It seems to me that MTV did exactly two things right: Music videos and animation. Sadly, they don’t seem to do either anymore. Hell, Cartoon Network’s even stepping away from showing all animation. (I heard that the new head of CN said something along the lines of “It doesn’t need to be animated to be a cartoon”, which is, ahm… yeah.) But, anyway — back when MTV showed music videos and cartoons, they aired The Maxx — sadly not available on DVD aside from boots, and the VHS wasn’t the complete series, which I loved. I knew it was based on a comic, but never could find it. (Apparently, original publishers Image did a couple of trades, but never finished the series; luckily, DC/Cliffhangers has compiled the complete run.)
Turns out, the adaptation was very faithful to the original comics — or at least the first six issues — so far, that’s all I’ve been able to find to read, but I’m looking forward to reading more. Sadly, there was only the one season of The Maxx (which was apparently the first 11 or so issues), so the show didn’t really wrap up completely, given that there were 35 issues of the comic — though I think only around up to 11 or so had been written at the time of the show.
But ANYWAY — it’s very faithful, but also with more background, which is great. Sam Kieth‘s art is very well done, and Bill Messner-Loebs‘ dialogue is clear. I’m definitely looking forward to reading the rest of the series and finding out the full extent of what happened in the story…. now if MTV would only release The Maxx on DVD [Ed’s note: THEY HAVE!]… and maybe Liquid TV too while they’re at it. (If they want, they don’t have to bother with The Head…)