Don’t get me wrong, I love Spaceballs as much as the next guy, but my favorite Star Wars parody is a much deeper cut. Back in the 1980s, there was an explosion in independent comics. Developed as an alternative to DC and Marvel’s mainstream superhero comics, these books spanned every genre, from gritty action comics like Grimjack to absurd comedies like The Flaming Carrot. A good lot of them were also what’s known as “funny animal comics,” a term that really just applies to anthropomorphized animals, which were only sometimes comedic. The best-known example is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but there were also properties like Usagi Yojimbo, a series about a samurai rabbit that’s still running today, and still independently owned by creator Stan Sakai.

In that vein of independent funny animal comics was one that was actually quite funny: Ken Mitchroney and Mark Cantell’s five-issue series Space Ark.

The comic is about the crew of a ship called the Space Ark, which is part of the Fur-Bearing Alliance. Called “FURBALL” for short, the Fur-Bearing Alliance is basically an organization of galactic police officers organized into small crews. It primarily consists of mammals, though not entirely.

The Space Ark is run by a mostly incompetent crew led by egotistical fox Captain Stone. There’s also a self-important science officer owl named Dr. Whoot and a dog named Barker who appears to have navigational duties, but mostly........

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