I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space!!!

URL: www.lesbianspacepirates.com
Creator/s: Megan Rose Gedris
Run: 3/07-current
Schedule: M/F
Section/s: Vol. 3, Ch. 5, "The Bride Wore Red"

Website: It's very colorful, and it's easy to use. The site's fully featured, with a detailed About page, an attractive Cast page, a couple image galleries, a blog, and a couple social media sites. There are also several promotional videos, which is pretty unusual. The creator appears to be selling a T-shirt featuring some of the comic's characters, but I wasn't able to find it in her e-store. Maybe it's sold out.

The creator also does a slice-of-life webcomic called Meaty Yogurt, a "food porn" webcomic called Eat Me, a BDSM webcomic called The Lady Eudora Henley, a "mermaid porn" webcomic called Darlin’ It’s Betta Down Where It’s Wetta, and a "surreal romance adventure" webcomic called YU+ME: dream. I imagine she doesn't get much sleep.

Writing: I'll start this part off with a question: What would I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space!!! be without the lesbians?

Figured it out yet? If you guessed it'd be I Was Kidnapped By Pirates From Outer Space!!!, then you're correct; give yourself a pat on the back. I feel like this new, modified title doesn't work as well, though. There's something hip, wacky, edgy, and creative about adding girl-love to the formula. After all, pirates aren't anything new, and neither are space operas; combining the two's been done as well. But lesbian space pirates? That's something different.

It's also a gimmick, which leads me to my second question: If this were a straight comic where roughly 50% of the comic's cast were males, would anything in the comic change at all? Aside from the references to the island of Lesbos and the Greek poet Sappho, I think it'd be exactly the same. And that's too bad, because beyond the comic's wacky gender twist, all you're left with is a mildly humorous science-fiction comic with a flimsy plot.

The chapter gets off to a decent start, with its ensemble of wacky, colorful characters doing silly stuff. Then, the ditzy and overdramatic Princess Betty, in a moment of pure airheadedness and emotional vulnerability, spontaneously proposes to one of the queen's officers. It's a pretty good gag, but, unfortunately, the creator makes the baffling mistake of trying to turn this goofy moment into a serious storyline. The officer accepts the proposal, plotting to murder her new bride and the queen, therefore becoming the new ruler of Lesbos. It's an Idiot Plot, as no one could realistically give Betty that much responsibility when she clearly has the intelligence of a gerbil, and the wedding happens about a day after the engagement, which doesn't make sense, either. Even Susie, who knows about the planned assassination, is so overjoyed at being asked to be the maid of honor that she somehow decides not to warn Betty about it. The pirates then rush into the wedding chapel right as the bride's about to say "I do" (boy, I didn't see that one coming), warning everyone about an impending alien invasion, or something. I'll just say that, as far as stories about royalty go, it's no Hamlet.

Art: This part's more interesting, as the creator goes for an old-school pulp look that's by far the comic's biggest draw. Ben-Day dots, faded colors, and damaged pages make it look like you found the comics in a box in Grandpa's attic. The cartoony spaceships look like something that might've been cool 60 years ago, but they look ridiculously cheesy by today's standards, and the outfits are so strange that I almost wanna place their origin as far back as the '40s. This style's probably one of the most unique I've seen in a webcomic, and it makes the comic way more fun to read.

Aside from that, the illustrations look great in general, and the creator makes a conscious effort to have the characters look different aside from just their hair. The anatomy's spot-on, and the creator uses a variety of page layouts and perspectives to keep the visuals fresh.

Overall: It's a shame the creator didn't put more thought into her concept, as, with its retro style and competent drawings, the comic could've really been something special. Having "lesbians" as your plot only gets you so far, and I think the comic would be better off if the creator let it be the quirky gag comic it seems like it's trying to be. The characters are so dumb, and the writing's so silly, that I could care less about an alien invasion or the kingdom getting overthrown. After all, who's gonna take a webcomic seriously when it has three exclamation points in its title?
  
3.5/5