A free promotional Planet of the Apes comic I got from BMV on Bloor Street West a few weeks ago

I’ve never seen any of the recent Planet of the Apes films.

I mean, I’ve seen the first one from like the sixties or whatever and I saw the Tim Burton remake (I think it was Tim Burton but maybe it wasn’t???) from the nineties (or very early noughties?), but none of the mid-century sequels and none of the more recent ones which are – to my knowledge – set in a present day as apes slowly destroy our terrible, terrible, terrible society.

I have, tho, seen that episode of The Simpsons where Troy McClure stars in a stage musical adaptation of the film, and I suppose it is, ultimately, this that I consider the definitive version of the narrative.

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When someone says The Planet of the Apes to me, what I immediately think of is mocking, yet catchy, showtunes and intentionally broad mock Broadway humour… “I hate every ape I see / from chimp-an-A to chimp-an-zee” is my personal highlight, though the more iconic “I think you’re lazy / I want a second opinion / You’re also crazy” sung dialogue and the closing number in which McClure’s protagonist sings “yes, you’ve finally made a monkey out of me” are refrains that pop into my mind with a likely beyond-normal millennial frequency.

So, yes, I am by no means anti Planet of the Apes.

I get the idea of watching more Planet of the Apes films, sure, maybe, I’m not explicitly against it but time and life both snake out in inconsistent ways so there feels like there is never the right moment right now for middle of the road mainstream action blockbusters, and that there will eventually, with time, come a perfect moment for them, maybe, though I don’t know if that’s likely to ever be true, or if I’d even like to have enough free time to fit stuff like this in…

The one thing I do feel that there is always potential time for, though, is reading, and it’s kinda true at the moment while I’m doing a daily 40ish minute commute (each way) and continue to be able to walk while holding and looking at a book.

So when I saw this promotional comic book for an upcoming Planet of the Apes movie – no idea what it’s called or what it’s about other than humans fighting apes and the apes probably winning – on the counter as I paid for a Samuel Delany paperback on the top floor (the nerd floor: SF, fantasy and comic books only) of Toronto’s giant mostly (but not entirely) secondhand bookstore, BMV, I saw no reason to leave it on the desk.

I also am a sucker for any piece of reading material that is 100% free. ( Though is anything ever 100% free?)

I like comic books, graphic novels, etc, as a medium, and I like the physical materiality of magazines, so I think that if a comic book store was something I regularly walked past it would be a style of text I’d read more often. Though, tbf, due to the higher production costs (all the pictures) and the much shorter reading time compared to a similarly-sized book of prose (all the pictures), the cost:benefit analysis may leave me to see greater value in a book.

Then again, on the rare occasions when I’m taking a long domestic train ride and I’m not colossally depressed (which hasn’t happened for a long, long while) I’m likely to buy a 2000AD or a Viz from a station WH Smith…

Annnwaaay…

This one in particular? Unmemorable, even though I read it yesterday.

Apes get super intelligent, humans die, Earth turns into Planet of the Apes. It’s a very very truncated version of that story, but it’s effectively and graphically told.

Bursts of narrative which – I presume – either are moments that have featured in the recent films from the series or would be recognisably adjacent to that action… And not much else

I feel like it’s kinda a “previously on Planet of the Apes” type thing, which makes a lot of sense as a free thing to give away to promote a sequel deep into a series of films.

It also makes clear (with adverts inside this advert) that there have been, on and off for decades, Planet of the Apes comic books.

Would I ever read any of those? If it was free and I was unencumbered by tasks? Maybe. If I had to pay for it? Absolutely not.

A fine way to spend 20 minutes or so…

But, yes, unmemorable.