Saturday, February 12, 2005
Valentines Day Special-- The History of Ray and Finn
Tomorrow in The Ice Queen, the heroes of the story finally make their appearance. Given that, and considering that it's Valentine's Day, I thought a little background was in order.
Raymond Fish and Delphinia 'Finn' Morgan were concocted while I was finishing my first graphic novel, Bulletproof. For my next comic I was looking for characters and a situation that would be strong enough to use in a series of mystery stories. The first thing I arrived at was the setting, Athens Ohio, a large rural college town that a friend had told me many tall tales about.
I thought it would be clever to link the name of the town to some element of ancient Greece, and I settled on the idea that the first story would feature some sort of oracle, i.e., a modern-day fortune-teller. I decided to call this fortune-teller Delphinia, a reference to the Oracle of Delphi. Her last name became Morgan, in honor of Morgan le Fay. In the first draft of the script she took the nickname of Delphi, but I changed it to Finn, a reference to Huckleberry Finn.
The detective character in the story was a writer, and I made him a particularly skeptical type to create conflict with the fortune-teller. I dubbed him Raymond in honor of Raymond Chandler, and I gave him the last name of Fish as a kind of affront to his dignity.
After nearly completing the script of their first story, Oracle, I set it aside because I wanted to star them in a series of shorter comics. So their first appearance was in Wolf Run, which chronologically takes place after Oracle.
I eventually returned to complete the script for Oracle and published it as a graphic novel. In the course of the story, it is revealed that both of the characters were using assumed names, Ray's real name being Raymond Fishstamp, and Finn's birth name being Becky Pinchbeck.
Here, presented in a newly color-tinted version, is the first appearance of Ray and Finn. (Click on the images to see full-sized version.)
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MST 3000
I was a latecomer to cable TV, and my cable provider was a latecomer to offering Comedy Central; so the first episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 I ever saw was in a movie theater. By the time I saw it on a TV screen, Comedy Central was in the process of playing the last of their reruns, alternating appearances of Joel Hodgson and Mike Nelson as the marooned guy on the Satellite of Love.
I followed the show religiously through it's move to the Sci Fi channel up to it's final episode, and then rewatched my collection of tapes frequently, and picked up on the Rhino tapes whenever I found them.
But recently, I discovered that the entire series (minus the Rhino tapes) is available on DVD from collectors. There are several sources; I'd recommend checking out Ebay or doing a Google search. Trey Yeatts ( ety_3@hotmail.com ) has a collection that's inexpensive and conveniently packaged, with mini-episode guides printed on the back.
I also found a good source of information about the series. I'd always had the melancholy impression that Joel Hodgson was an amateur who had completely invented the series on his own and that he'd been fired by Comedy Central and replaced by Mike Nelson. This is completely false. For one thing, Hodgson was a celebrity of the comedy circuit in the late 1980's and a good friend of Jerry Seinfeld. He'd even been offered a TV series but turned it down because he loathed Hollywood. The link tells the story about how he and the other players evolved the series concept.
As for Mike Nelson, Hodgson originally recruited him for the show. Midway through season five, Hodgson decided on his own to leave the series because of creative exhaustion, and his parting remarks were supportive of Nelson as his replacement.
The link also describes a Great Flame War that took place on the internet as a result of the replacement, with Hodgson loyalists very bitter about the departure of their idol. Here's my take on the Joel vs. Mike debate-- the first episodes I saw featured Mike, and so he's been, for me, the familiar face of MST 3000. I can see that for folks who started with the show earlier, the switchover could have been jarring.
But having seen a lot of shows by both of them, I still prefer Mike. He played a more defined character, and a more self-mocking one. He was more sharply at odds with the robots and the Mads. Basically, he displayed a lot more skill and nuance as a performer. Also, he picked up the tempo of the show, at least the non-movie segments.
Joel didn't really seem to be playing a character; he was more like a host who stood back and let the rest of the cast be wacky characters. He had a very gentle and nurturing way about him, almost a Mr. Rogers character. There were a few instances where his character was deliberately mean or commandeering with the robots, and the results were rather alarming. Hodgson seemed to really be into off-the-wall, bewildering stuff, like the episode where he reprogrammed the robots to love waffles.
In the theater room, both actors were equally great. The heart of MST3000 was always the movies, no question about it.
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I followed the show religiously through it's move to the Sci Fi channel up to it's final episode, and then rewatched my collection of tapes frequently, and picked up on the Rhino tapes whenever I found them.
But recently, I discovered that the entire series (minus the Rhino tapes) is available on DVD from collectors. There are several sources; I'd recommend checking out Ebay or doing a Google search. Trey Yeatts ( ety_3@hotmail.com ) has a collection that's inexpensive and conveniently packaged, with mini-episode guides printed on the back.
I also found a good source of information about the series. I'd always had the melancholy impression that Joel Hodgson was an amateur who had completely invented the series on his own and that he'd been fired by Comedy Central and replaced by Mike Nelson. This is completely false. For one thing, Hodgson was a celebrity of the comedy circuit in the late 1980's and a good friend of Jerry Seinfeld. He'd even been offered a TV series but turned it down because he loathed Hollywood. The link tells the story about how he and the other players evolved the series concept.
As for Mike Nelson, Hodgson originally recruited him for the show. Midway through season five, Hodgson decided on his own to leave the series because of creative exhaustion, and his parting remarks were supportive of Nelson as his replacement.
The link also describes a Great Flame War that took place on the internet as a result of the replacement, with Hodgson loyalists very bitter about the departure of their idol. Here's my take on the Joel vs. Mike debate-- the first episodes I saw featured Mike, and so he's been, for me, the familiar face of MST 3000. I can see that for folks who started with the show earlier, the switchover could have been jarring.
But having seen a lot of shows by both of them, I still prefer Mike. He played a more defined character, and a more self-mocking one. He was more sharply at odds with the robots and the Mads. Basically, he displayed a lot more skill and nuance as a performer. Also, he picked up the tempo of the show, at least the non-movie segments.
Joel didn't really seem to be playing a character; he was more like a host who stood back and let the rest of the cast be wacky characters. He had a very gentle and nurturing way about him, almost a Mr. Rogers character. There were a few instances where his character was deliberately mean or commandeering with the robots, and the results were rather alarming. Hodgson seemed to really be into off-the-wall, bewildering stuff, like the episode where he reprogrammed the robots to love waffles.
In the theater room, both actors were equally great. The heart of MST3000 was always the movies, no question about it.
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