Space Moose

Space Moose is a Canadian underground comic strip that appeared in the University of Alberta's student newspaper, The Gateway, between October 3, 1989, and 1999.

[4] 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".

[2] In addition to The Gateway, the newspapers of the University of Manitoba (The Manitoban) and Langara College (The Gleaner) also carried Space Moose.

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".

Thrasher said that he began drawing Space Moose while enrolled at Ross Sheppard High School in Edmonton in order to make a friend laugh.

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.

Thrasher and Donald R. "Don" Husereau drew "Colby Christ meets Space Moose", a strip that was a segue between the series.

This led to changes being made in students' union rules that would prevent any future "joke" candidate from actually winning an election.

Due to the increasing popularity of the cartoon, people took away Space Moose's campaign posters as collector's items.

Thrasher established a new website which housed over 170 Space Moose comic strips, including "Clobberin' Time".

The section invited readers to "fume with the feminists who banned Space Moose from the university network".

[5] A cartoon that was printed in The Gateway, "Antlers of the Damned", depicting an angel and featuring a dog sodomizing Space Moose.

Another Space Moose cartoon, that depicted Snow White facing sodomy at the hands of the Seven Dwarves, was published in Slur, a punkzine.

[4][10] Macleans Canada stated that the most controversial strip in Space Moose's history was "Clobberin' Time", which satirized the Take Back the Night march, an annual event held on Jasper Avenue in Edmonton to protest violence perpetrated by men against women.

[4][2] In that strip Space Moose prepares to attack demonstrators,[4] and opens fire on women in the rally while using a machine gun,[11] hitting his targets.

[2] A large masculine-appearing woman captures Space Moose,[11] and in the following strip he is incarcerated in a "Womyn's Studies re-education camp".

In future, Mr. Thrasher should be more sensitive to some members of his reading audience in his depiction of issues" and that he would be fined $200 ($344.14 when adjusted for inflation) by making a contribution of that amount to the Graduate Students' Association Food Bank.

[18] Adam Thrasher argued that the "Take Back the Night" marches cause polarization in gender relations, since women discourage men from participating.

"[15] A Saturday October 25, 1997, editorial of The Globe and Mail argued that the actions against Thrasher were censorship and that "the instinct to block the juvenile humour was more disturbing than the juvenalia itself.

"[20] The Alberta Report said in 1997 that "Space Moose is a festival of caricatured scatology, violence, perversion, irreligion and even pedophilia.

'"[14] Joyce Green, a University of Regina political science professor who was another complainant, argued that "I don't see any difference between [the Montreal Massacre] and the cartoon.

[14] Brice Smith, a graduate student in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Physics, said in The Tech in 2001 that "[t]he first strip, taken alone, would have been a brilliant use of sarcasm that very sharply points out the need for such events", but that the second strip "mocks the women’s demands to feel safe and to be free from rape, and then follows this up with the men brutally attacking the women, killing many quite graphically[...]"[21] Brice Smith argued that "One almost does not even know where to begin addressing this kind of hate-filled message.

"[21] In regards to the university code of conduct, Green and Trimble argued that it needed to be amended so that it would prohibit future strips like "Clobberin' Time".

Thrasher said "I drew this thing with all the stereotypes of a goofy character--lopsided googly eyes, buck teeth that hang out, and antlers.

After drawing one Space Moose cartoon, Husereau left the strip's production but continued to be an advisor.

With respect to Jason Kapalka's gag writing, the real jumping-off point for "Space Moose" is the ingenious "Calvin and Slobbes", the first strip of 1990–91.