Stellarscape revolves around an enthusiastic space captain, named Rigel Orion, who loves to explore the stars. Among Rigel's crew is Algol, Vega, Adhara and Procyon, who are all members of the Orion Unit, apart of an organization known as the TGC.
Unfortunately, the comic went silent before we could see much of their adventures, with only about 27 pages to date. However, it did have much supplementary material, including a Character Blog and a Bandcamp page for various characters' theme songs. There was also lots of additional artwork and content from the creators' blogs, but with the deletion of tvmachine's blog in 2019 and zenith-star's in 2020, there's currently no official way to access much of this content.
The comic can be read on its official Tumblr
(page 8 is currently unavailable due to being erroneously flagged as adult content by Tumblr), the Character Blog can be found here, and the Bandcamp can be found here.
Compare Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls, Nebula, My Moon and Planetary Moe for other works centered around anthropomorphic celestial objects.
Tropes:
- Animal Motifs: Algol is associated with snakes; not only does ze have a snake print on zir shirt, but also has a snake-like tongue and, according to zir profile, loves snakes. Interestingly, this appears to be a reference to Algol's mythology in real life - in the constellation, Perseus, Algol represents Medusa's head.
- Cast of Personifications: The cast prominently features anthropomorphized versions of stars, with the protagonist being the brightest star in the Orion constellation, Rigel. The Character Blog also confirms that side characters included anthropomorphized planets, but they never featured in the comic.
- *Click* Hello: Pistol Star is first introduced pointing a gun at the Orion Unit's crew, explaining that TGC doesn't bide well with complete strangers showing up out of nowhere. Thankfully, Pistol drops the gun once Rigel explains that its crew also works for TGC.
- Cowboy: Pistol Star's general design and aesthetic is inspired by cowboys, and Pistol's dialogue is even written with a country twang to it. This appears to be a tongue-in-cheek reference to the name "Pistol", which is also a gun often associated with cowboys.
- Crush Blush: Algol has a tendency to blush profusely around zir crush, Procyon; this is best shown in the last panel of Page 18.
- Genki Girl: Adhara is described in her profile as being bubbly, loud, and fun-loving; out of what we got to see of her in the comic, it certainly shows! She's chipper in almost every scene she's in, even in situations that might cause worry for others.
- Goggles Do Nothing: Adhara wears a pair of goggles on her head, but she's never seen with them on her eyes. In contrast, Rigel is almost exclusively seen wearing its goggles properly, but is never seen with its goggles off in the comic itself.
- Human Aliens: All of the characters have ostensibly human-like appearances, but have more than a few things setting them apart (see Non-Human Non-Binary below). Adhara and Algol most resemble regular humans, just with bright hair colors, but this veers into being downplayed with Rigel and Vega, who have light blue and pure white skin, respectively. Procyon ventures into Rubber-Forehead Aliens territory, with their dark green skin, four arms and antennae.
- Insectoid Aliens: Downplayed with Procyon; she lands somewhere between this and Rubber-Forehead Aliens. She's clearly inspired by insects, having bug-like eyes, antennae and four arms, but she still has some humanoid characteristics unlike straight examples of this trope.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: Inverted; Rigel is referred to with it/its pronouns, and this is never used as a sign of disrespect. Other characters use 'it' in a respectful way towards Rigel, and it takes no issue with being referred to as such. Rigel's bio also states it occasionally uses he/him pronouns, but 'it' is preferred.
- Non-Human Non-Binary: All of the main cast are nonbinary, and while they definitely resemble humans, they very likely aren't human considering multiple factors (Rigel and Vega having otherwise unnatural skintones, being the embodiments of stars, the cast being described as
Otherkin by Word of God, so on). This is most exemplified with Procyon, who has a much more alien appearance than the rest and is confirmed in her profile to be agender. - Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous: Implied with Procyon; every other character's profile mentions what their assigned sex was (Rigel is AMAB, Algol is AFAB, etc.), but Procyon's profile doesn't make any mention of her assigned sex at all. Knowing that she's a lot more alien in appearance than other characters and it's often pointed out that she's a different species of some sort (both in her profile, and by other characters, who casually call her "alien"), it's possible her species doesn't even have the concept of biological sex, or perhaps her species simply doesn't assign sex at birth.
- Third-Person Person: Adhara consistently refers to herself in third-person. When asked about her speech patterns, she replies it's just the way she speaks.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Procyon's favorite food is bread, and she's often seen eating bread on the ask blog.
- World of Technicolor Hair: All of the characters shown in the comic have brightly colored hair, with the technical exception of Rigel, who has black hair but with neon blue highlights, and Procyon, who also has black hair but with gold highlights that are fainter than Rigel's.
- Wrench Wench: Adhara is skilled with mechanics and repairs, according to her profile. She's also the one responsible for fixing the control panel when the ship goes off-course.
