Space Moose

Space Moose was a Canadian underground comic strip that appeared in the University of Alberta's student newspaper, The Gateway, between October 3, 1989, and 1999. Almost all of the strips were penned by Adam Thrasher, a student at the university. For career-related reasons, many archives refer to the author by his post-production pen name Mustafa Al-Habib.Macleans Canada said that Space Moose "was deliberately provocative." Ellen Schoek, the author of I Was There: A Century of Alumni Stories about the University of Alberta, 1906-2006, said that Space Moose "left no subject unscathed, from fraternities to Christianity and obesity, from sexual proclivities to racism." In addition to The Gateway, the newspapers of the University of Manitoba (The Manitoban) and Langara College (The Gleaner) also carried Space Moose.

The strip follows the adventures of Space Moose, an anthropomorphic, nihilistic moose with asymmetrical eyes and a Star Trek uniform, as he violates every behavioral norm and societal taboo he can find. His roommates Marlo Smefner, Billy the Bionic Badger, and Bald Dwarf are often the accomplices or victims of his actions. Macleans Canada said that Space Moose was "probably the most famous comic strip character in Canadian university history."

A book collection, Triumph of the Whim, was published in the northern hemisphere fall of 1997. It consists of 94 pages of selected existing Space Moose cartoons and 6 pages of previously unpublished Space Moose strips. Most strips were available on the Space Moose web site.

Thrasher said that he began drawing Space Moose while enrolled at Ross Sheppard High School in Edmonton in order to make a friend laugh. The first Space Moose comic premiered in the October 3, 1989, edition of The Gateway. In 1991 Thrasher left the University of Alberta and worked for Northwestern Utilities in Edmonton; during the four months he worked with the company, he did not produce any Space Moose comics, and the school newspaper replaced Space Moose's slot with Colby Christ, a comic about Colby Cosh, a friend of Thrasher. When Thrasher returned to the university, Colby Christ was replaced by Space Moose, which had resumed. Thrasher and Donald R. "Don" Husereau drew "Colby Christ meets Space Moose," a strip that was a segue between the series.

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