What's the Greatest Comic Book Ever Written? Is it Carl Barks' sweeping Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck adventures? Is it Jeff Smith's fantasy epic Bone? Is it Frank Miller's early work before he went bananas? Is it that one Spider-Man issue where he was on the set of Saturday Night Live and had to save John Belushi from a real samurai? NO, there's something better than all of them, and Platypus Comix covers every issue today.

Truthfully, I don't think there's really any debate. The proof is undeniable and the contribution to literature and society at large is invaluable. You already know what I'm about to say. The greatest comic book ever written is obviously, OBVIOUSLY Marvel's version of ALF.

I know what you're thinking: "I'm never reading this site again, you fruitcake." Hear me out.

"ALF" was my favorite comic book growing up. I gravitated toward the sparse and rare-in-America "humor" side of comics. I consumed a lot of Archie, I ate up those Gladstone Barks reprints, but I LOVED it whenever a new "ALF" would come out. The entire 50-issue series was written by Michael Gallagher, who scripted a lot of Marvel's kid-friendly STAR Comics line back in the day. Gallagher loved puns, the more strained and outrageous the better. Most comics fans know this because Mike wrote the foundation issues for the long-running Sonic the Hedgehog comic, but he forced puns onto every series he worked on. It didn't work for everybody, but it really worked for ALF.

Something about this character and Gallagher's sensibilities fit together like peanut butter and jelly. You could feel in each issue how much fun he was having writing for ALF. He clearly had a passion for the material and he took the premise to some really creative heights. Is it better than the TV series? Well, that's not a hard task, but I'd say it's better than most shows that were on in the 80s, period.

But don't just take my word for it....read it yourself! Today we'll be reviewing every issue, and because Marvel is unlikely to ever reprint this series in any form, you can download CBR scans of each issue right here! Tracking down the entire run would be a pain otherwise, and you pretty much need every issue given how often they reference past storylines.

ALF #1 -- December 1987

• At Your Disposal
  Like most rookie attempts, this first issue is rough. Artist Dave Manak was still trying to figure out the best way to render ALF's big nose, and Kate looks nightmarish. The Tanners are having a garage sale, so they move ALF's spaceship to the back of the house next to the trash cans....where it's picked up by the garbagemen as trash. ALF journeys to the junkyard to recover his ship, having a run-in with the night watchman and his rifle.
• Snowman Is An Island
  While on vacation in a mountain cabin, Willie and Brian build a snowman that looks just like ALF. Then some bully kid smashes it to pieces, so an insulted ALF covers himself in snow and visits the kid claiming to be the angry "Great Snow Spirit."
• Play Misty For Me
  At this time there were two shows on the air called "ALF" -- one was the sitcom, and the other was a Saturday Morning prequel cartoon depicting ALF's life on his home planet. The ALF comic adapted both shows at the same time by having ALF periodically "flash back" and tell a story from his past. Before Gordon Shumway's home planet exploded, he was in their version of the army, marching for the Orbit Guard. He had a girlfriend named Rhonda, a best friend named Skip, and was the oldest in a nuclear family of Melmacians. Eventually the Melmac section of the comic would turn into a series of parodies, but for now, it was fairly faithful to the cartoon.
• TRIVIA: The cover of this first issue is a photo of the puppet ALF towering over the cartoon version, who looks upon himself and declares, "ROBERT REDFORD!" The line was originally more "current" for its publication date; promotional ads showed ALF yelling "TOM CRUISE!"
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ALF #2 -- January 1988

• All's Fair
  We would quickly find out that ALF has an endless array of alien gadgets and gizmos to pull from his spaceship. In issue #2 we get the very first one (and one we would see used a lot): the anti-gravity belt. Brian has a science fair coming up and ALF has the idea that if he entered the belt as his project, he'd win hands down. Willie refuses to allow it, so ALF secretly stuffs the belt into Brian's backpack. When the science teacher finds the belt, he plots to claim to invent it. ALF and Brian must recover the belt now before that can happen.
• All The World's A Cycle
  Orbit Guardsman Gordon Shumway must infilitrate the notorious motorcycle gang known as the Mell's Angels. "Jacks" are an interesting anachronism. This game showed up all the time on kids shows in the 80's and into the 90's, but video games had already been invented and I never met a single kid who played jacks. Same with "marbles."
• Jungle Love
  The Tanners take ALF on a drive-through jungle safari, which proves to be a bad idea when the giant cats drive him into a feeding frenzy.
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ALF #3 -- February 1988

• Travels With Willie
  It's been a staple of comic books for generations...the imaginary story. A tale you tell out of continuity as a means of exploring what the characters would do in a different situation, or a sneaky way of giving the fans what they've been demanding without actually giving it to them (DC printed a lot of "imaginary" comics in the 60s where Superman married Lois). Turns out ALF has a gizmo installed in his spaceship that serves the sole putpose of projecting imaginary stories, and it's used a lot through the course of the ALF series: the WOTIF Computer Simulator. This first time we see it used, it's to explore what would have happened if Willie was an astronaut who crash-landed on Melmac and had to live with ALF's family.
• One Tiny Mistake
  On the anniversary of ALF joining the Tanners, they prepare a special cake for him. Worried about his waist, ALF adds a special additive to the cake: Reduce-A-Roni, which actually shrinks the food. Before that happens, though, neighbor Trevor Ochmonek stops by and takes a bite of the cake, causing him to shrink to mouse size.
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ALF #4 -- March 1988

• It's All In Your Minds
  ALF switches bodies with Kate. This was the very first ALF comic I ever read, and I was VERY young -- young enough to be confused about some of the elements and the world at large. I remember I had never heard the name "Kate" before, so I thought ALF was just calling her that to annoy her. There's also a scene where Kate complains about ALF spoiling movies for her, and he retorts with "Anyone could have figured out Rosebud was Citizen Kane's sled!" Yup.....THIS was what spoiled Citizen Kane for me.
• Monster Mash
  A sixties-twinged adventure on Melmac where Orbit Guardsman Gordon Shumway must rescue mad scientist Timothy Bleary from his own creation, Modzilla. These references sailed miles over my head.
• One Hero To Go
  While the Tanners are out, a criminal known as the Coat Burglar breaks into the house and swipes Kate's expensive coat -- it happened on ALF's watch and he resolves to get it back. By donning his anti-gravity belt and the dining room tablecloth as a cape, ALF becomes the superhero Fantastic Fur.
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ALF #5 -- April 1988

• Stand-In By Your Man
  Brian's been working on a ventriloquism act for his school talent show. But when the family cat destroys his wooden dummy, ALF decided to stand in as a faux marionette.
• Mind Your Manners
  A list of Melmacian customs for politeness.
• Mythed Again
  When the subject of Greek myths comes up, ALF says his planet had similar stories passed around. He tells the tale of Gordo of Shumwavia, who embarks on a Homer-worthy adventure to aquire the Golden Fleas from the back of the giant cat Purr-seus. It begins here: eventually the Melmac section would be nothing but parodies of classic characters.
• TRIVIA: A little Early Installment Weirdness on the cover as ALF has a pet elephant. Even within the skewed exaggerated reality the comic was set in, I have no idea where ALF could get an elephant from.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "It's the legendary Minotaurus! Half bull, half mid-sized economy car!"
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ALF #6 -- May 1988

• Be Of Good Cheer
  California Central High is blowing their basketball season this year. Willie, who used to go there and remains a devoted fan, is devastated. Through a series of events ALF becomes Crazy Critter, the team's new mascot, and they get inspired to win more games.
• That's The Ticket
  ALF tells the story of that time his family won the lottery and became more miserable than happy, with distant relatives and ex-friends coming around from everywhere to get a piece of it.
• Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
  Every 75 years, ALF sheds his fur and remains naked for eight hours until he sneezes out his new coat. Until then, he's got to stay covered because "a naked Melmacian is not a pretty sight." Kate winds up seeing him au naturel and looks visibly scarred.
• TRIVIA: One of my favorite gags in the whole series is in this issue, mainly because of how hard they commit to it. The cover is a People Magazine parody that declares Alf "The Sexiest Face on Earth!" Below that it says "Except for..." and displays a long list of male celebrities, with the notation "continued inside" on the bottom. It actually is continued inside, with an entire page devoted to about 300 more people sexier than ALF. Then it says "to be continued in future issues".....and they really go THAT far, with twenty more names listed in issue #9.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "I'm from Greenpeace! Slap me some GREEN and I'll leave you in PEACE!" I kind of like this one.
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ALF #7 -- June 1988

• Going Through A Stage
  Lynn just got the big part in her school play: a presentation of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, which My Fair Lady was based on. ALF has to meddle as usual, but this time he's so good at his self-appointed job that Lynn becomes an expert actress. Her co-star in the play isn't feeling as confident, though, and tells her he feels like quitting....UNLESS he can meet this amazing drama coach she has. The Tanners have to figure out a way to make this happen.
• Aloe Again, Naturally
  After reading this comic, you will definitely know where the main ingredient of moisturizing cream comes from. Back on Melmac, one of Gordon's father's experiments mistakenly brings an aloe plant to sentience. The newly christened and outspoken Aloe Vera rampages through the city, disinfecting everyone with her powerful streams of oil. This marks the first time ALF refers to one of his stories as a "Melmac Flashback" -- this would be the name henceforth.
• Bounce Thy Neighbor
  ALF is struggling, trying to loosen the joystick on a device from his ship: the Vulcanizer, which turns any object it's pointed at into cushiony rubber. Trevor walks in, borrows the machine and leaves. ALF has to get it back before the neighbors unknowingly rubberize their entire house.
• TRIVIA: Lynn has a brain fart when she says "Here I am without a car and I thought I'd have to take you to the hospital!" ALF is an alien; she can't take him there.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "Mom! Dad! I got the part!" "The PART? You Earthlings sure make a fuss about how you comb your hair."
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ALF #8 -- July 1988

• The Boy Next Door
  ALF brings back the WOTIF Computer Simulator for another what-if: suppose he crash-landed into the Ochmoneks' house that night instead of the Tanners'. Everything plays out pretty much the same, except for the part where Trevor and Raquel watch a TV show promising a reward for any alien discoveries, and decide to cash in by exposing ALF. Guess it wouldn't have worked out.
• Mind Your Own Business
  ALF thinks back to that time he started his own business on Melmac and it turned into a disaster.
• TRIVIA: Despite the title of this issue's lead story, Jake Ochmonek does not appear in it. In fact, Jake never appears in any issue of the ALF comic book, ever. Once they got their letter column set up, "Where is Jake" was one of the most common questions from fans. It was never answered.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "I regret that I have but one copy of 'LIFE' to give to my country."
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ALF Annual #1 -- July 1988

• The Return of Rhonda
  One of the first TV episodes of ALF involved the titular alien finding out two other Melmacians survived the explosion of his home planet: his buddy Skip and his girlfriend Rhonda. They offered him a ride aboard their own ship, but strangely ALF kept stalling for time until they got tired of waiting and left. That was when ALF came to realize he liked the Tanners more. It was a rare moment of sentiment in a show that rarely held much emotional depth. Gallagher took the occasion of ALF's first annual to write a sequel to this episode, where Rhonda physically visited the Tanner house to convince Gordon to come with her. And that's just the opening act to one of the series' best and most memorable issues.
• Back To Human Nature
  The family goes camping at Yosemite and takes ALF along.
• Bullwinkle and Rocky
  Gallagher and Manak were also writing a Bullwinkle comic for Marvel at the time, and to entice people into reading it, they created an original two-page story for ALF Annual #1. It's not bad, and neither was the other comic.
• Safe At Home
  ALF would love to see a Dodgers game live, but there's the problem with being discovered. A solution comes in the form of a boss where Willie works letting him use his private skybox.
• You Give Me Fever
  ALF will come down with several weird maladies over the next few years; "Influence-a" is the first. While ALF has this disease, he's highly susceptible to any form of media, becoming the central character in the item. Chaos reigns in the house as the family has to indulge his fantasies -- the only way to cure him.
• A Campy Approach
  Brian is heading off to summer camp, which leaves ALF horrified. On his planet summer camp was a horrible place where you were sent to be punished. ALF is convinced Brian is in for the same fate and hitches a ride in a delivery van to "save" him. But none of that is as interesting as what occurs midway through the story: the Marvel character known as the High Evolutionary appears before ALF in the van. This was the summer where every annual Marvel released was involved in a crossover storyline called "The Evolutionary War" -- and just for kicks, "ALF" was included.
• You Say You Want An Evolution?
  When the High Evolutionary appears before ALF in the van, ALF says he's busy and that he'll be more open to chat with him in two days. Two days later, Ev turns up in the Tanner house late at night, right on time. This is one of the most classic moments in the series' history, where Ev threatens to "devolve you into the primeval ooze from which you sprang" and ALF responds with "Aww, don't! Kate gets really sore when I stain the carpet!"
• TRIVIA: The events of "Return of Rhonda" are referenced throughout the rest of the series. One of the more significant details is that Rhonda and Skip discovered a new planet very similar to Melmac....and they're going back home with a clone of ALF. This becomes very important MUCH, MUCH later.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "There's only one way to deal with this kind of cruelty....GORILLA WARFARE! Lucky I brought along my monkey suit."
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ALF #9 -- August 1988

• The Holiday The Earth Stood Still
  ALF is fed up with Earth holidays and would like to celebrate some from his home planet. The Tanners think that's fair. So to observe the Melmacian holiday Eat Off The Floor Day, he cooks up some Duck Delight -- which doesn't contain duck meat, but makes whoever eats it think they ARE a duck. Mr. and Mrs. Tanner don't know this until it's too late and the kids have to keep them out of trouble.
• The Mevolutionary War
  One thing is going to become crystal clear as you read these Melmac Flashbacks...this planet's history is VERY similar to Earth's for some reason, American history in particular. Then again this Revolutionary War sort of warps into the Trojan War by the end, so....
• A Tree-Mendous Mistake
  It's time for another Melmacian holiday: Wear A Plant Day. To prepare, ALF plants a Melmacadamia Nut Seed into Earth soil...only to find out, to his horror, that it grows VERY quickly here. If the tree can't be sawed down before it develops seeds of its own, the entire country will be overtaken by forest within a week.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "I'm in here drawing a bath without using a pencil! HA!"
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ALF #10 -- September 1988

• Back To School Daze
  To complete the college degree he couldn't finish before Melmac exploded, ALF enrolls in a home correspondence school. Unfortunately attendance at the graduation ceremony is mandatory, and ALF's the valedictorian so he's expected to make a speech.
• May I Have This Dance?
  Back on Melmac, Gordon Shumway escorts his girlfriend Rhonda to the prom -- but his old rival Tom Bruise has eyes on her.
• Small Worlds
  This story's in my personal top ten. Willie gets a flat tire by a bridge, so until he can walk to the small town and back with the repaired tire, he orders ALF to stay out of sight down by the river. ALF does what he's told (for once) but it turns out there's somebody down there: a hermit hiding in a tree. All we see of him is his arm sticking out of one of the knotholes. He tells ALF he's a disgraced man and that he's never going back to civilization, and then he tells his story...he was once an astronomer. One evening, with a new high-powered telescope, he discovered a new planet with obvious signs of intelligent life (Melmac). He rushed to tell the scientific community, but when they looked at the same coordinates, there was no planet there. The man was disgraced and his career was ruined, so he now lives in a tree. ALF insists he's not a failure and that he was right the first time, but the man doesn't believe him.
• TRIVIA: Melmacians inhale methane and breathe out helium.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: After emerging from the river: "That'll be enough CURRENT events for today."
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ALF #11 -- October 1988

• Ghosts, Goblins And Gordon
  Halloween is the one night ALF can walk around in public without any questions asked, and the candy literally sweetens the deal. Unfortunately, he gets mixed up with a hoodlum teenager and thrown in jail.
• ALF For President Campaign Kit
  Nothing much to say about this.
• I Did It Mynah Way
  ALF gets a new pet -- a talking mynah bird. He teaches it new words (and songs) via his spaceship's tape deck. Unfortunately the bird gets ahold of a tape it shouldn't have -- the recipe for Melmac's deadliest weapon, the Platonic Bomb (which makes all men and women want to "just be friends," eliminating the species).
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: The ALF For President Campaign Kit contains a section called "ALF On The Issues" where he simply says he already answered all questions in an ISSUE of a magazine.
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ALF #12 -- November 1988

• Thanks For The Memories
  Another personal favorite: ALF gets amnesia and believes the Tanners are kidnappers holding him hostage. He takes control of the situation by tying up Kate and activating a force field around the house. On the regular series, there was a clip show where ALF got amnesia, but he believed he was a human accountant. This is much better.
• A Town Without Kittys
  Melmac's version of the Old West. Melmaverick Shimway challenges Butch Cavity and the Suntan Kid to a gunfight at the OK Used Car Lot.
• Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
  Remember that image from the beginning? Here's where Lynn uses Melmacian shampoo and becomes Rapunzel times twenty.
• TRIVIA: Well, I was going to claim that OK Used Car Lots are extinct, but one trip downtown proved they still exist.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "I'm in the mood for Italian." "You're PASTA prime of your career!"
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ALF Holiday Special #1

• Shop Around The Clock
  Kate is going Christmas shopping for a microscope on Brian's wish list. ALF is tagging along posing as a packaged toy called Phuzzy Philip.
• Snowman Is An Island
  The Tanner children would love some snow for Christmas -- but they live in LA. ALF knows just how to make it happen: by sending an emergency balloon to the skies and altering the national weather pattern. It works too well and the entire neighborhood is buried in white stuff.
• Return Of Crazy Critter
  Coach Dunton from issue #6 is now a football coach, and he begs Willie to bring back Crazy Critter for one more game. Tanner agrees on one condition: Crazy Critter can appear, but not perform. When the team starts choking, though, Willie has few other ideas to improve morale.
• The Gift Of The Melmagi
  You know how this story goes.....so do people on other planets, apparently.
• WOTIF The Twelve Days Of Christmas Happened On Melmac?
  Some surprising dark takes here. "Ten Lords A Leaping" depicts the investment firm of Lord, Lord and Lord jumping from the window of a high-rise due to a stock market crash. Also, ALF ate the partridge.
• 23 Ski Do's And Dont's
  The family is at a ski lodge for the first time since ALF #1. The cabin winds up getting buried in an avalanche, and only ALF can get the Tanners help.
• ALF Lang Syne
  ALF isn't invited to the Tanners' New Years party because of the whole "being discovered" thing. He's sore about it, but gets why. Each member of the family starts to feel guilty about it and heads into the garage, where ALF has some activities of his own. This might be a good story to point out one big improvement the comic has made over the TV series: I really believe these people want to keep this obnoxious furball around. They show genuine concern for him. They miss him when he disappears, and whenever he's in danger they visibly shed tears. The comic has heart where the show doesn't, and it goes a long way.
• TRIVIA: "Gift Of The Melmagi" and "Alf Lang Syne" are not drawn by Dave Manak. Perhaps due to a schedule crunch, Howard Post handles the art for those stories. Howie was a talented artist; track down some of his Star Comics books like Count Duckula for some really good art....but for some reason he had problems rendering ALF correctly. That nose is trickier than one might think.
• MORE TRIVIA: "23 Ski Do's And Dont's" contains the single most infamous panel in the entire history of this comic. It's the moment where ALF throws a long scarf around his neck and mentions he got it from Doctor Who. This is accompanied by a note from the editor that asks readers if they would actually like to see a comic where the Doctor visits Melmac. The answer for over two years was a loud, solid YES -- one of the most common requests in the mail column was for this hinted comic to happen. But it never did. I have no idea if Marvel had plans to license the Doctor just for ALF, or if they still held the license from when they printed Who-related material back in 1980. But talk about a cruel tease.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "I'd say your chances are slim to Senator Sam Nunn." I'd be surprised if any other comic in history, even Doonesbury, has ever made a reference to Senator Sam Nunn. ALF is alone in this.
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ALF #13 -- December 1988

• Race Tracks Of My Tears
  While watching the LA Speedway races, ALF observes an irate racer named Cobra Conlin who boldly challenges anybody watching at home to try and beat him in a race. If ALF wins he could get $5000, which could put a serious dent in the family's expenses. He'd be crazy NOT to do this. Gordon pops the ground wheels on his spaceship and heads for the track, along with an extremely reluctant Willie.
• ALF's Christmas Card
  Nothing much to say about this either.
• Role Of The Dice
  There's a pair of fuzzy dice hanging from ALF's spaceship dashboard. Kate should have known better than to question his taste, because every item on the ship serves a function, and the dice actually assemble into a fully functional GUARDIAN ROBOT on ALF's command. Its main function is to protect and serve ALF, which the alien enjoys all too much. But when it becomes too power-hungry and threatens the family's safety, ALF has to find a way to shut it down.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: Nothing comes to mind, so I'll just mention I've always loved Kate exclaiming "TRY THAT AGAIN, YOU GONZO GO-BOT!!"
• TRIVIA: Go-Bots were lousy imitation Transformers. Though technically, in Japan, they came first.
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ALF #14 -- January 1989

• It's Good For What Whales You
  Lynn is sobbing because there's a beached whale on the news. No one really knows why whales beach themselves, but ALF figures he could probably find out why. He not only speaks English, but every other language on Earth including the languages of animals. He decides to sneak down to the beach and help the whale out.
• Night Of The Living Bread
  For today's Melmac Flashback, ALF thinks back to his favorite old radio horror drama, in which Philip Melmarlow investigates a rash of carnivorous bread products. The trail takes him to Sy Coe, who runs a creepy motel and ends up trying to stab Philip in the shower with a baguette...then he meets a man lit in shadow called The Mexorcist -- yeah, they couldn't choose just one parody this time.
• Sometimes The Tooth Hurts
  ALF thinks he might have a cavity, and the Tanners can't take him to a dentist. Kate and Willie have to figure out the finer art of dentistry at home.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: A truckload on the cover alone. "Something's gone a-rye! It's a DOUGH or die situation! Who KNEADED this??"
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ALF #15 -- February 1989

• The Run-Run-Run-Run-Runaway
  A full length (well, not exactly....you'll see what I mean in a minute) storyline where ALF runs away from home. Willie and Kate are watching Dallas, a common 1980s adult activity. They start commenting loudly on the events in the episode ("THAT SLEAZY GOLD DIGGER...HE'S FROM ANOTHER WORLD!") and ALF overhears, thinking they're talking about him. It's a real strain considering "gold digger" doesn't define ALF, but he's convinced the Tanners don't want him around and he splits. Riding the rails, he meets up with a nearsighted hobo named Squinty McGinty, and they use ALF's excellent senses to win big in Vegas.
• Part II: All The World's A Cage
  There were some exceptions, but for the most part, the Melmac Flashback portions of the comic seemed to be mandatory. If they were doing a full-length story, somehow a scene from ALF's home planet had to be worked into the narrative. So while ALF and Squinty are lounging in their Vegas hotel room, ALF tells the story of the making of Melmac's most famous stage play, "Romeo and Julienne Potatoes." The story's moral makes ALF realize he was too quick to judge the Tanners and he leaves. After the door slams, Squinty reveals he knew the truth about ALF all along.
• Part III: Home Is Where The Artichoke Heart Is
  Due to a mishap back in Vegas, ALF lost all his money. He needs to find cash to get home, so he lands a job in a circus sideshow. After a few acts, ALF prepares to quit -- only to find he signed an ironclad contract that won't let him leave. So he just eats the contract.
• TRIVIA: A strange running gag begins here, on page 2: ALF starts swearing, which is represented by abstract symbols...we've all seen that in plenty of cartoons. The editor, however, defines this as a separate language, calling it "Klingonese" in yet another Star Trek reference. From this point forward ALF curses in "Klingonese" in nearly every issue -- and it's implied to be a language so profane that the editor can't translate it or he'd be fired.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "Julienne Potatoes" counts; most people call them "Julienne Fries." Or in England, "Julienne Chips."
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ALF #16 -- March 1989

• Return Of The Fantastic Fur
  The Coat Burglar has escaped from jail, and that means it's time once again for ALF to moonlight as the Fantastic Fur! But this time Coat Burglar gets the drop on Gordon and he wakes up tied to a chair. Can he get out of this one without being exposed?
• The Spy Who Came In From The Mold
  Back on Melmac, Orbit Guardsman Gordon Shumway meets up with secret agent James Boondoggle, and the pair take down the notorious Moldfinger (who has been turning the world's supply of fruit rotten).
• Surrender Dorothy
  Kate's mother Dorothy makes her first comic appearance, and it's seriously one of the funniest shorts this mag ever printed. It's impossible not to giggle at panels like this:
  
  Plus the story contains step-by-step instructions on how to perform the Heimlich Maneuver, so it probably saved someone's life somewhere.
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ALF #17 -- April 1989

• Melmac To The Future
  Gordon has a much longer lifespan than his human friends do. In this new WOTIF tale, we see what life might be like if ALF was still living with the Tanners in thirty years (aka 2020, which could be the year you're reading these words -- or possibly later. Yeah, it gets all the future predictions wrong, unless the slang "Radicool" came back already).
• So Long, Old Paint
  ALF has taken up abstract painting. His art is stirring up a storm in the community, and everyone wants to meet the reclusive "Gordo."
• Academy Reward
  ALF tells Brian about his days in training at the Orbit Guard Academy.
• TRIVIA: This issue mentions that ALF will be taking his first trip to visit Rhonda on New Melmac in ALF Annual #2. That story never happened, and he wouldn't actually visit the planet until 1991.
  ALF says in this issue "Melmacian blood is lavender with pink polka dots." On the TV show he said his blood was green.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: In the Orbit Guard Academy ALF has to run through a "Popsicle Course."
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ALF Spring Special #1 -- April 1989

• The Invisible Melman
  Guess what? If ALF eats a sponge, he turns invisible. The timing couldn't be better because neighbor Trevor just lost his job and was kicked out of the house. ALF has to find a way to restore his employment before his invisibility wears off.
• Love Is In The Hair
  Brian is experiencing his first crush on a girl. ALF is all too eager to help him win her over, but his tactics either don't work (candies with squid meat) or work too well (hypnotism).
• Build Your Own Paper Orbit Guard Vessel
  This is kind of a gag since the pieces don't really fit...especially since the "main body shell" is depicted as a broken egg. There's the BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE right there.
• One Melmillion Years BC
  This Melmac Flashback goes all the way back to the beginning and Gordon's earliest known ancestor, Gog Shumway.
• Truth Is Stranger Than Friction
  When ALF makes a mess of the kitchen, Kate orders him to spend all night cleaning it up. ALF goes the extra mile by using industrial strength Melmaxwax on the floor, which makes the surface so slick that it's frictionless. This makes everyone unable to stand up until ALF removes the wax. But it's not over...the wax coated Brian's shoes and now he's careening through the neighborhood, unable to stop himself.
• Past Performance
  Because ALF's ship can seemingly do anything, in this story it's capable of generating a time portal to the 1800's. Unfortunately the family cat jumps into the portal and ALF has to follow behind and rescue him.
• Lost At Sea Biscuit
  Before ALF joined the family, Willie got to borrow a friend's sailboat and take a trip around the harbor...but he was bad at steering and the family had a miserable time. Now he has another opportunity to borrow the same boat, and only ALF will agree to accompany him.
• TRIVIA: This is the only "Spring Special" Marvel ever put out. The annuals and the holiday specials would continue for another couple years, but this is the only case of them trying a 64-pager in the spring. Perhaps if this one had sold well, there would've been a Fall Special too.
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ALF #18 -- May 1989

• Melmacattack Of The 50-Foot ALF
  After accidentally inhaling insecticide, ALF starts growing in size. The family rents a van and hides him in the remote woods until he turns back to normal. In the meantime, the now 50-foot-tall alien spooks some poachers by posing as "the legendary Paul Onion."
• A Moving Experience
  The comic is playing catch-up with the sitcom in this one -- during Season 3 ALF moved to the attic and Kate became pregnant. By May she gave birth, so the comic is rather behind by not depicting her bulging belly until this point.
• Back Off
  For a "Star Comic," this one is pretty adult. Kate and the kids are away somewhere, so ALF hangs up a giant banner in front that says "OPEN HOUSE AT WILD MAN WILLIE'S." While trying to pull the banner off the house, Willie throws his back out and ALF has to take care of him (badly). Willie asks for a hot pad for his back, and ALF heats it up with the retro rockets on his ship -- so it burns a hole in the floor. Then Raquel from next door pays a visit and falls right through the hole, becoming trapped. This is all leading to ALF making an emergency call to Kate's mother and telling her this: "As you know, Kate is out of town and the kids are away! Meanwhile, Willie is in the bedroom with Raquel...." Dorothy immediately comes over with a baseball bat.
• TRIVIA: When Lucy became pregnant on 1950's television, she couldn't say "pregnant" -- she had to use the term "expecting" instead. There is still a little bit of that censorship going on here as the comic states Kate is "with child" (quote marks included). In issue 24 Kate actually says "pregnant" so....who can figure these censors out. They let "Back Off" get through but had a brief hang-up about this.
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ALF #19 -- June 1989

• The Swimsuit Issue
  Lynn bought a new swimsuit, and Willie doesn't like how revealing it is, so he forbids her to wear it. But there's a beach party coming up and she really wants to look good. ALF pulls some fabric off his ship's seatcover and sews Lynn a stunning suit -- only problem is, the fabric vanishes in salt water, which Lynn doesn't find out until it's too late.
• The Alfstrologer
  This issue's Melmacian device: the Predict-A-Phone, which can accurately predict any event in the future. Before the family can use it for something truly significant (like finding out the upcoming baby's gender), its batteries run out.
• Citizen Sugar Kane
  ALF tells about his days working as a reporter investigating the recently deceased tycoon Orson Melles.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: Alf at the sewing machine: "Just when all SEAMED lost!"
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ALF Annual #2 -- July 1989

• Bad Day At Blackout
  It's a roasting summer evening in Los Angeles, and ALF has it worse because of all his fur. The city is under strict orders to keep their electricity use to a minimum, so the Tanners can't turn on the AC. ALF, however, carelessly flips on one of his spacey AC varieties, and ends up blowing out the entire power grid. He must take a journey to the power plant and fix his error before the family finds out.
• Brother, Can You Spare A Slime?
  Brian has mixed feelings about no longer being the youngest in his family, and losing that attention. ALF tells him about when he was younger and the arrival of his little brother Curtis, who wouldn't stop spitting up all over him.
• ALF'S Exercise Workout
  A one-pager parodying the aerobics videos popular at the time.
• Intrerview With The Hampire
  They didn't have vampires on Melmac....they had HAMPIRES, because everything's gotta be about food. Unfortunately a Hampire survived the explosion of Melmac, and he's hungry for Gordon's blood!
• Going Up
  For this one page only, the Tanners have a trap door built in their house that catapults ALF into the attic. Okay.
• Getting His Just Desert
  The Tanners have left for Palm Vista Hot Springs and left ALF in the care of Dorothy, and he can't stand it. So he pulls a giant hang glider out of his ship and prepares to fly his way to them. However, he hits a snag -- literally -- when the glider's wings get tangled in cacti, leaving him in the middle of the desert. The experience turns out to be a dream.
• Going, Going Gonzo
  ALF teaches Brian how to play baseball.
• Oh, Baby
  The Tanners and ALF go out for a picnic, but one of ALF's homeworld possessions -- this time a teddy bear -- puts the baby in peril.
• TRIVIA: First comic appearance of baby Eric.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "This reminds me of that famous boxing match between Melmuhammad Ali and Smokin' Joe BRAZIER! The Thrilla in Vanilla." Brazier was a brand name used by Dairy Queen at the time; if you can find some of their older outlets, they should still have a "Brazier" sign below the DQ logo.
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ALF #20 -- July 1989

• Vanity, Thy Name Is ALF
  ALF accidentally inhales a large amount of talcum powder, which increases his sense of ego and vanity.
• Gornan The Bar-B-Q Barian
  A Conan parody where Gornan is on a quest for the Legendary Cookbook, currently held by the wicked Kitchen Witch. Along the way he runs into Proncess Ron-Darling, but despite her advances remains committed to his goal. To be continued in Holiday Special #2.
• Babe In The Woods
  Who knows why Gallagher would reuse the same plot five issues later, but ALF is running away from home again. This time an incident with Eric leads him to believe he's too dangerous to be around babies. To be continued in ALF #21.
• TRIVIA: "Gornan" was the result of fans writing into the letter column requesting an "ALF The Barbarian" story. People were also still asking for the ALF/Doctor Who crossover (boy, would they have to wait) and wondering where Jake Ochmonek was (Jake? Jake who?)
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "I'd just love to moose my hair, but I doubt I'd be able to lift one of those huge animals."
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ALF #21 -- August 1989

• Babe In The Woods Part II
  ALF has retreated into the woods, where he's now living and hiding. He befriends a family of beavers, and when he saves the younger ones from the effects of a storm, their mother insists he's great with children. That calms ALF's worries about Eric, so he returns the status quo.
• A Night At The I-Hopera
  Back on Melmac, Orbit Guardsman Gordon Shumway has been assigned to guard famous opera singer Beverly Frills from notorious gangster Don Calzone. He's not very good at his job, and winds up letting in the Melmarx Brothers -- Oucho, Chippo and Burpo (who communicates with burps).
• I'd Like To Buy A Vowel
  Out of all the strange alien maladies ALF has come down with lately, this one's the most original: he becomes "Disemvowelled," which means every word he says has asterisks where the vowels would go. Figuring out what he's saying in each panel is a fun challenge.
• TRIVIA: I thought about counting every single time the International House Of Pancakes gets name-dropped in this series, but there's not enough time in the world. Possibly not enough numbers.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: The Melmarx Brothers are finally driven out when Beverly Frills threatens to call her friend over, "a submarine captain." They gasp at this and run away. Frills explains "As any fan will tell you, the only thing that could ruin a Marx Brothers movie was an unnecessary SUB-plot." Well, that's awfully specific.
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ALF #22 -- September 1989

• X Marks The Spot
  The best parodies are written from one of two perspectives: absolute adoration of the source material, or absolute HATRED of same. With that in mind we present one of this comic's signature spoofs, The Uncanned X-Melmen. Written when theX-Men were riding a wave as Marvel's most popular characters, it indicates Gallagher was a fan as well -- though not of everyone. He apparently had a deep-rooted loathe for Scott Summers that manifested in "Psych-Major," a brutal parody of Cyclops that spends all his time whining about his problems and mourning his dead girlfriend Jean (here called "Dark Kleenex"). On the other end of the spectrum you have "Michigan Wolverine," who loves college football. The takedown of Scott is hilarious, but with the most popular X-Man, Gallagher didn't even try.
  Choices for the other X-Parodies seem to have been made at random. Dazzler of all people is included in the team, as "Haagen-Dazzler" who makes ice cream appear. Rogue has been changed to "Brogue" and in the process becomes a completely different character, sporting an Irish stereotype instead of a Cajun one. As for Professor X, you've got "Professor Xylophone"....which I'll allow as there's not many ways to spin a name that's just the letter X.
• TRIVIA: This issue is marked "Mid Nov" even though it was not coming out twice a month. Marvel used to date all their comics three months in advance. They were now about to date them ONE month in advance, necessitating an adjustment of the clock for all their titles over the next few months.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "So it's fourth down and one yard to the winning TD..." "Ach, yer TD all right....TeDious!"
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ALF #23 -- October 1989

• Around The World In 80 Hours
  This comic's second full-length adventure is an improvement on its first. ALF introduces an element of his ship that will come into repeated use throughout the rest of the run...the Quasar Queen, a GPS-like device that can actually teleport you to the destination you're looking for (as long as you say "Pretty please with a squished sugared slug on top"). Unfortunately the Quasar Queen also has a short temper and a bad attitude, and when she doesn't like one of Gordon's remarks, she teleports him far away. The Tanners panic, having no idea what to do -- their only hope is to somehow figure out this alien technology for themselves.
  Lynn hunkers down and spends a sleepless night pecking at it, but getting nowhere. That's when she finds a literal Multiplication Table that proves Melmac used a different form of mathematics. She figures out how to work the machine and get past all the protections -- and is rewarded by being teleported herself to where ALF is. The remaining members of the family REALLY don't know what to do now. That's what you call a cliffhanger!
• Part II: Melementary School
  In episode 15 I mentioned how the Melmac Flashbacks seemed to be mandatory....this is the issue where that really becomes a problem. Lynn appears in Australia, where ALF has been taken in by a tribe of Aborigines. And before we find out what happens next, ALF for some reason has to narrate a Sherlock Holmes parody for the next six pages. It's super-lame and not funny and it's a blemish on what would otherwise be a hallmark issue. But you can always skip it.
• Part III: Home Sweet 'n Sour Home
  ALF and Lynn are randomly teleported to the Arctic, where ALF has to find a way to save Lynn from freezing to death while they both battle a polar bear. Meanwhile Kate and the remaining members of the family make an impassioned tearful plea to the Quasar Queen to have a little mercy on them and repair their now-broken family before it's too late. Hot damn, this is good stuff. It's funny, it's emotional, it's action-packed. There should be more than 16 pages of it. Why did we need that Sherlock Holmes thing?
• TRIVIA: When ALF first appears in Australia he meets a kangaroo and says, among other things, "No Kill I," which the editor helpfully marks as "An inside joke for hardcore Trekkies." I'm not a hardcore Trekkie so I don't get it. Do you?
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: Nothing worse than what we usually get.
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ALF #24 -- November 1989

• Rhonda's Residency
  Lynn wonders aloud what it would have been like if Rhonda had stayed with ALF. The Melmacian runs to his WOTIF computer and dials up a simulation. In the imaginary story, Rhonda marries ALF and moves in, but is discovered by the Alien Task Force.
• Thanksgive And Take
  Willie's back is acting up for the second time, so he can't make it to Kate's mother's family dinner. ALF can't bear the sight of a loved one missing a big feast, so he cooks his own meal for Willie -- blatantly ignoring his insistence that ALF not use the foreign slimy ingredients he loves so much. It's worse though....ALF is a terrible cook and burns the turkey. Having botched everything, ALF pulls a fast one and switches out the turkey cooling on the neighbors' windowsill for his own. Willie enjoys his dinner; the Ochmoneks not so much.
• Tour-De-Force Of Duty
  In the shortest Melmac Flashback ever written, ALF briefly describes that one time he was wounded in action while fighting the invading Planet of the Grapes.
• TRIVIA: "Thanksgive And Take" features the only appearance of Dorothy's husband Whizzer in the entire comic's history.
  This is the one issue of ALF my mother refused to buy for me, due to its cover. The cover proclaims, "RHONDA'S BACK!" ..and points to her back. ALF adds, "And her FRONT looks mighty good too! HA!" Mom said ALF was referring to her breasts and wouldn't buy the issue on those grounds. I still disagree. ALF wasn't winking when he said it -- it's just another of his lame puns. At any rate, I just did what I normally did when faced with such a roadblock, and had my dad buy the issue instead.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "Rated PVC-13. Some material may be inappropriate for plastic pipes."
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ALF Holiday Special #2 -- November 1989

Of the six ALF Specials released by Marvel, this one was my favorite -- because of the fan appeal! Since most of the seasonal storyline ideas had already been done in Holiday Special #1, Gallagher instead filled the bulk of the pages with sequels starring some of the best Melmac Flashback characters. I would say it captures the feel of the holidays better than #1 because it was truly like getting a Christmas present.

• Don't Toy With Me
  Once again ALF must pretend he's a toy when Willie's car is stolen from the mall with him inside. Pretending to be one of those high-tech talking models, though, allows him to convince the thief to turn himself in.
• Crazy Critter: The Last Crusade
  In this final Crazy Critter tale, Coach Dunton is now a hockey coach and convinces Willie to let Crazy Critter perform one last time. But when the team comes up short, Willie and ALF have to do some quick thinking.
• Marx My Words (Starring Gornan The Bar-B-Q-Barian)
  The opening image is Gornan ripping through the original typed plot synopsis of this story, demanding no setup and that we just segue right to the Melmac Flashback itself. Yes, sir! When we last left Gornan, the Kitchen Witch had turned the lovely Ron-Darling into a statue and escaped. He's now tracked down the location of the witch to....the Melmarx Brothers. Stepping through a time portal, Gornan finds Oucho serving as the mayor of a city. He's courting a rich woman who just moved into town....Gornan sees through her disguise and reveals her to be the Kitchen Witch. He gets Ron-Darling back, but the witch escapes again.
• Have Yourself A Melly Little Christmas
  Gallgher didn't do the usual "Title Character Saves Christmas" plot in the last Holiday Special, so he does it in this one. Santa shows up begging for ALF's help because his reindeer have been sidelined due to Lyme Disease (a real reason to avoid wild deer). ALF straps on his anti-gravity belt and pulls Santa's sleigh all over the world as a bargain to get off the Naughty List. The experience turns out to be a dream, but ALF got a present anyway.
• The Uncanned X-Melmen in The Dark Kleenex Saga
  Psych-Major is still whining about the death of his girlfriend...until this Jean Grey parody does what all Jean Greys do and comes back to life as "Dark Kleenex." The X-Melmen will need the extra firepower to take on a giant Sentimel.
• For Goodness Snakes
  It's the New Year, and ALF claims it's a tradition on his planet every 78 years to skin a snake. So naturally he brought a live snake into the house and didn't think it would be a problem. Kate gives ALF ten minutes to find it and boot it out or else.
• TRIVIA: ALF asks Santa how he got into his house if his reindeer are grounded. Santa points outside to a helicopter with a giant "T" emblazoned on it and says it was an offering from Donald Trump. ALF points out, "But Santa, you can't accept a bribe!" Claus replies, "Just think of it as.....a campaign contribution!" This issue confirms the current state of the world is Santa Claus's fault.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: ALF defeats the Sentimel by using "Sherm Warfare," a Melmacian combat technique involving blasting Bobby Sherman's greatest hits at full volume until your opponent can't take it anymore. This gag hinges on the viewer being familiar with Sherman at all.
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ALF #25 -- December 1989

• The Silver Animercenary
  We're at the halfway point, and Gallagher celebrates in style by tying together just about every event from the previous 24 issues into one big adventure. The Coat Burglar is back, and he's kidnapped ALF. He sets up fortress in a motel room and sends the Tanners a ransom note. To rescue ALF, the family must utilize every Melmacian gadget introduced in the comic to date: the Melbot! The Vulcanizer! The anti-gravity belt! Between this and the Holiday Special, it was a rewarding time to be following the ALF comic.
• TRIVIA: The issue promises 15 references to past issues, which are counted via editor mentions. They wind up mistakenly counting a note from page 2 that mentions a piece of Star Trek trivia, so there are only 14.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: Nothing. The story was uncharacteristically light on these.
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ALF #26 -- January 1990

• Campaign In the Neck
  Brian is running for student body president. Guess who wants to get involved?
• For One Brief Shining Melmoment...
  The story of King Arthur retold Shumway style.
• Take This Job And Love It
  ALF dedicates himself to improving the environment by planting saplings. The family warns him against using any special treatments from his home planet on the plants, but he tries a little something, and the next day the entire interior of the house is covered in thick ivy.
• TRIVIA: ALF says on the cover, "Radishes always make me repeat." It's not the first time he's said it, and I don't know what he means. My best guess is that it's an old expression meaning indigestion. I've never heard it used outside of an ALF comic or The Hudsucker Proxy.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: The King Arthur parody offers plenty. Instead of Merlin, he meets a fish named Marlin, who says "I'm the one you've been BAITING for!"
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ALF #27 -- February 1990

• Ejection Slip
  Pay attention to this one, because the events that occur in it would affect how the comic ends. Brian accidentally hits the Ejection Seat button on ALF's spaceship dashboard, sending him flying into the sky. ALF lands in the middle of the ocean, and is only saved by hanging onto the periscope of a passing submarine. The submarine takes him to the underground headquarters of.....THE ALIEN TASK FORCE! Bum-bum-bum! ALF sneaks around trying to find a way out of there, but in the end the submarine is his only hope. Fortunately it is now unmanned, so he pilots it back, but not before accidentally firing a missile that wrecks the other watercraft in the harbor. There will be repercussions eventually.
• The Honeyspooners
  A Melmac Flashback where Gordon gets to guest-star on his favorite sitcom.
• Blow Your Own Horn Of Plenty
  Brian is practicing the trumpet. He heads off to perform at a school assembly, but accidentally grabs ALF's similar-looking Hypersonic Kazootiephone instead. If he winds up playing it, he'll shatter every piece of glass in a miles-wide radius. Can Lynn swap him his actual trumpet in time?
• TRIVIA: By now you've noticed Gallagher way overdoes the sales gimmick of plugging back issues, and the stunt he pulls here is perhaps his worst: the ejection seat button comes from a one-pager in the Alf Digest Magazine, which got a low print run and was difficult to find then, let alone now. The editor even admits here they're placing an unfair burden on the reader by expecing them to find that thing.
• Boy, are you lucky to know me.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: From Blow Your Own Horn of Plenty: "You could say I was INSTRUMENTAL in solving the dilemma! Ha!"
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ALF #28 -- March 1990

• Family Tie-Dyes
  ALF gets his nose smashed in, making him think he's back on Melmac and the Tanners are his original family. The Tanners have to indulge his fantasy until he gets better.
• Bigfoot In The Mouth
  Willie, Brian and ALF go camping in a part of the woods remote enough that ALF should be able to walk around. Unfortunately, one other guy is there: a Bigfoot hunter who sees ALF's footprints and believes he's on the hot trail of a Yeti. ALF must find a way to throw him off and keep from being discovered. Also, there's no Melmac Flashback in this issue because it was apparently so boring that the editor skipped it -- subtle commentary there.
• TRIVIA: This issue was promoted in ALF #27 as having the Shumways and the Tanners in the same story at the same time -- technically true, but not in the way advertised. The promo heavily implied they were going to meet, and I remember feeling very let down when I finally had #28 in my hands.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "If only I had a few pennies! Then I could trick him into following the wrong CENT!"
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ALF #29 -- April 1990

• Used Karma
  Brian is looking for a story for his school newspaper. Kate's mother calls to complain about the bad car she bought from a used dealership. When Brian investigates (thanks to ALF's pushing), he finds evidence the salesman is buying stolen cars. But when he's caught, both he and ALF are in huge trouble.
• Pop Goes The Quiz
  ALF tells Brian about how theme parks were drastically different on Melmac than on Earth -- they were created for punishment, not leisure. For passing notes in math class Gordon and Skip are sent to Quiz Me World, where they're tortured incessantly by Mathy Mouse and Long Division Duck.
• The Melmatchmaker
  When Willie and Kate have a fight, ALF fears it could end in divorce and plots a few schemes to rekindle their romance (if it sounds familiar, it's because the actual show did this plot too).
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "Alf, please stop biting your nails." As he has a mouthful of metal spikes.
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ALF #30 -- May 1990

• Speaker Of The House
  To cheat at a game of Scrabble, ALF uses a Melmacian item called a Vocabulariat that bestows temporary 100% fluency of any language on its user. When baby Eric gets wrapped in the lariat accidentally, the tot can speak in longwinded sentences. Kate doesn't like it, even though if you ask any mother in the world, their lives would be so much easier if their babies could talk.
• Beau Jester
  In this Melmac Flashback, ALF thinks Rhonda has dumped him, so he runs off to join the Furry Legion. Beau Jeste seemed to be really popular among generations Baby Boomer and older, and I have no idea why.
• Kung Food For Thought
  When Brian is bullied at school, ALF teaches him how to defend himself using the ancient art of Kung-Food.
• TRIVIA: You might notice the last few Star Signals columns have been teasing a new comic based on a property they aren't ready to reveal. "He, or is it she, has a name that begins with a B. She, or is it he, is one of the most popular characters in the world." Me reading these comics at the time thought "ALL RIGHT! BART SIMPSON!!" It turned out to be Barbie. I was so mad.
• This issue's Star Signals is also notable for its mention of Warren Kremer, the artist who defined Harvey Comics and much of Star's early years, as being "ill" and offering a mail address where fans could send him well wishes. Sadly, Kremer would never recover and would not be coming back. Most of the comics he had worked on were already cancelled anyway, with the exception of Heathcliff, which faced its 50th issue directionless. Many different writers and artists were experimented with in those final issues, but none of them had the same feel and Heathcliff would end at issue 56.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: When ALF joins the Furry Legion he's handed his official "gear"......it's an actual gear.
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ALF #31 -- June 1990

• Shummer Camp
  As Brian leaves for summer camp, ALF notices Eric is upset. He decides to cheer the baby up by setting up "Shummer Camp," a day of camp-like activities inside the house. ALF being ALF, these involve things like flooding the basement (so Eric can ride in a boat) and an Easter Egg hunt that involves finding cockroach eggs instead.
• Pyramid Life Crisis
  This month's Melmac Flashback travels back to ancient Egypt -- the Melmacian version, and the origin of the endless conflict between ALF's species and cats. All along you thought ALF just ate cats because he liked the taste....it's actually out of spite, or racism or whatever.
• Safari About That
  A lion just escaped from the zoo. Lynn is worried Animal Control could shoot it. ALF tells her not to worry -- he'll catch the lion first, using his expert hunting techniques.
• TRIVIA: This is a good issue to talk about what the comic occasionally got away with. This issue marks the only time a character got to say "hell." Not "heck," not "mel," but one solitary actual "hell." Why, who knows. But it also contains a scene where Kate orders ALF to gather up all the cockroach eggs immediately, and he says "Even the ones in your lingerie drawer?" "ESPECIALLY the ones in my lingerie drawer!!!" At the age I was reading this I had no idea what lingerie was. My guess, based on the scene and a couple other places I'd heard the word, was that "linjer-ee" (my pronunciation) was what women called their underwear. And underwear was hilarious to me, so thanks to the corruptive influence of ALF #31, there were a couple stories and jokes I wrote -- as an 8-year-old who barely knew what sex was -- that mention lingerie.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "There once was a Klingon from Nantucket....." Okay, now he's three for three. How'd this issue get the Comics Code seal?
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ALF #32 -- July 1990

• Muscle Bound For Glory
  ALF is looking to get in shape, so he starts lifting weights. He eventually becomes so strong that people like Kate become light as a feather. He can even lift the entire house off its foundation, which he of course tries.
• Go Figure
  Kate doesn't understand why Brian, as a child of the 80s, needs so many action figures. (Parents just didn't understand.) ALF tells her on his planet, there was only one toy everybody wanted: the Melmacho Man figure. ALF tells Kate all about Melmacho Man's backstory, which Kate finds sexist -- he was all about rescuing helpless damsels. Melmacian toys are more advanced than those on Earth, and when Kate accidentally activates Melmacho Man, the little figure comes to literal life and starts flying around. Spotting Kate as his latest "babe," he shoves her into the kitchen and orders her to cook him a meal (subtle, he is not).
• Imagine That
  This is an interesting concept: ALF has a childhood friend visiting him, but the Tanners don't notice at first because he belongs to an alien race that can't be seen by human eyes. Several of them, Kate especially, are skeptical that this "friend" even exists.
• TRIVIA: The longest regular issue of ALF at 24 pages of content. Unless you count ALF #50.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: The barbells ALF is lifting are actual bells attached to metal bars.
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ALF Annual #3 -- July 1990

• A Very Shuttle Hint
  AAAAAAAAALF IIIIIIIIN SPAAAAAACE! ....Wait, didn't he come from space? I guess it's not so special. ALF sneaks on board a space shuttle in an effort to stop an experiment he believes will go wrong.
• Par Time Job
  For business reasons, Willie's expected to play a round of golf....something he's never done. ALF happens to be an excellent golfer and aims to show Willie the ropes. This is a rare story where everything that goes bad isn't the alien's fault.
• Buy Low, Shell High
  What may be the comic's worst parody is in here: the New Age Melmutant Abstract Turtles. It's quite obvious Gallagher knew nothing about the targeted material, because this parody focuses entirely on the fact that the Ninja Turtles are named after painters. A true Melmacian spoof of Eastman and Laird's creation would have been great, but instead we get endless "modern art is weird, man" jokes. ALF insists at the end that more Abstract Turtles stories could appear if readers demand it. This never happened.
• This Island ALF
  While at the beach, ALF is stung by a jellyfish, and his alien physiology results in his blowing up like a balloon. The only thing I have to say about it is that ALF makes a reference to Calvin and Hobbes, and this being 1990, it was the first time I had ever seen the strip referenced in other media. I was delighted to see that.
• She Blinded Me With Science
  ALF has a microscopic creature from his home planet under a microscope: the Hamoeba. Lynn wants to get a better view, so she clicks "enlarge," not knowing she's increasing the creature's size instead. The Hamoeba loves LA smog and continues to grow, and only ALF and Lynn can stop it.
• This One's On The House
  Kate used to work in real estate. Her old boss calls and says a former client of Kate's wants to sell his house and insists on her involvement. Somehow ALF winds up going on the trip to the house -- which looks creepy and haunted. It actually appears to be as ALF continually runs into walking skeletons and moving paintings. He's scared out of his mind, but these things keep happening when Kate isn't looking, so she doesn't believe him. In the end it turns out the house was specifically built to shoot B horror movies, and was full of active props.
• Luncheons and Flagons
  The final page is an intentionally unplayable game board for a Melmacian tabletop RPG. It wound up inspiring the lead story in the comic's next issue....
• TRIVIA: "She Blinded Me With Science" marks the first time since ALF Holiday Special #1 that a different artist besides Manak created the visuals. It was drawn by Rusty Haller, who passed the "test" and became ALF's backup artist, usually handling the Melmac Flashbacks, until close to the comic's end. Haller is sadly now dead!
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ALF #33 -- August 1990

• Man Over Game Board
  The Tanners want to play a board game together, so ALF brings out the most popular tabletop RPG on his planet, "Luncheons and Flagons: The Hard Roll-Playing Game."
• Home Vide-Uh-Oh
  ALF sends in a home movie of himself chasing Lucky to the Home Video USA show, hoping to win the $5000 prize. To explain what America just saw, Kate has to create an ALF suit for Brian to wear.
• ALF's Dress Up Dali
  Filler.
  (Also, Gallagher sure thought there was something funny about Salvador Dali given how often he throws in references to him.)
• TRIVIA: Beginning with this issue and lasting until the end, we get two long stories instead of three short ones. "Home Vide-Uh-Oh" is the first story in the regular comic book with art by Haller.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "Now you die by HANGING!" "No way! That's old noose!"
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ALF #34 -- September 1990

• That Old Melmac Magic
  Eventually it always happens: no matter how "scientific" a comic book tries to be, no matter how much it makes an effort to ground its universe, there will come a time when outright MAGIC appears in it. For "ALF" it took 34 issues. ALF tells Willie that he knows how to do magic tricks. Willie is skeptical, but ALF's tricks impress him enough that he's interested in learning from him. What Willie doesn't know is that ALF's top hat and wand actually work and the Tanner house is about to take a trip around the world, from the jungle to the Arctic to the middle of the ocean. We never see ALF's hat and wand again and they would've come in handy in many future situations.
• On Your Marx
  A one-page short where ALF annoys everybody with Marx Brothers schtick. Gallagher LOVED the Marx Brothers; the style of his writing is evidence enough.
• Gone With The Rind
  Melmacian Gone with the Wind parody. Eeyup.
• TRIVIA: The Star Signals column mentions the wrong plot for this issue, describing the storyline from ALF #36 instead.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a ham."
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ALF #35 -- October 1990

• The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is ALF Himself
  I can imagine the conversation Gallagher had with his editor that resulted in this one.
  "Hey, can I have beer cans in my comic?"
  "No, we're aimed at children. You can't have beer cans."
  "Can I have......FEAR cans?"
  "What the heck are fear cans? You just made that up! Put as many FEAR cans as you want in this thing, I don't care."
  So...ALF has a collection of FEAR cans. When Brian curiously opens one, he inadvertently spreads the canned fear around the neighborhood...in this case, the fear that your house will fail a surprise inspection. The Tanners suddenly become clean freaks and ALF has to find the antidote....but now that they've rearranged the house, it could be anywhere.
• Judge For Yourself
  It's Judge Bredd, the ALF-comic-approved Judge Dredd parody. Normally these things are told as flashbacks, but since Judge Dredd takes place in the future, ALF has to fudge it by calling this a "flash forward" set in a theoretical future where Melmac only partially exploded and became post-apocalyptic. Okay, but he's clearly making stuff up now, which calls into question the authenticity of any story he's been telling.
• The Phunny Pages
  Samples of comic strips from Melmac. They're only slightly less lame than the actual strips they're spoofing.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: The Fear Can that causes its victim to become a neat freak is called "Leonaphobia" after Leona Helmsley, who would really show up in her hotels to give surprise inspections which were close to impossible to pass. Leonaphobia was probably a real condition.
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ALF #36 -- November 1990

• My Favorite Melmacian
  The WOTIF Simulator is back! This time, it's hypothesizing what would happen if, due to a cosmic event, ALF was split into two beings during his trip to Earth! It's based on a classic Superman WOTIF, of course, except one of the ALFs ends up going to Mars. The Martians he meets resemble the creatures from Mars Attacks too well to be a concidence. Yeah, the movie wouldn't be out until 1996, but it was based on a series of cult trading cards, and patrons of comic book shops would be familiar with such references.
• Underexposed
  Believe it or not, this is the Melmacian parody of 60's underground comics. Yep, we're really going here -- there are spoofs of Zippy, Mr. Natural and the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers in an ALF comic. It's heavily sanitized and you don't see Fritz the Cat at all, but one of the Freak Brothers (shown in shadow) gets away with smoking a doobie.
• TRIVIA: Remember when Star Signals leaked the plot of "My Favorite Melmacian" two months early? They also described a version of the plot that wasn't what we got here. Both ALFs were originally supposed to go to Earth, and the blue one was meant to land in the Soviet Union and live with the "Tanneroffs."
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: Plenty of the puns are references to underground artists. "Denis Kitchen Sink" is pretty bad, but I'm giving the award to "Gilbert Fallout Shelter."
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ALF #37 -- December 1990

• Melmacian Gothic
  Willie's second cousin Elmer calls him out of the blue, requesting that he look after Elmer's farm for two weeks while he deals with a family emergency. ALF wants to come and help, wondering what farm life is like. He soon regrets that request, as the constant chores wear him down. He considers spicing the corn crop with a little homeworld additive, but THIS time manages to talk himself out of it. Then he steps on a rake and accidentally spills a Melmiracle Gro capsule into the cornfield. Sorry, but Gallagher Master Of Fate has spoken -- ALF is going to intefere whether he wants to or not.
• Play Me Or Trade Me
  A tale from Gordon's childhood, when he ran into the legendary Swap Thing! The dastardly creature hypnotizes Gordon into trading his little brother for a box of soda pop pull can tabs. To remedy the dilemma, Gordon has to call on the Barter Patrol.
• ALF Designs The Perfect Melmakitchen
  A blueprint of ALF's dream kitchen.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "As the fisherman says, that's so funny I forgot to GAFF."
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ALF #38 -- January 1991

• Branching Out
  If you're the last surviving member of your species, and you're in a comic book, it's inevitable that you're going to run into bounty hunters eventually. Only this time, they're talking trees from space who attempt to lob fruit at ALF to capture him, and they're called "Bountree Hunters." Because Gallagher.
• Timing Is Everything
  Here you have it, the Melmac Flashback where ALF finally meets Doctor Who......zonfirst. Instead of actually encountering Tom Baker, ALF becomes the companion to a Melmacian equivalent with curly hair and a long scarf. They have a run-in with the Barbie-Dolleks from Planet Maskaro. As you might guess, Marvel has officially given up pursuing the Who license just for ALF, if that was ever even a possibility. Take your parody and go.
• Bed-Slime Stories
  A two-pager illustrating various quirky Melmacian takes on fairy tales.
• TRIVIA: The Star Signals column vanishes as of this issue, replaced by the standard Bullpen Bulletins. This is the beginning of the phase-out for the Star brand.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "Bountree Hunters" should count, but then there's this: "We'll be the most POPLAR guys around!"
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ALF #39 -- February 1991

• Inca-Dinka-Doo
  BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: We've moved it up here for a reason. Brian enters the garage, announcing he's just completed a school report on the Spanish Conquistadors. ALF is messing around with another spaceship gizmo, this one a duplicator ray. He can't seem to get it to work right, though, creating shoddy copies of things that wouldn't fool anyone. Suddenly, as ALF is flipping through Brian's report, Brian accidentally hits the duplicator button, creating an imperfect clone of ALF that talks in unintelligent sentences like "Me am angry." And because Brian's report got mixed into the process, the clone also thinks it is Pizarro, the Conquistador who trashed and plundered the Inca civilization. Ready for the clone's name? ....."PIZARRO-ALF." Quite a long way to go for one Superman reference.
• Alf Is In Wonderland
  After overeating before bed, ALF has a nightmare where he's in Wonderland and his friends are the various famed characters. Gallagher must have been low on ideas this time.
• TRIVIA: People are still writing into the mail column asking where Jake Ochmonek is. The editor incorrectly tells one person that "Jake Trevor" already appeared back in issue #3, calling into question everything he claims to know.
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ALF #40 -- March 1991

• Leprechaun Job
  Kate's distant Uncle Seamus visits from Ireland. He's awfully short and talks with a thick brogue. Seamus says he won the lottery and is using his new fortune to visit his extended family, but ALF is convinced he's actually a leprechaun and the "lottery" is actually his pot of gold. Waking up in the middle of the night, ALF makes multiple attempts to trap Seamus and get his gold, but as the story usually goes, it's not so easy to catch a leprechaun. ALF wakes up afterward, initially suggesting this is yet another dream sequence, but Seamus's wink at ALF and the gold coin the Melmacian finds in his bed suggests it all really happened. This confirms magic not only existed on Melmac, but that it does on Earth.
• That's The Way The Cookie Crumbles
  It's a spoof of Man of La Mancha with some Zorro thrown in because Mexico, why not. The Melmac Flashbacks haven't been good in a while and the worst one is about to come.
• TRIVIA: It took a while for the comic to acknowledge the cancellation of the TV series, which aired its final episode nine months ago. But the cover is quite a shiv, depicting ALF sitting down to a meal of roasted peacock.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: Zoreo's family crest has a tube of toothpaste on it.
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ALF #41 -- April 1991

• T.V.F.X.N.X.S.
  Welcome to the single worst issue of ALF. It's not terrible or unreadable, but the concepts really leave me scratching my head. The A-story is ALF turning into a floating TV screen. Where does such a random idea come from? They have to jump through some weird pseudo-scientific hoops to explain why this is going on; I'd accept "magic" at this point (it's been established twice now).
• Classical Castritis
  And then you have the worst Melmac Flashback ever written, where ALF meets "Doc Cabbage, The Man Of Brahms." His thing is that he inserts a forced pun relating to a classical music composer into every sentence he says. Pretty funny, huh, kids? In addition to the puns being bad, they reference a lot of the more obscure composers, meaning the jokes are just impossible for a youngster to get. This is on top of my knowing nothing about Doc Savage, making the story completely incomprehensible. There's a scene where somebody says he's carrying a fat caterpillar to annoy a lawyer who is carrying a large cockroach. If you've read Doc Savage, does that make sense to you?
• TRIVIA: The subscription page now mentions Evan Dorkin's "Bill & Ted" comic, making it the last Marvel book to technically fall under the Star banner. "Bill & Ted" is also the only licensed Star comic to have been reprinted in its entirety.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: Too many to pick from, so I'll just choose this: "Don't try HAYDN under that parachute, villain!" Many others were equally bad.
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ALF #42 -- May 1991

• Send In The Clones
  Based on the previous few issues, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the period in which readership started really dropping. Too bad; the comic suddenly JOLTS back to life starting with this bombshell of an issue, in which Skip returns from New Melmac to reveal the ALF Clone Rhonda created back in 1988 is now clones, plural, and they've taken over the entire planet and enslaved Rhonda for being different. ALF must travel to New Melmac using Skip's ship, blend into the society of clones, and rescue Rhonda. The other ALFs figure him out and chase after them both, leading to a daring space battle that culminates in New Melmac suffering Original Melmac's fate by exploding. Normally this was the kind of epic story Gallagher would save for an annual, but as we'd learn in the coming months, it was now or never to get all the good ideas out.
• ALF's Sci-Fry Marathon
  Not only do we get a phenomenal A-story, but for the first time in a while, the Melmac Flashback kills. Gallagher did not actually write this one -- Rusty Haller tried his hand at scripting in addition to penciling. It would be one of just two instances where Gallagher didn't write a story in the comic (the other is Son of Alf's Sci-Fry Marathon, from the next issue). Rusty does a bang-up job with his sci-fi parodies, clearly coming from a place of love. The sequel would be even better.
• TRIVIA: For whatever reason, starting with this issue the comic shifts from four rows of panels to three rows instead. It's arguable if you get less comic for your money; the average was usually six panels a page either way.
  Rhonda tells ALF "My feelings tell me we will be together again very soon....all I can say is, see you in Issue 50." That issue would be its last; the comic is hinting at its own demise from a great distance.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: During that same conversation, Rhonda shadow-puppets the number 4 on the fence with her fingers. She's 4-SHADOWING.
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ALF #43 -- June 1991

• Secure From General Quarter Pounders
  I still don't get this title. Anyway, the Tanners come home to a broken window, which they initially take to mean a burglar has been inside. It turns out to be the result of a baseball from a neighbor's kid, but they don't find this out before ALF has rigged the entire house with crazy booby traps. There aren't very many plots from the ALF comic book that could be done on the show, but this one could have happened -- it takes place entirely within the house and it consists of nothing but ALF annoying everyone.
• Son Of ALF's Sci-Fry Marathon
  The previous marathon was parodies of all kinds of sci-fi shows, but this one sticks entirely with Star Trek, lampooning everything that existed at the time (the original show, the movies, Next Generation and even the cartoon). There are so many jokes packed into these eight pages that the format actually flips back to four rows in the middle to fit it all in.
• Only 45 Minute Steaks From Broadway
  Gallagher worked his own Melmac Flashback into the issue after all, a two-pager about stage plays from ALF's planet. It's not as good as Rusty's.
• TRIVIA: This issue's letter column is a special one, detailing the entire behind-the-scenes process for a typical issue of ALF.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: From a one-panel parody of My Fair Lady: "I'm shocked! Stunned! Astonished! I could have BLANCHED all night!" Blanche is from A Streetcar Named Desire, not My Fair Lady. I could have had a nice shiny No-Prize on my mantle if I'd known that back then.
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ALF #44 -- July 1991

• ALF'S X-Cellent Adventure
  ALF walks up into the attic to find...Psych-Major and Dark Kleenex?? THE X-MELMEN ARE ALIVE?!? Holy friggin' cow! Magmeato also survived and he plans to conquer Earth! WHAT WHAT WHAAAAT?!? And to help the X-Melmen defeat him, ALF becomes the Fantastic Fur for the first time since 1989! Awesomesauce!
• TRIVIA: Now would be about the time for ALF Annual #4 to come out, but it never appeared. Due to declining sales ALF would never get another 64-page special, and thus we get a special-worthy storyline in a regular issue. The single-digit number of issues left in the contract also had something to do with it. ALF actually comes out and says it on page 25: "You didn't think I was through yet, did you? I've got at least six good issues worth of stories left." As a kid that line made me uneasy, and I was right to be.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: We get two more X-Men parodied before the production winds down for good: Emma Frost (seen here as Emma Defrost) and Nightcrawler (as Nightcaller). Nightcaller's power is that he can pull a phone out of midair (with the sound effect "HAMF!") and call anyone he wants for free. That's about on "Michigan Wolverine" level as far as spoofs go. With so many mutants to choose from, it's such a shame we never saw the Mel versions of Gambit, Storm or Kitty Pryde. A character named Kitty would have been extremely easy.
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ALF #45 -- August 1991

• Making A Good First Depression
  This one is all over the place. ALF is about to turn 234, which means he'll temporarily suffer a chemical imbalance known to his kind as "Mel-men-o-paws." This imbalance leaves him depressed and downbeat, and everyone around him becomes depressed and cynical as well -- except for Kate, who combs ALF's spaceship for a cure. She makes him a glass of "Nutra-Swede," but uses the entire packet, sending ALF too far in the other direction and making him "Artificially Swedened," meaning he's now unbearably happy and sugary all the time, and he talks with a Swedish accent. The cure for THIS involves blasting a garden hose up his nostrils. I warned you it was going to go places.
• The Mystery of the Earwax Museum
  Two parodies in one: Nancy Drew (as "Nancy Drool") investigates the Earwax Museum (where it turns into House of Wax). ALF leaves this story on a cliffhanger, then claims it took place the night Melmac blew up so it doesn't matter. I think this confirms he's been making up most of these.
• TRIVIA: The shortest issue of ALF at just twenty pages of content.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "Here I am at the entrance to the World's Flair." "Wow, look at those giant felt-tip pens!"
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ALF #46 -- September 1991

• Shall We Dense?
  So at this point the comic doesn't have long to live. Gallagher knows it. He's been saving none of his good ideas for future issues and some crazy stuff has been happening lately. Then you have this issue's lead story, where...I don't know WHAT happened.
  ALF can't sleep, so he reaches into his Bag of Tricks known as his ship and pulls out a box of Gravi-Tea, which is supposed to help a Melmacian sleep by literally making his body more molecularly dense. But on Earth, the tea works too well and ALF sinks into the ground, falling for miles until he reaches a subterranean cavern. Down below, he meets up with a tribe of rock people, whom he quickly finds out are not friendly. They prepare to climb back up the hole ALF made and conquer the planet, starting with the Tanner house! Then....Alf wakes up and finds out he dreamed all that. It was a stupid story and it didn't even have a point. With so little space left, it feels like such a waste for twelve pages to be taken up by something like this.
• Feel Dove Dreams (Say It Out Loud!)
  On the other hand, you have one of the most classic Melmac Flashbacks ever written, which fills a hole in ALF's backstory by revealing a portion of his childhood and even an "origin" story for the Gordon/Rhonda relationship (sprung as a susprise). What remains are more parodies, so this is the last good one we will ever get. This was also Rusty Haller's final ALF story. Bye, Rusty.
• Sometimes the editors would fill extra space in the mail column by posting an image of next issue's cover. It was usually accompanied by a short pitch ("DON'T MISS THIS ONE!") but this time the cover is simply put there, with no words. The cover of ALF #47, done in the style of a sensationalist newspaper, clearly states the comic is headed for cancellation. That's quite a bomb to drop on your loyal audience with no comment.
• TRIVIA: Brian's middle name is Joseph.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "ALF always did love my early Spider-Man comics...and that goes DITKO for me!"
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ALF #47 -- October 1991

• Th-Th-Th-That's ALF Folks, Part One: Meteor Bye-Products
  Given how frequently comics are just dropped by their publisher with no warning, it's very rare that one of them is given THIS much lead time to say farewell and wrap things up. ALF devotes four entire issues to its goodbye and not only that, it's been dropping hints of its climax that extend all the way back to issue 42. I'd like to know why ALF had this kind of deal. My best theory is that an ironclad contract, signed back when both the comic and the property it was based on were red-hot, guaranteed at least a 50-issue run.
  After years of repairs, ALF's ship is almost operational (will he need it in the near future? hmm). All he needs is the substance that fuels its engine, but it doesn't exist on Earth. Then he finds out about a real meteor crater located in Arizona that yielded minerals to scientists no one knew existed before -- it sounds like his best shot. To get there ALF uses his Holo-Humanizer from Issue 17 -- which, if you recall, only appeared in an imaginary story. Brian's only explanation: "Well, here it is."
  Footprints of Thieves!
  Now that Rusty has left, Dave Manak once again handles the visuals of the Melmac Flashbacks. It's a standard Robin Hood parody.
• TRIVIA: With this issue, the subscription page is no longer Star-specific and mentions all the Marvel titles, which means the last trace of Star Comics has been wiped from publication.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: Robbin' Food challenges Oven Fryer Tuck to a duel and says "We shall battle with STAFFS." Smash-cut to an office full of people yammering in business-speak.
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ALF #48 -- November 1991

• Th-Th-Th-That's ALF Folks, Part Two: A Tisket, A Task Force
  With just three issues to go, it's finally happened: someone at the Alien Task Force knows about ALF. Unlike how the original show ended, this development doesn't come out of nowhere -- the events that led to his discovery happened in ALF #27, when ALF visited the ATF itself and stole a submarine. It turns out the theft of that submarine cost agent Mark Bitner his position, and ever since then he's been looking for the alien who sabotaged his career. Unless you count some talking trees, Mark is the first threatening villain to surface in the ALF comic book in quite some time, ever since the Coat Burglar was properly subdued over 20 issues ago.
  When Mark finds the proof he's looking for, ALF is able to give him temporary amnesia with a little pill called a Time Capsule, aka the Melmacian Product of the Issue. If he'd thought to use Milk of Amnesia instead this story would have been over, but Mark clearly has to come back in the last issue, so....
• Here's Cooking At You, Kid!
  The final Melmac Flashback is a Casablanca parody.
• TRIVIA: This issue has gained some notoriety even among readers who never read this comic, because of its cover, which many people swear-to-God depicts ALF raping a seal. I never saw the cover that way as a kid and I can't see it as a grown-up either. Neither did my mother, who could spot even the most thinly veiled reference to Rhonda's furry boobies from 50 yards away. ALF cannot possibly rape a seal; he isn't anatomically correct. He's got no ding-dong!
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "We'll always have Maris." It makes sense in context.
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ALF #49 -- December 1991

• Th-Th-Th-That's ALF Folks, Part Three: A Melmodest Proposal
  Next on the list of getting things over with: proposing to Rhonda. ALF radios Rhonda's ship, but gets Skip instead. Skip agrees to pass along the question, which he phrases to Rhonda as if he's asking himself. Hmm....
  Despite being billed as a book-length chapter, a good portion of this issue is taken up by a different story involving Rhonda and Skip landing on a planet populated by creatures shaped like flat squares and circles. The squares hate the circles and Rhonda has to teach them all how to get along. It's the definition of filler, and I'm not sure why Gallagher ended the Melmac Flashback format if he was just going to fill that space with something else unrelated.
• Throughout the series, ALF has been pulling an endless number of miraculous gadgets out of his spaceship. Now is the time when we actually find out how it all fits in there, as a special splash page reveals every nook and cranny. I honestly appreciate that Gallagher would take the time to figure all this out. It just proves how much he loved this job.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "We insist you take part in our DISC-ussion." Because she's circle-shaped....get it?
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ALF #50 -- January 1992

• Th-Th-Th-That's ALF Folks, Part Four: ALF Weidersehn
  This is IT, people! Rhonda is speeding toward Earth for a wedding with an unspecified someone! The Alien Task Force is heading for the Tanner house! Who will be left standing in the end, and who will be left on Earth? And can Willie's garage roof be destroyed just ONE more time?? Tune in to find out!
• Universal Acceptance
  Before wikis were invented, there was only one way to untangle the incoherent interwoven subplots in your average superhero comic book: The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. ALF feels he's paid his dues and he wants in. Marvel Editor In Chief (at the time) Tom DeFalco refuses -- until ALF reveals he owns compromising photos of him, and he'll leak the photos unless he's given a Handbook entry. The next two pages are exactly that: a 100% authentic-looking Marvel Universe summary of ALF and all the events of the last 50 issues, suitable for cutting out and pasting into the real thing without anyone being the wiser. And we haven't even gotten started yet. When this comic ended, it ended in STYLE.
• Ladies And Gentlemen, One Last Time, Heeeeee's ALF
  A Johnny Carson-styled aftershow where instead of flashing back to all the stories in the title's four-year history, ALF flashes FORWARD to reveal all the stories they WOULD have done if they hadn't been cancelled. You couldn't ask for a sendoff better than this. Some of the proposed plotlines are intentionally insane (ALF and Willie hacking through the underbrush in Africa) while others have so much potential the little dollops we get are agonizing (Brian goes to space in ALF's ship and gets lost in the universe?? Why didn't we get that in place of the "rock people" dream??) This is so good. And it's STILL not over!
• Final Issue Pin-Up Page
  The very last thing you see in the issue is a giant two-page poster containing EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER that EVER APPEARED in the comic. EVERY SINGLE ONE, Melmac Flashback or otherwise. No one was left out, and if you look closely, you can find Gallagher, Manak and Severin getting trampled to death by the crowd in various places. Brings a tear to your eye, this does. You know how some people know they're about to be fired and they slack off? That sure wasn't this crew. Not a single one of these 48 pages were wasted.
• BAD PUN OF THE ISSUE: "As they say in Key West, don't jump to CONCH-lusions!"
• TRIVIA: Despite the bad sales, ALF was given a 48-page final issue because it was mandatory in those days that every Marvel comic be given a giant-size special for every fifty issues it stayed in print. I have no idea if this is still the case because....when was the last time an original Marvel comic book made it to fifty issues before being cancelled or rebooted or renumbered?
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