The Original T.E.A. Vol 2. # 1& 2 (2007), Vol 2, #3 (2006), Pop Comics, Henry Chmielefski (writer, colorist #1-3), Frank Humphris (artist #1 &2), Veli Loponen (artist #3), Mike Melton (colorist, #3), Full color
The Original T.E.A. (Teen Enforcement Agency) has a very long history. Henry Chmielsfski started his TEA characters back in the early 1970s as a fan project. Henry joined the Christian Comics Apa, Alpha-Omega in 1989 and revived the TEA and began rewriting and drawing their adventures. Henry dropped out of Alpha-Omega in 1992, but returned in 1998 again showcasing the adventures of T.E.A. In 2004 Henry teamed up with British artist Frank Humphris to produce two issues of the Original TEA for Brian Bradley's Kingdom Comics. While Humphris supplied the pencils and inks and Chmielsfski provided colors and letters. These two issues, combined in one volume (2007), were reprinted with added pages and many changes under Chmielefski's own Pop Comics imprint. Issue number three (2006) starts a new three part series centering on the SpaceLad character with Finnish artist, Veli Loponen, doing the pencils and inks.
The Original TEA is youthful super hero group cut from the same cloth as the X-Men, Legion of Super Heroes and the Teen Titans. The group consists of Captain Ash, Speeder, Brain Boy, Occult Mistress, Starr, and T-Lad. They are a special metahuman CIA task force created to deal with extraordinary threats. In the combined issue #1-2 they face and defeat a terrorist threat in southeast England. Perhaps as interesting as the main storyline is a subplot involving Occult Mistress who is possessed by familiar spirits. This tells of her struggle against these demons which leads to her embrace Christian faith at the end of the story. This plot thread caused quite a stir in Alpha-Omega when Chmielefski first introduced it in the early 1990s. The strongest aspects of Humphris artwork are his excellent facial drawings and the architectural backgrounds. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair makes a guest appearance in this issue (as he does in #3) and Humphris does a good job portraying the world leader. The story in #1&2 takes place in Eastbourne, East Sussex, England (the artist's hometown) and Humphris makes excellent use of reference to produce very nice location shots. Humphris is probably less successful in dealing with the overcrowded fight scenes. Veli Loponen (#3) uses a style heavily influenced by John Bryne and Jack Kirby to produce a conventional super hero look for the book. The story takes place in Loponen's hometown of Tampere, Finland where alien flying saucers threaten to destroy the city. Loponen concentrates on the individual exploits of SpaceLad and does a commendable job with the visuals. The story ended with a cliffhanger but we don't know when issue #2 is coming out.
The problem with fan based super hero group comics is that the creator (s) has so much backstory for each character that can't be told in any issue. Why should I as the reader care about these characters? When the Teen Titans were introduced in the mid-1960s each character has a fairly extensive publishing history open to the comic book reader. The X-Men were produced on a monthly basis, as was the Legion of Super Heroes, so we not only saw the heroes battling the villain of the month but also included were characterization tidbits about their history and relationships. Chmielefski's task is an arduous one to make us care about what happens to these characters (from his youthful fan days) that are published infrequently. He is moving in that direction with the Occult Mistress subplot and the concentration on SpaceLad. The question-can he make the characters (and the stories) so compelling that will bring the readers back after several month intervals?
www.original-tea.com
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