Written by: Craig Thompson
Illustrations: Craig Thompson
Coloring: Dave Stewart
Publisher: Casterman
Ruimtekruimels (Space Dumplins) – Comic Book Review
Space has always made for interesting stories, be it the ever competing Star Wars and Star Trek, or perhaps even a more lugubrious side with the monsters in Alien. This doesn’t mean that, even though the vastness of space still goes unexplored for our race, this isn’t the proper setting for something a bit cuter, simpler and more family oriented. What if there were trailer parks in space? What if space even had lumberjacks and factory workers, while there are no planets around? Well, Ruimtekruimels (Space Dumplins) will show you the life of an average family in a very extraordinary situation.
Meet the Marlocke family, who live in a trailer park in the midst of space. The family leads as simple life, as Gar, the father, is only a simple lumberjack, mother Cera is a designer, albeit an undervalued one, and last but not least there’s Violet, a cheeky young girl that’s more a tomboy than a real little princess. You might already wonder where one could be a lumberjack in the middle of space. It seems the trade of lumberjack has become something quite peculiar, namely they don’t cut trees anymore and harvest logs of wood, they harvest logs of poo, space-whale poo to be precise. The green turds are a valuable resource to power the engines of all spacecrafts, be it shuttles or even the biggest of stations. These whales are also the source of much grief around the world, as they eat entire planets, thus everyone has to keep moving, which makes their feces even more important.
The story takes off when Violet’s school gets eaten by whales, luckily at a time when no one was present. Now Violet has to find a new school, and it seems there aren’t that many good schools around in this part of the galaxy. With no babysitters on speed dial, Violet accompanies her mother to the factory where she works, as her father’s job is simply too dangerous. When Cera receives a promotion, and she is allowed on the prestigious space station, it could mean that Violet would be allowed in their academy as well. Sadly, because of the shady past of her father, who used to be part of an intergalactic biker gang her candidature is declined and thus it’s back to finding a solution. Nonetheless, she finds a new, nerdy, friend on the space station, namely Elliot, the brainy chicken (an actual chicken, ladies and gentlemen), who doesn’t like the outside world all that much. When suddenly a catastrophe strikes, things get even more peculiar. Space is getting flooded by whale diarrhea and everything is becoming a sticky, stinky mess and people are in serious danger. When Violet’s father goes missing after a job for the lumberjack union, and Cera is hauled off to prison, Violet is determined to get her father back in one piece, with the help of Elliot, who reluctantly enjoys the adventure and Zacchaeus, who works on a garbage dump, and also happens to be the last specimen of a species whose planet was eaten by the whales. An unlikely fellowship that will have to go to extraordinary lengths in order to save Violet’s father.
Even though this visual novel is roughly 300 pages thick the pace is still quite fast and there’s never a dull moment to be found. The different chapters all handle a separate topic that contributes to the bigger plot, namely the search and rescue space adventure. While there’s not that much text to plow through most of the time, Craig Thompson presents the reader with a very amusing, lighthearted story about family in an intergalactic setting. Dialogues are mostly rather simplistic, but the overall plot is elaborate enough to please both younger and older readers.
Craig Thompson also handled the amazingly detailed drawings that combine very childish elements with adult science fiction items that have been thrown into the blender to create a big extremely detailed whole. Every page you flip you’ll find something that surprises you and there’s simply loads of content to explore, as you’ll constantly be introduced to new alien characters or new space structures, vehicles, robots, critters and so on. The coloring by Dave Stewart is plain, with dark yet flashy colors to make things very pleasing to the eye.
Conclusion
Ruimtekruimels (Space Dumplins) is truly a gem for those who love adventure stories with a space setting surrounding it. Not only is the story simply adorable at times, the illustrations are astonishing, albeit in a very lighthearted way. If a visual novel with 300 pages of surprising content for the price of two regular comic books isn’t enough to convince you, we don’t know what will. Cute, adorable, adventurous, pretty and detailed are what drives this album.
Ruimtekruimels (Space Dumplins) - Comic Book Review,
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