Comic of the Week: “The Muppets Noir” #1

It’s time to play the music. It’s time to light the lights. It’s time to read a comic on The Muppets Noir tonight. Yes, not long after The Muppet Show made its return to Disney+ (or at least one episode, and we’re hoping for more), Dynamite Comics is releasing a new Muppet comic, featuring a Muppety take on the classic noir detective film, and it’s our Comic of the Week.

“The Muppets Noir” is written, lettered, and illustrated by Roger Langridge, a writer and artist from New Zealand, also known for comics including “Frankenstein Meets Shirley Temple,” IDW’s “Popeye” and “The Rocketeer: Hollywood Horror,” and a few Muppets comics for Boom Studios and Marvel, so he has experience with Muppet comics. Dearbhla Kelly provides the colors, bringing both the Muppet Studios set and gray-toned noir setting to vibrant life.

So, what is the plot of “The Muppets Noir?” As one would expect, it’s a Muppet version of a black and white detective story, featuring Kermit the Frog as a private eye who narrates his every thought (you can practically hear the saxophone playing in the background while reading), taking on a case that leads him through encounters with other Muppets as various characters. Hijinks ensue.

However, the comic also uses a framing device, where it’s all Kermit’s dream, after he gets knocked out in a way that could only happen in The Muppet Show. This framing helps introduce some key elements to the story, including Kermit’s detective name and the recurring use of pies throughout the story, while adding a layer of explanation for things like random musical numbers.

Kermit’s detective story is pretty typical noir fare, which is appropriate for the comic. He’s hired to find a runaway heiress (played by Miss Piggy, naturally), and his quest takes him across the city, where he encounters familiar Muppet characters in new but appropriate roles.

We get appearances from Muppet Show staples like Fozzie Bear and Gonzo, along with recognizable characters like Crazy Harry and Sweetums in smaller roles, and a creative assortment of background characters. They all work well in their respective roles, like Sam the Eagle as a cop who’s all too eager to hand out tickets, while helping move the story forward at a steady pace.

(Of course, Miss Piggy wouldn’t let a comic go by without her having multiple appearances, so she keeps appearing in obvious disguises throughout the story; what that means for the narrative will be revealed in time.)

The comic also uses a fun story tool for musical numbers, as Kermit’s detective character has a condition where being around pies makes him see everything as a musical. This is accompanied by a shift in the color scheme, adding vibrant colors or a sepia tone to the normally black and white background, along with the dialogue switching to rhyming schemes to set a general tune for the musical number. The rhyme scheme, character positions, colors, and even text boxes help set the tune of musical numbers, so you can get a good idea of how the song goes even without musical accompaniment.

This is a comedic story above all else, and writer/artist Roger Langridge does a good job with both the visual and story humor. We get good gags both in the Muppet Studio and the flashback, ranging from clever jokes to slapstick bits to character-driven humor, so it’s easy to get a laugh out of the comic. All the while, the characters stay true to the Muppets we know and love, as Langridge has a good grasp of their voices and personalities.

Visually, the comic does a good job capturing both the chaos of The Muppet Show and the stylings of a noir detective film. The way panels are set often reflects how the camera angles and shot compositions would look in an episode of The Muppet Show, a Muppet movie, or a noir film, and while the panels are primarily regular squares, they shift shape during the musical numbers to make the moments feel all the more dreamlike and active.

Langridge’s artwork falls cleanly on the cartoon side of the realism-to-cartoon scale, as is appropriate for a comic about the Muppets. It’s not hyper-detailed, but there’s enough filling each panel to make it feel active and alive, with well-placed shadows and lining to add texture and depth to the images.

The designs for some characters match up perfectly with their Muppet counterparts, while others feel more like their designs are given a more humanoid form to better match the story. So while they don’t always match the puppets in every detail, it makes them easier to move across the panel in a way that feels natural. Kermit has a noticeable shift once he dons his detective outfit, which appears to be an intentional choice.

The colors by Dearbhla Kelly also deserve praise, bringing a bright tone to the Muppet Studios stage before shifting to shades of gray for the noir moments. The colors are mostly flat tones, but there’s just enough shading to add light and shadows around the characters that help add volume to the designs.

Color and lack thereof play noticeable roles in setting the atmosphere; we go from the colorful set to a black-and-white world, where only the characters and sound effects have color and vibrancy to them. But when the world shifts to a musical number, the color scheme changes too, further emphasizing the change.

So, is “The Muppets Noir” worth reading? If you’re a Muppets fan, especially one with an appreciation for film noir, you’re going to have a good time. If you’re not a Muppets fan… I’m sorry your life is so devoid of joy. Overall, “The Muppets Noir” is a fun Muppet story that works with the characters well and plays with film noir tropes, making it a most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, and perhaps even Muppetational comic.