Another Interview with Muppet Comic Book Artist Amy Mebberson

Ryan Dosier - I had the great opportunity of interviewing Muppet Comic Book artist Amy Mebberson once again. For this interview, I was thrilled to have a chance to ask her about Skeeter's addition to The Muppet Show Comic Book. As always, Amy's insights are great--but don't take my word for it, read for yourself!

Another Interview with Amy Mebberson

RYAN:   As everyone knows by now, you had a big role in bring Skeeter back to the Muppet world. Skeeter hasn’t been seen since Muppet Babies, so what sparked this idea of bringing her back into the Muppet mix?

AMY:   It was more a case of 'Why the heck HASN'T she been around?' I adored the Muppet Babies, even though I was probably old enough at the time to worry my mother that I was still into cartoons. I always remembered Skeeter and wondered why she got left behind. In addition, a lingering problem with those of us working on the Muppet Classics comics is the alarming lack of female characters to cast. Piggy and Janice can only take you so far and Skeeter is a perfect addition to the female roster. Piggy is the Diva, Janice is the Earth Mother/Rocker Chick and Skeeter is the essential smart-alec cynical girl. We NEEDED her back.

RYAN:   You mentioned on Muppet Central that you had the honor of actually designing Skeeter’s new look. How did that come about?

AMY:   Very uneventfully. I'm always playing around with what-if ideas and revival designs for old, neglected cartoons and I just doodled what I thought an older Skeeter might look like next to Scooter. She pretty much just popped from my head fully-formed.

RYAN:   Did you have a lot of episodes of Muppet Babies to use as references when redesigning Skeeter?

AMY:   Apart from the ones permanently etched on my memory? Nope. I can play several eps verbatim in my head and recall Welker/Mandell's voice in my head instantly.My siblings and I watched that cartoon a LOT.

RYAN:   How involved were The Muppets Studio folks in your design of Skeeter?

AMY:   I wouldn't know, my editor is the one who deals with them. All I knew is that they were fine with the idea and didn't really have any objections or corrections to how Roger and I portrayed her.

RYAN:   What has it been like working with the fantastic Roger Langridge?

AMY:   Roger is a true cartoonist and a gentleman. His scripts are great and although I am very conscious of not trying to 'override' talent of his caliber, he's very open to any suggestions I might have. I really hope to meet him some time.

RYAN:   Were you involved in any story discussions with Roger before or after the idea was made to bring Skeeter back?

AMY:   No, not really. Again, my editor was the one who set the situation up with Roger and assigned me as the artist. Roger isn't all that familiar with Muppet Babies, so I drew a cleaner model sheet of Skeeter with a brief character profile and some of my own suggestions for her personality. He used that as a guide when writing her, I imagine.

RYAN:   What were the biggest challenges of turning Skeeter into an adult?

AMY:   None. As I said, she was just there waiting to hit the paper.

RYAN:   How did you find inspiration for her outfit and overall look?

AMY:   Well, it was pretty much the classic idea of opposites. Scooter is the yes-man and yeah, a bit of a nerd. It made perfect sense that athletic tomboy Skeeter would look identical but express a completely opposite personality with her dress and attitude.

If she wore a letter-man jacket like Scooter, it'd be ripped and covered in badges and graffiti.I think she'd probably have piercings, too, but Disney get a little skittish on things like that, so I played safe.

RYAN:   Moving on from the Skeeter topic (just so this interview isn’t all about her), which did you enjoy more, drawing the Muppets as Peter Pan characters or as themselves in the theater setting?

AMY:   Drawing Muppet Classics are fun, but I have to say I do prefer them in their original Muppet Show set. There, I can focus on them just being their normal funny selves rather than them masquerading as another character altogether.

RYAN:   Has there been any pressure from Disney to adjust the way you draw certain Muppets? I know they’re trying to phase in a new Sam the Eagle puppet. Do the current puppet designs have an effect on what they want from your work?

AMY:   No, not at all. I have never had any note from Disney asking that I change a character's look. In general, Disney have been fantastic to BOOM Kids! in that in most cases, they're very accepting of diverse artistic styles. Roger's style and mine are pretty different, but fans and Disney seem equally happy with both. The other artists like James Silvani and Shelli Paroline also bring their own interpretation to the Muppets.

RYAN:   What would you say is the most rewarding experience of working with the Muppet comics?

AMY:   I think it's hearing from readers how much they love seeing the Muppets back again. At every con I go to, there are always a number of people who still don't know these comics exist and are always delighted to discover them. And of course, the kids. Drawing a sketch cover and hearing the happy gasp of a passing child as they recognise the character is pretty awesome.

RYAN:   Do you ever feel taken aback by the fact that you have successfully revived a character who was arguably the most intensely sought after character in all of Muppetdom?

AMY:   Oh heck no, I hope she gets to stay around! Every artist hopes to leave some kind of impacting legacy and I sincerely hope my work on the Muppets will be remembered. The response from fans has been amazing and we're truly grateful Skeeter has been accepted. Hopefully she'll get a chance to grow on younger fans who never got to see Muppet Babies. I don't dare to hope at this stage that Roger and my version of Skeeter will extend past the comics, but it would be fantastic if she did and I would be so proud.

RYAN:  Well, unfortunately those are all the questions I’ve got, Amy. Thank you again for another great interview! I know I’m not alone when I say that I hope to see you work with the Muppets time and again. Congratulations on bringing Skeeter back and on all the success your work has found!

AMY:   Thanks Ryan. I truly love my job and drawing the Muppets is a wonderful experience.

Thanks again to Amy Mebberson for the fantastic interview and all of her great work! For more info about Amy, be sure to visit her blog!

Special thanks to our good friends at ToughPigs for a few of the images in today's article.














The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier

Muppet Comic Mondays: The Muppet Show Comic Book #4 - Family Reunion

The Muppet Show Comic Book #4:

Family Reunion

Comic Book Review 

James Gannon - I could beat around the bush here with “Spoiler Alerts” and all that… but who am I kidding? I know it, you know it. This is the issue that brings Adult Skeeter into the Muppet Theater. As far as fan fiction is concerned, it’s like Disney officially publishing a comic where Gadget chooses one of the Rescue Rangers as her soul mate. Sad that’s the only G-rated Fan Fic reference I can make.

Before we can fully grasp what this means, we have to revisit who Skeeter was. She was a character developed for Muppet Babies to flesh out the female quotient in a very male heavy cartoon (even though she was voiced both times by male voice actors). While they could have easily added Janice or at least Annie Sue, the old TV Trope won out and they needed an athletic character. And if anyone knows 1980’s “gang of kids” cartoons as well as I do, they’re required by law to have and athletic character and a nerd (Scooter, who gained a twin that contrasted his personality). So, they rewrote history and anachronistically added a character who was never seen outside the cartoon (or Muppet Kids books), and never adopted into any other medium. You know, for the longest time I thought Skeeter changed her name to Janice for professional reasons, but now I’m almost entirely convinced she somehow turned into a Fraggle and changed her name to Red.

Now, there are some odd conditions of her appearance. For one, she isn’t mentioned by name  for some reason (like it’s gonna fool anyone), and the Statler and Waldorf Greek Fates that appear in the beginning hint that this really isn’t happening. That’s the only thing here that bugs me, since I don’t see how Skeeter is any different from Creepy McBoo or Ninja Rogers as far as the comic is concerned. But it’s still her, unless there’s some unpleasant surprise in subsequent Family Reunion issues. And while we’d all like to see her Harley Quinned into some form of Muppet Media (added to the official legacy of a series after being a cult hit on a cartoon series that is), a comic book is the next best thing. Oh, and did I mention they didn’t want to reveal where she was all this time?

At any rate, Skeeter basically comes in for a job at the Muppet Theater, knowing Scooter would help usher her in. While everyone’s happy to see her after all these years (and apparently can’t remember her name), Scooter has a rush of conflicting emotions. Skeeter still views her brother as a nerd, and doesn’t let him forget it. Meanwhile, she proves that she’s better at Scooter’s job than Scooter is, effectively calming down an enraged Piggy that no one else could (“Link’s being Link,” Kermit points out). Not only do we get the opportunity to revisit with Skeeter (who retained a LOT of her Muppet Babies personality), but we get another great story that explores Scooter’s character. And after the years of Scooter-less Muppet projects, this is indeed a treat for Muppet fans.  

And of course, the same great Muppet skits, both from the show and original Roger creations, break up the action and somehow connect to the main story line. There is one great shake up. Much in the tradition of The Muppet Show, the closing number doesn’t necessarily have to be a song. While I do enjoy the poetic prose of Muppets speaking in rhyme (or singing), not having it in every issue gives it a nice randomness to the tone.

As with the other reviews, the last bit is about the technical stuff. Amy Mebberson, whose artwork I previously raved about in Muppet Peter Pan, seems to have improved (if that was even possible) in this issue.  While it still has a Disney quality to it, it seems to have a more animated movement to (especially on Link, the butt of many Piggy karate chops). She actually designed the conceptual Adult Skeeter that’s perfectly Muppety and completely believable as one of the gang. And as much as I also love Roger Langridge’s weird and wacky commix design of the characters, I feel when he’s only doing the writing, it has a lot more focus than when he does both. In fact, I’d say this is one of the best written issues yet. So fan service or boon to fan kind, this is an issue you cannot miss. And if you missed it… uh… there’s always the eventual graphic novel reprint. So there’s no excuse there.

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier

News Update: April 15, 2010

NEWS UPDATE: April 15, 2010
Earlier this week, our friends from TVShowsonDVD.com have reported that Lionsgate is continuing its trend of releasing loads of rare Henson specials on DVD. The next release? 1989's "Sesame Street: 20 Years and Still Counting" special on July 6th. This is an extremely exciting release since this special has never been commercially released and... it's just an awesome special.

Yesterday, Greg over at The Muppet Newsflash tweeted two new pictures of the upcoming "Muppet Monopoly" and "Muppet Yahtzee" board games being released this August. At this point it is still not known if the Monopoly will be a straight re-release of 2002's Muppet version or if it is entirely new.

Have you heard of Google? Well, I hadn't until I heard that Sesame Street's 40th Anniversary was being promoted on their logos this past fall. (Kidding, of course.) The fine folks at Google have teamed up with the even more fine folks at Sesame Street once again to create some new, actual commercials for the search engine. Both Bert and Cookie Monster receive the commercial treatment, and they're both awesome. (Thanks to our friends at ToughPigs for picking up on this story!)

Speaking of ToughPigs, they've posted a great interview with Roger Langridge about adding Skeeter to the comic book world of the Muppets. It's incredibly insightful and I highly recommend checking it out!

And of course, the big news of the week is that The Muppets "Bohemian Rhapsody" has been nominated for two Webby Awards in the Music and Viral categories. If you haven't done so yet, get over there and vote! Thanks to us, the Muppets currently have a huge lead in the polls in both categories, so keep voting and keep it up!

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier

Weekly Muppet Wednesdays: Skeeter

SKEETER

Performed (Voiced) by...
Howie Mandel (Seasons 1 and 2)
Frank Welker (Seasons 3 through 7)

First appearance...
Muppet Babies Episode 101 "Noisy Neighbors" (1984)

Most recent appearance...
The Muppet Show Comic Book "Family Reunion" (2010)

Best known role...
Scooter's twin sister, tomboy, search party collector, baby.

Nickname for Scooter...
Nerd.


WHO IS SKEETER?
Skeeter is most well-known as Scooter's twin sister. She was a main character on Muppet Babies, the cartoon show from the 1980's that starred some of the main Muppet characters as... well, babies. Skeeter was added to the cast of the show as a foil for Baby Piggy. And if you are wanting to foil Piggy, Skeeter is indeed the perfect foil.

Skeeter is athletic, energetic, and flexible, where Piggy is none of the above. Skeeter acted as a great counter for Piggy's diva attitude and still worked as her own, well-established character. At times, Skeeter even seemed to have a small crush on Baby Kermit, acting against Baby Piggy even more.

In Muppet Babies Skeeter always participated in the imagination adventures of the other babies. She portrayed several famous faces throughout the run of the series, including "Skeetlejuice," "Skeetie Spaceton" (Judy Jetson), and "Skeet-3PO."

Throughout the years after Muppet Babies was taken off the air, Skeeter made a few small, relatively unnoticed appearances in the "Muppet Kids" series of books and computer games that featured the Muppets as pre-teens, and brief illustrated cameos in the book, "You've Still Got Me" and on a bag from Carl's Jr. fast food restaurants.

Very recently, however, Skeeter has made her first official appearance as an adult in The Muppet Show Comic Book: Family Reunion arc. In the comic, Skeeter comes to the Muppet Theater looking for a job and engages in a fine amount of mayhem with the rest of the Muppet crew.

WHERE IS SKEETER?
For years, Skeeter was one of the most talked about Muppet characters of all time simply because she never appeared as an adult in any official Muppet production. In fact, she has never even been seen or made into a true, three-dimensional Muppet character (aside from a poser puppet--see right).

There has never been any official reasoning for why Skeeter has never been seen as an adult Muppet character. The closest to official Muppet fans have ever gotten is a quote from Muppet writer Jim Lewis who said,

"We threw around various bizarre scenarios about what happened to Skeeter after "Muppet Babies," but none of these were ever confirmed. Frankly, I suggest contacting the Federal Witness Protection Program for more info. Let us know what you find out."

Muppet Babies storyboard director Scott Shaw has also said,

"As for the adult Skeeter, Henson Associates art director Michael Frith once explained that she's now a famous explorer, never seen again after an expedition to the jungles of the Amazon!"

So up until Skeeter's appearance in the new Muppet Show Comic Book, there was no official information on what happened to her.

WHY DO THE MUPPETS NEED SKEETER?
Skeeter is to Muppets what the Missing Link is to geneaologists. She represents a very obvious untapped character archetype within the Muppet world: an athletic, tomboyish girl character and a complete foil for Miss Piggy.

I think the Muppets need Skeeter to add another strong (albeit hopefully not as strong as Piggy--for Skeeter's own good) female character into the mix. Skeeter's personality is so much more dynamic than Janice and Camilla that having her there would really spice things up a bit.

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier

A Family Reunion

Ryan Dosier - Good day, Muppet fans! Yesterday, while I was busy promoting the heck out of The Muppet Madness Tournament (have you voted yet?), our pals over at ToughPigs were busy posting a five-page preview of the newest Muppet Show Comic Book installment (#4 to be precise), the "Family Reunion" arc written by Roger Langridge and drawn by friend of the blog and all around amazing artist, Amy Mebberson.

Most fans just shrug this preview off and say they'll wait for the comic to come out or the trade paperback before they show any sign of interest in it... but I'm telling you right now, Muppet fans, you need to see this now. Go ahead, I'll wait here! ...Well this is boring. I need something to entertain me.

HA! Oh. You're done? Okay, good. Now... didn't that just BLOW your mind? For those of you who don't want spoilers, stop reading right here.

For all the rest of you... Can you believe it? First off, who would have ever thought we would see this in an official Muppet production? Second, how great does she look? Third, (and now if you don't want spoilers you should really stop reading) it's SKEETER! Finally back from wherever she was and she appears to be as funny and awesome as ever. And now, just for fun, how about a little side-by-side comparison shot?

Awesome? Why, yes. Yes it is. I think that this is a huge step for both BOOM!'s Muppet comics and The Muppets Studio as well. The fact that The Muppets Studio has allowed for Skeeter to reappear after over 20 years of her missing completely is a wonderful sign that The Muppets Studio does care about obsessed Muppet fans like you and I (at least I assume you are). They also, according to her, allowed Amy Mebberson
to redesign her in adult form.

So yes. After years of uncertainty of Skeeter's fate, we finally have confirmed proof that she is here and, apparently, is no longer a baby.

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier