By Lisa Gullickson  — “Hey! You got Tolkien in my Star Trek!” “You got Star Trek in my Tolkien!” “Hm… delicious!” Rabble-rousing, blood-seeking orcs accidentally commandeer the StarBleep ship Aarken, and intergalactic hijinks ensue. I was lured into Orcs in Space by the charmingly gross cartooning and the promise of an irreverent, salty/sweet mash-up of fantasy and science-fiction. What I discovered was an endearing allegory about how, by broadening our horizons, all of us outsiders can find our place in the universe.

Two good-intentioned but hapless StarBleep officers looking to make first contact on an insignificant mud-ball of a planet leave their starship unattended with the keys in the ignition. Three oddball orcs slip into the open hatch looking to escape a disapproving horde. They soon find themselves dodging asteroids and sailing amongst the stars battling bounty hunters with oral fixations and steampunk rats. Gor, who fancies himself the leader of this outfit, seems dubious of the advanced technology surrounding them. He dismisses the Foodilizer and automatic doors as magic obstacles to living his best orc life. How is a warrior supposed to make a destructive, door-busting entrance when the door insists on opening for you? But Kravis, the smallest and most curious orc, is in awe. Kravis quickly befriends the Aarken’s operating system, D.O.N.A., who is taken aback by how considerate this tiny green biological being is. No one ever left the ship asking D.O.N.A. if they needed anything before.

“My axe and tongue demand fluids!” Gor cries, wielding his weapon as the unwitting explorers (orc-splorers?) make their way to the Starclub 72 for libations and fisticuffs. Orcs in Space delivers enough ribald silliness and cartoony blood-and-guts to satisfy anyone’s inner 8-year old. There are many clever quotables from this Justin Roiland (Rick and Morty) joint that beg to be folded into our day-to-day vernacular. How can one not retort, “If that’s an insult, you’ll have to use smaller words!” after reading it? François Vigneault’s art, paired with DJ Chavis’s popping colors, delivers some real slap-schticky delights. They are poinking eyes like the three stooges in one panel and cleaving an innocent cyclops in twain with an axe in another. There are plenty of green dudes ha-lorping bile into each other’s faces if that is your thing. My thing is misfit characters having moments of epiphany as they go on a journey of self-discovery and, guess what, Orcs in Space gives me my thing in spades.

“I am of the ship. I am not the ship.” Despite their concise and repeated reminders, the orcs keep mistaking D.O.N.A. for the body of the ship. They think that when the Aarken is damaged, D.O.N.A. might feel pain. The genius of Orcs in Space is that it uses the shared cultural language of genre and spoof to deliver a precise and invaluable message about individuality. When we meet a stranger, we tend to use the context that they are in to inform us who they are. D.O.N.A. is a voice inside a ship; therefore, they are a ship. What seems obvious to the orcs is not the truth. However, we can’t hardly blame them because we also tend to do the same thing to ourselves. 

Kravis looks green like an orc; he has always lived amongst orcs; therefore, he believes he should feel like an orc. It is not until he is accidentally blasted off into outer space that he even considers other ways of being. This is not a story about an unhappy orc who knew he was different, so he took a rocket to space. This is a story about an orc who ended up in space and realized that greater happiness and fulfillment were available to him. By opening ourselves to new experiences, we may not only find new friends, but we may find ourselves. We are of our context. We are not our context.

After reading this first volume from Oni Press, I am fully invested in what happens next for Kravis, Gor, and Mogtar. I am also interested in flipping the script and taking a closer look at those StarBleep officers back on the mucky orc planet. Are they, too, learning invaluable lessons about themselves, or have they already been eaten by Velgar the Snot-Tamer? Orcs in Space could easily be a gimmick and be entirely satisfactory as a comic - it is a parody. Who doesn’t love to have what we revere boiled down to its essence so that we can laugh at it and therefore ourselves? What makes Orcs in Space really special is that it uses short-hand of the genres we love to intrigue us, it disarms us with jokey-jokes, and then sucker-punches us in the feels with a story about empathy as a means of personal growth.

Trade Collection Review: Orcs In Space, Vol. 1

Orcs in Space, Vol. 1
Writer: Justin Roiland, Rashad Geith, Abed Geith, and Mike Tanner
Artist: François Vignealut
Publisher: Oni Press
Price: $15.99
Gor, Kravis, and Mongtar are three Orcs trying to survive while on the run from everything and everyone on their home world. When the naive bureaucrats from StarBleep land on their planet, the orcs unwittingly steal most advanced ship in the fleet and blast into the dankest reaches of the outer galactigon. After befriending the ship's AI, D.O.N.A, the gang encounters everything from pacifier-sucking bounty hunters to raucous nightclubs to steampunk Space Rats. The cosmos will never be the same, thanks to the Orcs in Space!
Publication Date: October 5th, 2021
More Information: Orcs in Space

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Lisa Gullickson is one half of the couple on the Comic Book Couples Counseling podcast, and, yes, the a capella version of the 90s X-men theme is all her. Her Love Language is Words of Affirmation which she accepts @sidewalksiren on twitter.