Starslip (formerly
Starslip Crisis and before that,
Starshift Crisis) is a (mostly) daily independent science fiction/comedy
webcomicWebcomics, online comics, or Internet comics are comics published on a website, often exclusively, providing easy access to an audience, though some are published in books and newspapers but maintain a web archive....
written and drawn by
Kristofer StraubKristofer Straub is the creator of webcomics Checkerboard Nightmare, Starslip, Time Friends, Origin Story, and more recently chainsawsuit and F-Chords. He is also the co-founder of webcomics collectives Blank Label Comics and Halfpixel...
.
Starslip Crisis was part of the webcomics cooperation collective
Blank Label ComicsBlank Label Comics is a collective of web comics whose creators have banded together for mutual assistance and promotion. The Blank Label Comics website officially went online on May 23 2005.All of the comics had previously been hosted on Keenspot...
, until Straub split away from Blank Label to merge Starslip with his new collective, Halfpixel, in November 2007. The comic initially ran under the name
Starshift Crisis.
to attacking pirates: Attention roguish invaders! Before you begin your practiced savaging of what must appear to be another ordinary starship, be aware that this is not some bulk freighter, but a place of learning and culture! This ship houses some of the most priceless treasures in known space! To plunder it is to plunder the poet soul of mankind.
My diplomacy must sparkle.
High-contrast lighting and cold onyx surfaces. How Stanley Kubrick|Kubrick. How hideous.
For the same reason the universe exists! Dining ambience.
to Mr. Jinx: Remind me to pay you a wage so I can threaten to dock it.
to Mr. Jinx: WEAR IT LIKE A HAAAAAT!!
I always take care of my own. Just not my own liver, is all.
to an alternate-universe Vanderbeam: No dice, parallel-face! You're reactor chow.
I have a running tab at the engine room's waste ethanol pump.
My mom was an alcoholic small arms dealer. She knew I needed a masculine influence around the house after my father left. We had this turret I called 'dad.'
Starslip (formerly
Starslip Crisis and before that,
Starshift Crisis) is a (mostly) daily independent science fiction/comedy
webcomicWebcomics, online comics, or Internet comics are comics published on a website, often exclusively, providing easy access to an audience, though some are published in books and newspapers but maintain a web archive....
written and drawn by
Kristofer StraubKristofer Straub is the creator of webcomics Checkerboard Nightmare, Starslip, Time Friends, Origin Story, and more recently chainsawsuit and F-Chords. He is also the co-founder of webcomics collectives Blank Label Comics and Halfpixel...
.
Starslip Crisis was part of the webcomics cooperation collective
Blank Label ComicsBlank Label Comics is a collective of web comics whose creators have banded together for mutual assistance and promotion. The Blank Label Comics website officially went online on May 23 2005.All of the comics had previously been hosted on Keenspot...
, until Straub split away from Blank Label to merge Starslip with his new collective, Halfpixel, in November 2007. The comic initially ran under the name
Starshift Crisis. The nearly-identical
Starslip Crisis appeared early in the strip's run, with its own website and associated content, differing only in that the term "starslip" replaced "starshift". The two ran in parallel, until a strip in August 2005 which definitively ended the plot of
Starshift Crisis, but which played out differently in
Starslip Crisis. Reportedly the name change was caused by a legal issue.
http://comixtalk.com/starshift_crisis_changes_its_name
On January 12th 2009, Straub rebooted the artwork and modified the name of the strip after a storyline where the Fuseli, the ship the comic is set on, escapes from a Universe destroyed by the Future.
Setting
Starslip Crisis was first set in the
3440The 35th century of the anno Domini era will span the years 3401–3500 of the Gregorian calendar. It will be the fifth century of the 4th millennium.-Astronomical events:*3412: Expected return of Comet McNaught-Russell...
s, aboard the
starshipA starship is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between the stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for orbital spaceflight or interplanetary travel....
IDS
Fuseli,
named after painter
Henry FuseliHenry Fuseli was a British painter, draughtsman, and writer on art, of German-Swiss origin....
. The
Fuseli was a former luxury warship which has been converted into a starship museum. It is still capable of military activities. The
Fuseli travelled from system to system with its exhibits (using a faster than light "starslip drive"), the comic chronicling the adventures of the crew. Much of the art featured upon the
Fuseli dated from the 20th or 21st centuries.
Politically, most, if not all humans live under the Terran Dominion, a government ruled by a council of monoliths which used to be human. There are non-human species present in the dominion and humans seem to be the most prominent race. The dominion's military, the Terran Astry, is responsible for security. Japan apparently relocated into space at some point in its history, wishing to separate from Earth because its technology had far surpassed all other nations. Finally, Jupiter, or rather its moons, are part of the Jovian kingdom, within the Dominion. So is Cirbozoid, a planet occupied by an insectoid race, governed by a hive queen and homeworld of Mister Jinx.
A large part of the story is set against the invasion of Dominion space by Katarakis and his world ship. Katarakis later being revealed to be a very dangerous time traveller with memory of superior technology and a god complex. He is however, extremely old and all the technology he brought with him from the future is out of energy and useless. This evens the odds and the Astry eventually defeats him, prompting time agents from the future to appear and demand his release into their custody. The Astry, however, refuses on the grounds that they wish to study his technology; their refusal results in the time agents destroying their particular universe, an occurrence the Fuseli barely avoids.
After the crew starslipped into a new universe, events took a very different turn after the manufacturers of the Starslip drive were indicted for murder. This led to a very different outcome, and the Fuseli was retired due to costs. The new ship is now called the
ParadigmThe word paradigm has been used in linguistics and science to describe distinct concepts....
and serves as a cultural envoy to new unexplored worlds. The instantaneous starslip drive, which worked by shifting the ship into a parallel universe where they were already at their location, was replaced with a safer, but non-instantaneous starslip drive, which works by plotting a course straighter than straight, allowing ships to move above light speed. This however was much slower than the Starslip drive, and the loss of instantaneous travel forced the existing alliance of planets to break up into smaller unions. This also meant ships actually had to travel between stars, prompting new discoveries, such as the alien race known as the Quel and their homeworld Quellar.
Characters
Much of the strip centers around the exploits of, and relationships between, the three main protagonists:
- Memnon Vanderbeam is "the fussy, arrogant curator of the Fuseli." He tends to be self-centered, often putting the lives of his crew at risk, while acting in his own self-interest. He constantly abuses Mr. Jinx, and suffers from "Space Affective Disorder". He is wholly devoted to art and his beloved museum, valuing it more than anything.
- Cutter Edgewise is an "ex-pirate, drunk, and the Fuseli’s pilot acting on behalf of the Terran military." (ibid)
- Mr. Jinx is the "alien operations assistant to Vanderbeam. Like C-3PO without all that raw courage." (ibid) Jinx is cirbozoid, an asexual incectoid race that has repeatedly faced extermination at the hand of others.
Other characters who make frequent appearances throughout the strip include:
- Princess Jovia is the "royal ambassadrix from the Jupiter Colonies. "The object of Vanderbeam’s desire." Because of a design flaw in the Fuseli's Starslip drive, the Fuseli and her crew are in a universe where the Princess is dead. Vanderbeam is currently looking for a way to get her back by jumping to a universe where she still lives.
- Meridian Holiday is the "Fuseli’s head engineer. Inquisitive and smart. In recent comic strips it has been revealed she has a crush on Vanderbeam"
- Lord Katarakis IV is "your typical crazed space despot. Recently tried to conquer the Consortium with a piece of art." He has also made two attempts to wipe out the Cirbizoid race
- Vore is "an antique robot from Earth who wants to kill all organic life." It is all but outright stated that he is Vaporware from Checkerboard Nightmare
Checkerboard Nightmare is a webcomic, created and drawn by Kristofer Straub. Originally hosted independently, it moved to Keenspot for a time, before becoming one of the founding comics of Blank Label Comics...
.
- Obdrath von Lucifuge is the "CEO of Esquigent, the starslip drive corporation."
- Falton Quine is the newly appointed protocol officer on board the Paradigm, his duties, to which he is unusually devoted to, are to ensure that the ten protocols are followed. These protocols are an homage to Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment series.The original Star Trek was an American television series, created by Gene Roddenberry, which debuted in 1966 and ran for three seasons, following the interstellar adventures of Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the Federation...
's prime directive. He is so valuable to the mission that, like all protocol officers in the Terran Astry, Quine's memories are transmitted to a cloning tank aboard the Paradigm if anything befalls his original body.
- Dahk Tohrr is the Paradigm's chief doctor. He is a Moliff, a transparent single cell sentient organism. He claims his species can shapechange at will, however, this ability is practically useless as his new form retains his original form's transparency.
Alterverse War
In August 2007, Straub initiated Starslip Crisis: The Alterverse War, a multi-webcomic "crossover," featuring the Fuseli from Starslip Crisis in battles against prominent ships from other webcomics, including
Schlock MercenarySchlock Mercenary is a comedic webcomic written and drawn by Howard Tayler. It follows the tribulations of a star-travelling mercenary company in a satiric, mildly dystopian 31st-century space opera setting...
,
Real Life ComicsReal Life is a webcomic drawn and authored by Greg Dean. Begun on November 15 1999 and published on weekdays, the comic is loosely based around the real lives of Greg and his friends ....
,
MelonpoolMelonpool is a collection of characters created by Steve Troop whose adventures have been portrayed through both puppetry and in a long-running webcomic. The webcomic is the larger of these two areas and has recently been restarted after a long hiatus....
,
GoatsGoats is a popular webcomic written and illustrated by Jonathan Rosenberg. It has been in existence since April 1, 1997. On April 3, 2006, after nine years drawing the strip, Rosenberg became a full-time cartoonist making his living drawing Goats....
,
Irregular Webcomic!Irregular Webcomic! is a webcomic created by David Morgan-Mar, an Australian physicist. The comic is illustrated photographically, primarily with Lego figures, although a few of the story arcs use role playing game miniatures...
and
ZorticZortic is a Science-Fiction/comedy webcomic drawn and written by Mark Mekkes. Zortic follows the adventures of its 3 main characters: Zortic, Zoie, and Splink as they traveled through the galaxy on their ship, the Entire Prize, in a series of parody adventures that homage many science fiction pop...
. There are twenty-nine different webcomics involved in the crossover. Currently on hiatus for an indeterminate time.
Awards
Starslip Crisis was nominated for five Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards in 2006: Outstanding Newcomer, Outstanding Black and White Art, Outstanding Use of Flash, Outstanding Web Design, and Outstanding Science Fiction Comic (which it won).
Kristofer Straub was also nominated in 2006 for Outstanding Writer in the Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards. The strip was nominated for three Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards in 2007: Outstanding Black and White Art, Outstanding Science Fiction, and Outstanding Web Design.