Jim Henson’s Sesame Street first aired in 1969 on Children’s Television Workshop. On Wednesday, May 1st, 2013, Ape Entertainment and Kizoic brought Sesame Street #1 to the funny pages. Not leaving anything to intuition, the comic opens with a one page strip that features Elmo in a kind of power point presentation about how comic books work. He demonstrates panels, word balloons, and narrative text boxes, which is all part of a visual vocabulary that comic book readers often forget had to be learned. Elmo ends the first page with an invitation to the reader, “Elmo can’t wait to READ…with you!” With this kind of presentation and care for the reader, chances are good most of these will be read and reread by their intended audience until you will require the best of luck to find a mint copy the day after these are all circulated. It would be more true to refer to the readership in the plural, as audiences; this title appeals both to child and parent, so that this comic may be one of those few comics that have more out loud readings than silent ones.
Like the real Sesame Street, the comic is a series of vignettes, and unlike most other anthology variety shows, each segment has a punch line and a moral at the same time. The moral part is atypical, because comics have for the most part lost their ability to impart (or their interest in imparting) moral truth with authority. The day has flown in which the narrator would lecture the hero and the reader on great power and great responsibility. Mainstream superhero comics need to look to this comic, which returns comics to the didactic without being preachy. In what will probably become the most memorable story in this issue, “It’s Super Elmo!”, Elmo becomes a superhero by pretending to be one, and when he has a moment of doubt due to not possessing super powers, Super Grover sets him straight. Heart, he says, is the greatest super power, and Elmo has that in abundant supply. Yes, you might have heard this truth before, but this comic’s youngest readers have not. Literature, even children’s literature, progresses by quotation, reference, and repetition, and a truth does not need to be new to be worthy of being repeated. Truth finds its audience.
The other stories are also deep in meaning while remaining pleasant on the surface. In “Smog Day Afternoon,” Oscar the Grouch spins a tale that waxes eloquent on the power of smell, particularly the power that bad smells have over him. It is pretty comprehensive, and a true story on many levels, not only in the traditional sense that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but also it refers to the scientific observation that connects scent and memory as Oscar shares his nostalgia for the foul aromas of his granny’s pies.
The moral here is that you should run out and buy this comic immediately and add it to your pull list. If you find it sold out, though, don’t worry. Let’s say you missed the first printing and the Free Comic Book Day edition (which contained only “It’s Super Elmo!” and Strawberry Shortcake on the flip side). Ape is preparing more editions. If you frequent quality booksellers like Barnes and Noble, there will be more durable versions of each issue for sale there with additional content. Additionally, your toddler can read these comics digitally, and according to USA today, the digital variants will also have oodles of extras. You can sample Sesame Street #1 on the Kizoic website here.
