerrica's father had been working on in secret just before he died. These allowed strait-laced Jerrica to instantly take on a more outgoing personality as the mysterious Jem.
• The music, perfect earworm material written by the redoubtable team of Kinder and Bryant, and performed with genuine talent and gusto by Britta Phillips (Jem) and Ellen Bernfield (Pizzazz) and, later, Gordon Grody (Riot). Jem and the Holograms tending towards ballads above love, friendship, loyalty and other upbeat numbers, and The Misfits tending towards songs about how great it is to be rich, famous, talented and... well... The Misfits. (I LOVED The Misfits.. cheerfully singing the joys of capitalism)
• The very, very VERY 1980's fashions... turned up to 11 in some cases, but so were a LOT of music fashions of that era.

Here, from the box art (by Sharon Knettel) of the doll line released to go with the cartoon we have Jem, little sister Kimber, and foster sisters Aja and Shana.


And the Misfits; Roxy, Pizzazz and Stormer

• The soap opera aspects. The cartoon's story editor Christy Marx (Recent writer on Birds of Prey and the sadly short lived New 52 Amythest) basically created all the characters and their backstories. We had conflicts with external groups like the Misfits and the Stiners and internal conflicts resulting from Jerrica never telling her boyfriend of long standing that she was also Jem, and who found himself somewhat confusing by the fact he was falling for Jem too (Something she did nothing to discourage) since they were basically the same person at their core. And so on...

At any rate, that was the past... and pretty awesome it was, but I've always said that Jem should be a product of it's time. To slavishly stick to the 1980's look misses the point that Jem was "Now" which just happened to be the mid 1980's... keep some of the OTT style (Like Jem having bubblegum pink hair, aja having blue hair and Shana having purple hair, but do something NEW with it

And it looks like IDW fully intend to do that, as this newly released cover shows...



Have to say, impressed by how far they've pushed the look, though they appear to be quite a bit younger, which I hope isn't a thing (I liked that Jerrica was a college graduate before the story starts)!

The artist is Sophie Campbell, who brings an almost Brendan McCarthy sense of design to the characters I think...



Okay, that one is a flipped shot of Jem from the cover, but...

And this is Pizzazz;



More of an anime vibe than I was expecting, but let's see where it goes.

Comments

[q99]

Looks like it could be fun!

[lilacsigil]

That's actually pretty good! I like the face paint and 80s references without being pure 80s.

[silverhammerman]

It's cool that Ross Campbell is getting to do this, I know he's done fan art of the characters before, so it's obviously something that he's got affection for. I've been pretty down on these kinds of nostalgia books lately (which as as superhero fan is of course wildly hypocritical of me) but doing stuff like this seems like the right way to go about it, so I like the look of it.

I never made the Brendan McCarthy connection with Campbell's art before, but that I can definitely see the similarities. There's a kind of rounded quality to the characters in both artists' work.

[ozaline]

Now if only they make Kimber and Stormer canon!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvBbHlAeyDg


I still want to see a GI Joe/Jem crossover where Zartan's hologram tech is stolen from synergy (or vice versa). Looking forward to this book.

[random_fan]

They are together in the comic, or will be eventually..

[remial]

gotta be honest, I always thought Jerrica was a bit of a bitch, getting her boyfriend to cheat on her with her alternate persona...

[q99]

Like this comic?

It was a weird relationship, to be sure ^^

[amaniwolf]

Is it wrong i hear that guy speaking in Brock Sampson's voice? lol.

[beoweasel]

Coelasquid, the creator of the comic, has been told by a number of people that they read Commander's dialogue in the voice of Brock Samson (and to be fair, so do I), but for according to her, he's suppose to sound like Tom Waits.

[icon_uk]

Have to say, I side with the Rio supporters in this instance. In more than one episode he makes it clear that he LIKES Jem, she's a lot of fun to be around, but that she doesn't hold a candle to Jerrica, who he's known since they were both kids.

Then there's the episode where Jerrica and Rio have an argument, and Riot decides to have some fun by pretending to seduce Jerrica to annoy Rio as much as anything. Jerrica then briefly creates a THIRD identity, Jenny, to see if Rio reacts to her the way he does to herself and Jem if she intteodcues herself into Rio's life, and then gets annoyed with him when does and instantly strikes up a friendship.

Ultimately it's pointed out that the fact that Rio loves Jerrica but can be attracted to Jem or Jenny, suggests that he always, without knowing it, sees through the appearances/illusions to the person underneath. He can be friends with Jem and Jenny because, since they have exactly the same values and outlook as Jerrica. As explanations go, it's a little Silver Age, but what the heck, they only has 22 minutes.

[thereddouglas]

I've been watching The Transformer recently and while I'm having fun it's striking how little sense some of the stories make in terms of basic logic, which is fine if you can accept that. Though it's something that appears to come up a lot in old 80s cartoons and Jem and the Holograms seems to fall into that pattern as well.

[icon_uk]

As I've mentioned in the past, comic books (and some cartoons) are very similar in concept to soap opera inasmuch as they are long form entertainment medium with a strong reluctance to change.

In order to maintain a dramatic setup, it's quite common to have characters retain certain traits which should, by all reasonable standards, be overcome.

So Silver Age Lois Lane can never permanently discover who Superman is.

Robin can celebrate over twenty separate Christmas based stories on an annual basis without actually aging or graduating High School.

Romantic triangles can NEVER be resolved... or almost never.

In fairness, Jem actually did a whole lot better than most when it came to such things, beyond the whole "Secret Identity" bit.

Characters came and went, revelations were made (About certain plots were either brought to their conclusion (Like one of the foster girls finding her father and leaving with him in the series finale) or their continuance explained (Pizzazz and her father's strained relationship is ALMOST resolved, but for a momentary misunderstanding causing it flare up as badly as before etc)

[icon_uk]

Never a fan of Jerrica for that reason either, but just a reminder that we ask members of scans_daily not to use the term "bitch" as an insult.

Things got even more confusing when they added Riot to the mix

Jerrica loves Rio but deceives him about Jem being a separate person.

Rio loves Jerrica, but finds himself attracted to Jem

Riot obsesses over Jem (based on her looks and voice), but dismisses Jerrica as dull and uninteresting.

But Jem (rather than Jerrica) finds herself drawn to Riot because he understands the life of being a media star.

(And as noted abve, meanwhile Kimber and Stormer are probably happily making out in a corner somewhere.)

Yup, as I said, it was one hell of a soap opera! :)

[leoboiko]

I don't see the problem, the solution is clearly for Jerrica/Jem to come out as the same person and date both Rio and Riot. Rio already thinks he's into the whole "loving two persons" thing anyway, he'll understand…

[icon_uk]

Interestingly that was sort of addressed... kinda.

The reason for the original lie was that she though it was a fun game, and that she would tell him soon, but the opportunity never seems to arise and eventually she realises it's gone on too long and she's stuck with it.

In one story Jerrica uses Synergy to create a sort of VR/Holodeck scenario where she does admit to a simulation of Rio that she's Jem (to see what happens), and he basically treats her with contempt because she should know that he hates deception and despises liars, then storms off never wanting to speak to her again (and clearly meaning it.. he kicks a potted plant on the way out, which the writer was appalled by when she saw the animation as she'd never asked for that and never wanted to imply Rio would EVER be violent). Synergy explains that she had based his reactions on what she knew of Rio and his personality but she might have got it wrong, but Jerrica knows that it was pretty much accurate.

What we never found out is WHY he hates deception so much, though Christy Marx has mentioned that there was a storyline suggested where Rio forms a bond with a kid at a halfway-house for runaways that featured a few times in the series as part of the charitable work that Jem and the Holograms supported.

The kid came from a house with an alcoholic parent and we would have learned that Rio had grown up in the same situation, and had learned that promises made were rarely promises kept, and that lies (and having to lie) about any number of things were commonplace, and as such has a complete loathing for being lied to, which seems fair enough.

So Jerrica has to choose between telling the truth and losing the man she loves, or continuing to lie and keeping him. Naturally, for the sake of the series, she chooses the latter option, and there is never any resolution to her predicament.

[sianmink]

Hah I spotted the Ross Campbell art in a moment.

His run on TMNT was my favorite ever.

[beoweasel]

Heh, I agree with you, loved his depiction of Alopex and the Turtles.

Though, after looking up which issues of TMNT he's done on comicvine, we appear to be in the minority judging from it's comment section.

[icon_uk]

Do you have any scans you could post?

[sianmink]

He's put up chunks of it on his deviantart page.

[janegray]

IDW has done a fantastic job with Transformers, so I have a lot of faith in them :)

[q99]

My Little Pony too.

[janegray]

Speaking of, if you haven't seen it already:

https://www.humblebundle.com/books

[kd_the_movie]

Ill never be able to look at Ross Campbells art and not see Glory.

[icon_uk]

I assume you don't mean that in the religious sense?

[pyrrhocorax]

I love Ross Campbell's style and his fanart interpretation of Jem and company, so I'm really glad he's getting to draw the comic for real!

[dustbunny105]

Ohh, I am loving these designs! Though I do hope they aren't as young as they appear they could be here.

[richardak]

I'm glad to see that this comic is getting made, since the property was tied up in legal limbo for so long. I think the new look still screams eighties, and I'm perfectly fine with that, because the show really was an artifact of its time in a way that other eighties cartoons like the Transformers or G.I. Joe or Thundercats were not. A story about giant transforming robots fighting each other can be updated pretty easily. Soundwave and the cassettes don't really work anymore, but we still drive cars and fly planes. A show about glam and punk bands making music videos really only works in the music-video era.

A change I would like to see would be to make the show a little more morally grey. Again, unlike Transformers or G.I. Joe, Jem wasn't about a war. Jem was about bands and record companies competing for success. That can be an interesting story without villains, per se. There's room for more than one band and more than one record label to be successful (especially considering that the Holograms and the Misfits weren't even very similar bands). I would like to see Eric Draven be less of an evil record executive and more someone who just doesn't understand Jerrica. Maybe he really means it when he calls Jerrica "darling" and wants to take care of her but doesn't understand that she doesn't want to be taken care of; she wants to take care of herself. I think that works better with her conflict between her desire to be a respectable businesswoman and run her record company and her desire to be a kid in a band with her sister and their friends. The whole point of the story is that it's about duality and the conflicting sides of Jerrica's personality.

Anyway, those are just a few thoughts. I am interested to see where this comic goes.

[thanekos]

Eric Draven? That sure is a crossover.

[viridian5]

That's what I thought! I never realized it was the same name used before.

[icon_uk]

Sadly for potential crossovers, it's not. The character in Jem is "Eric Raymond" and apropos of nothing, his name is a Tuckerization as Eric and Raymond are of Christy Marx's brothers.

[richardak]

My mistake, but it would have been cool, wouldn't it?

[richardak]

Oops. You're right. I should have written "Raymond." My mistake.

[silverzeo]

Okay... I just hope the character development and stories are handled better than the show... like how the Misfits cause several near death situations and nobody calls the cops, or how the Misfits are consider to be bad girls when they're basically just 80s "outsiders" (the people or just one person who is against the main group of friends just so they can be the wrong way of doing stuff), only to be on good terms in the very last scene of the last episode...

[icon_uk]

I use the same sort of logic that applies to such shows, like GI Joe where Cobra can destablise the entire world's economy by inventing a ray that turns dollar bills into frogs or the like and by the time the next week rolls around all is well

The Misfits could perhaps get away with a lot when you consider the sheer number and quality of lawyers Pizzazz can hire, and by the fact that many of their crimes are perpetrated against a person who doesn't actually legally exist.

Not sure how much more of a bad girl group they would have been allowed to be in the 1980's, but I would say that all of The Misfits are prepared to break just about any rule of law or fairplay if it gets them what they wanted (to various degrees). Pizzazz is a bit of a psychopath in her pursuit of success, but Eric is, apart from being a very creepy sleazeball, outright malevolent on one occasion destroying some old master tapes that would have made him very rich if he'd turned them into an album, but burned them just because he knew it would hurt Jerrica and her friends a LOT (since they were the only tapes known to exist of Jerrica and Kimber's mother's last album)

[richardak]

On a purely aesthetic note, Sharon Knettel's art is fantastic, and I wish they would have her doing the art for the series. I looked at her website, and it seems she mostly does fine art and commercial work, not comics. Amazing work, in any case. My only criticism is that her portrait of Shana above seems somewhat impossibly posed: her upper body and hips seem to be directly facing the viewer, but her legs are facing the side. Aja's pose is similar, but her upper body is angled sideways much more. But otherwise, just gorgeous work. The Campbell work for the comic is actually pretty nice, but after the Knettel portraits, well, analogy fails me.

[icon_uk]

Sharon Knettel's artwork is gorgeous (Hadn't noticed the Shana leg pose issue, but I see what you mean), though I would never expect her to do the art for a comic, she only did box and promotional art for Jem. (Though in fairness to the lady, she attended JemCon in 2013 and did a charity auction for a portrait of the winner in the Jem style... which is kind of awesome)

The cartoon creators on the other hand WERE comic book fans (Christy Marx being only one of them, though an important one), and there are a few nods to that throughout the series, my personal favourite being the sly little reference in a background where a moving truck is from "Earth-2 Removals" which you almost have to squint to see has the tagline "Do you want the Earth-2 Move?"

And if some of the backgrounds in this video don't make you think Ditko's Doctor Strange....

Oh and best of all are the two thugs in one episode who get about one line each but manage to identify their names as D.R. and Quinch! :D