Mark Wheatley and our own J.C. Vaughn’s science fiction adventure strip Return of the Human, which has been featured in David Lloyd’s acclaimed digital anthology Aces Weekly, takes center stage – at least set-wise – on the hit CBS TV show 2 Broke Girls on Wednesday, February 10, 2016 from 8 PM to 8:30 PM ET. Check your local listings.
In the episode “And The Booth Babes,” Max (Kat Dennings) and Caroline (Beth Behrs) sign up to be “booth babes” in order to get into a huge gaming convention for free. Once inside, they're shocked to see that Han's friend has created video game characters based on them, and demand compensation.
In addition to Dennings and Behrs, 2 Broke Girls’ regular cast includes Garrett Morris as Earl, Jonathan Kite as Oleg, Matthew Moy as Han, and Jennifer Coolidge as Sophie. The episode is written by Rachel Lind & David Shecter and directed by Joel Murray.
Depicted in snapshots, moments in time, and memories from even further in the future, Return of the Human tells the story of Lt. Alexander Lance McCoy of the Mars Defense Force and his perilous adventures in the style of a Ken Burns-esque documentary. Running the gamut of emotions and spanning the far-flung worlds of explored space, the journey takes McCoy to the last place any human would ever expect to go, the long-deserted ancestral homeworld, Earth.
“As it turns out, Return of the Human and Mark Wheatley were in the right place at the right time to nab the spot in the 2 Broke Girls production due to the amazing TV work Mark’s been doing the past few years,” said Vaughn, the strip’s writer.
“I had done some work with production designer Glenda Rovello on The Millers, so when she asked me to be involved with this episode of 2 Broke Girls I knew I would be working with a good team. Glenda does an amazing job of creating the look of the world of this show,” Wheatley said.
“And with unit production manager Jay O'Connell working the production, creating a gaming convention and a specially designed booth from scratch was a remarkably smooth operation. I'm constantly impressed at how the illusion of reality is created over and over again for these TV shows. When I'm doing a comic book like Return Of The Human, I just have to draw it. For TV, they actually have to build it,” he said. “In this case, they built it using a great deal of art from Return of the Human, including the title and logo for the series!”
Return of the Human debuted along with the anthology itself in Aces Weekly Volume 1. It continued for a second installment in Aces Weekly Volume 3, and is expected to return for its next book later in 2016. Each volume of Aces Weekly, which is ideally suited for reading on iPads and other tablets, is serialized across seven weekly issues. The subscriber receives up to 200 pages of story and additional bonus material for $9.99 U.S.
Vaughn’s new series, The Flight, with artists Brian and Brendon Fraim, is being serialized in the current volume of Aces Weekly.
