Detective Space Cat

As promised, here are all the pieces from our crazy big art jam with strip #26!

A bit of history: very early on, Colin and I agreed that we wanted to do something like this based on when Colin did it for his strip "Jonbot vs Martha." We knew it would be around strip #25, we knew it would be because he got attacked by someone and drugged and we knew we wanted to ask as many people as we thought might do it. So, we did. We e-mailed people whose art we particularly enjoy and offered the pitch that they could draw any sci-fi film they wanted, as long as Detective Space Cat was in the strip. Our Great Eight picked their films, sent us the panels and we improvised the rest!

Dave Stokes illustrates this scene from The Abyss, which I have never seen. Colin explained the plot to me and even explained this specific scene, but I still didn't get it. Guess I should just see the film?

The lovely and talented Jessica Graham provided us this sequence from Alien, which conveniently featured a cat in its cast already. It did not have a friendly relationship with the xenomorph in the film, but that's ok; this isn't canon.

Rob Wilson IV through Space into the end of 2001 where Dave enters the white room and encounters his future self, which is one of my absolute favorite films of all time. That said, I should note that literally the first thing I thought when I saw this panel for the first time was the line used in it: "I'm getting too old for this nip." Ha! Works on multiple levels!

Anthony Gregori gave Space a poster treatment a la Logan's Run, which is the best Michael York film of all time. It also features lots and lots and lots of cats. I will assume that the cats featured in the film have their own society and their own form of Carousel, which is related to Space in this strip.

Why is Tidanie in a dress? Because.

Mehdi Cheggour gave us this Avatar piece of Space on an Ikran that was so beautifully rendered that Colin and I threw out all the jokes we had planned for Avatar. I'm serious. We had jokes about the Tree of Souls, the whole "I See You" thing, and had even contemplated putting the panel in Na'vi thanks to an online translator. But, no. We couldn't. We're sure you can see why.

Tradd Moore drew this rather insane Star Wars homage that has so much going on we didn't know what to pinpoint. I mean, why does Salacious Crumb have a thermal detonator? What's C-3PO's head doing in there? What's Jabba got to do with this? Why is Space in a suit?? We don't know. We love Tradd, but he's crazy, man!

Riley Rossmo gave us this piece of Space dealing with Pinhead from Hellblazer, and I'm happy to admit that I was terrified. I mean, put yourself in Space's shoes. A giant creepy man with pins in his face looms over you speaking some horrible portent of your doom. You'd freeze in terror as well.

As a note, there is a very good reason for the dialogue in this panel. We're just not going to tell you yet.

Last but certainly not least, Sarah deLaine gave us our finale, complete with logo built in, with Space as Marty from Back to the Future. While Colin and I did at one point discuss drawing our own ending to segue back into the regular series, Sarah's piece ended up working so perfectly that we decided there was no need. I think you'll agree.

So there you have it! All the beautiful unlettered pieces. Click to embiggen and enjoy it all. The images are also all available on the Pin-Up page.

Yes, we will probably do this again.