scans_daily

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...