Ron Planet
From Homestar Runner Wiki
Ron Planet was a comic strip written by Matt Chapman and Craig Zobel. The comic centered around the eponymous Ron Planet, the last astronaut on Earth in the year 2040.
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[edit] Background
The concept for the comic traces back to 2006, when Matt and Craig joked about making a science-fiction movie centering on a former space hero called out of retirement. Inspired by the space-travel zeitgeist of the Ansari X Prize, Virgin Galactic, and The China National Space Administration, the duo (with assistance from Mike Chapman) developed the idea into a script. Though they were unable to secure financing, the ideas from the script were adapted into the Ron Planet comic strip — leaving the door open for the strip to later be adapted into a movie.
[edit] Comic
Ron Planet is the last astronaut on an Earth that has grown bored with space travel. When NASA detects suspicious activity on the moon (in the form of a bag of microwave popcorn), Ron is literally the only man for the job.
The comic's first strip launched on September 17, 2009. Ron Planet was co-written by Matt and Craig, and drawn by Matt. Strips are accompanied by brief text commentary, as well as a bonus feature allowing readers to view the original thumbnail sketches for strips. Ron Planet had its own FeedBurner Page as well.
The 49th strip was posted on November 22, 2010; though the story was not concluded, there have been no further updates since. In 2011, Matt tweeted that Ron Planet would "someday" be revived, though returning to Homestar Runner would take priority. In 2020, a sketch for the 50th strip was shared to Twitter; in the same post, Strong Bad joked that the unfinished strip was "super boring" and that the comic was "killed [...] forever", implying that Ron Planet would not continue.
[edit] Fun Facts
- An astronaut named "Ron Planet" first appeared on the box art for Duck Guardian 2. After the comic's launch, clicking the "starring the popular RON PLANET!" starburst on the box art in the Videlectrix website gallery linked to the webcomic's site.
- In the comic, Ron Planet is far from "popular"; indeed, his unpopularity is the driving force behind the storyline.
- Craig Zobel posted about the comic on the Homestar Runner Wiki Forum, introducing it as "a little side project".
- The comic's "about" page offers a story of how Matt and Craig met: in junior high school art class.
- Though Ron's full name is "Ronald", one strip featured a character assuming his name was "Ronginald". The comic's contact email similarly was ronginald@ronplanet.com.
- This name would be reused for Matt's @ronginald Twitter account, where he occasionally tweeted about Ron Planet.
[edit] See Also
[edit] External Links
- Ron Planet website
