Princess Powerful Attacks: Fringe (prequel)

The FOX television show Fringe focuses on an FBI agent who teams up with a former institutionalized scientist and his son.  They investigate “The Pattern,” a series of bizarre occurrences that might be connected to the global company Massive Dynamic.  At San Diego Comic-Con 2008, the cast and writers of Fringe held a panel presentation where they showed a rough cut of the pilot and gave free previews of the Fringe prequel comic book to the audience.

Title: Fringe
Writers: J.J. Abrams (#0), Alex Kurtzman (#0), Jeff Pinker (#0), Roberto Orci (#0), Julia Cho (#1), Zach Whedon (#1), Danielle Dispaltro (#1, 4-6), Alex Katsnelson (#1-6), Mike Johnson (#2-3, 5), Matthew Pitts (#2), Kim Cavyan (#4), and Justin Doble (#6)
Pencils: Tom Mandrake (#0-6), and Simon Coleby (#1)
Inkers: Tom Mandrake (#0, 2-6), and Cliff Rsthburn with Simon Coleby (#1)
Colors: Carrie Strachan (#0, 1-2, 4), Jim Charalampidis (#1), Tony Avina (#2), Wildstorm FX (#3, 5-6), and Darlene Royer (#4)
Letters: Wes Abbott (#0-6)
Covers: Graphic Photostock Images
Issues: #0123456
Publisher: Wildstorm
Pages: 32
Price: $2.99
Release Date: (#0) July 2008, (#1-6) October 2008-August 2009

In the 1970s, the scientists Walter Bishop and William Bell began their partnership in discoveries that would ultimately lead to bizarre adventures, such as going through time.

Meanwhile, people around the world experienced strange situations, ranging from people’s minds switching with another person, to anyone around a young boy suddenly dying.

Side Notes: The Fringe prequel comic book took a long time to complete, because the writers wanted to have it properly integrated into the lore of the television series.  It featured full page photos with information on each of the main cast of Fringe, and several advertisements for Massive Dynamic as seen in episode 1×01.  The writers and cast of the show handed out free previews of the prequel comic book for audiences at San Diego Comic-Con 2008 and the subsequent Fringe series was later collected into a trade paperback.  It can be found online or at auction sites, such as eBay.

Tales From The Fringe Cover

At first the Fringe prequel was incredibly boring, but I began to gain interest in it as I continued to read through the comic.  The artwork was decent, but it felt like the main story’s character design was too subtle to depict the 1970s.

Fringe was a surprisingly interesting prequel comic book to read that didn’t require seeing the television show beforehand.  Fans of Fringe might notice that there were several references to the TV show, such allowing cows to stable in the laboratory.  Another Fringe comic book, entitled Tales From the Fringe, focuses on Peter Bishop as he chooses between doing the right thing, saving a troubled man who’s forced to be a suicide bomber, or scoring a dream job.  The side story features a high school girl who transforms into an adult and discovers that she’s an assassin!  Tales From the Fringe will be written by various writers, and comes out June 23rd.

Fringe is currently hosting a Fringe 101 guide on their website for new viewers.  It’s very helpful in letting viewers catch up to the series, but it contains major spoilers! Fringe season 3 will start April 1st on FOX.

Princess Powerful
princesspowerful@comicattack.net

This Post Has 5 Comments

  1. InfiniteSpeech

    I wasn’t going to give the show a chance at all but was talked into it and it was actually pretty interesting and I found myself watching it off and on for a bit. I never knew there was a book released with the project. Might check out the book since it’s in on TPB.

  2. Andy

    I’ve never seen the show but I really dig the covers!!

  3. Princess Powerful

    I knoo they’re purty, especially the the new upcoming comic. ^_^

  4. DecapitatedDan

    One of my Top 5 shows on TV. I can not get enough of it. I just wish it was on FX so we could adult it up! I can not wait to see what happens tonight!

    As for the books I agree, I am not a big fan of shows being books (unless they are cartoons). So I wasn’t a huge fan of this series, but I did grab them all.

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