Publication date: December, 1991
Originally published in: Turtle Soup (Vol. 2) #2
Story and art: Dave Garcia
Color: Justin Hampton
“Mid-afternoon of the Living Dead”
Summary:
Hip zombie host Abner Cadaver welcomes the readers to
another installment of Oogah Boogah Theater.
Tonight’s story is called “Mid-Afternoon of the Living Dead”…
A meteor lands in the Ever-Rest Cemetery, but it’s no
ordinary space rock. The meteorite turns
out to be an alien canister containing strange worms. The night-crawlers work their way into the
soil where the coffins reside. The next
morning, a pair of intrepid meteorite hunters trace the trajectory of the
meteor to the cemetery. They get out of
their van to hunt for it, but are immediately attacked by flesh-eating zombies
who have been resurrected by the worms.
At a nearby lake, the Ninja Turtles are on a fishing
vacation. Sadly, Mikey ate all their
bait (mistaking it for anchovies), leaving them in a fix. Raph sees a local shambling toward them and
decides to ask him if he has any bait.
The man turns out to be a zombie, and what’s worse, he’s being
accompanied by dozens of other flesh-eaters.
The Turtles whip out their weapons and make quick work of the undead
creatures.
Later, the Turtles enjoy their fishing vacation, using
the alien worms they retrieved from the zombie corpses as bait. Abner Cadaver closes the story by reminding
the readers that you are what you eat, and when the Turtles eventually sit down
for a fish dinner, they’ll be indirectly eating the alien worms themselves.
Turtle Tips:
*The meteorite hunters, Kevin and Pete, are parodies of
TMNT creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird (duh).
*Despite being a Mirage publication, the Turtles are
wearing the multi-colored bandanas of their cartoon counterparts. This was typical in many stories featured
throughout Turtle Soup (Vol. 2).
Review:
Dave Garcia was another artist who popped up on various
TMNT projects in the early ‘90s, was good, and then quietly disappeared from
the franchise. He wore a few hats while
working on the series; mostly as an inker on early issues of Archie’s TMNT
Adventures, but he tried his hand at penciling a few issues, too. I thought his style was pretty solid, but he just
didn’t get very many opportunities to work on the book, and several of his
issues were during the dull cartoon episode-adaptation era.
“Mid-afternoon of the Living Dead” gives Garcia the
chance to go a little bonkers, though offered only a scant 5 pages to do
so. He races through the story so
quickly there hardly isn’t one at all (alien worms create zombies, TMNT kill
zombies, the end). I can’t really hold
it against him, though, because again: 5 pages.
Grade: N (as in, "Night of the Creeps. If you've seen it, then you'll know why I just brought it up".)
