Observers Are Here Blog for fans of J.J. Abrams’ show Fringe

Fringe Comic #1 was released September 3, 2008, and is dated October 2008. It is the first issue of a six-part series, and features two FRINGE-related stories.  Many thanks goes out to our very own Bradbury for contributing the scans of the comics and his observations and theories about them.

“Like Minds” details the first meeting of Walter Bishop and William Bell, and their first experiment together.

“The Prisoner” follows a man from Littleton, Nebraska who wakes up in prison with a different body and a different name, and has no idea how he got there.

.

Like Minds – Full Synopsis

It is Fall, circa 1970, and the young Harvard physics professor Walter Bishop meets an inquisitive student, William Bell. William becomes the sole supporter of Walter’s theory that humans can communicate non-verbally via electrical means. An experiment intended to transfer memory from one mouse to another goes wrong when William is temporarily electrocuted. William subsequently has a flashing memory of a Golden Bird and a man who he doesn’t readily recognize.

.

OBSERVATIONS BY BRADBURY

Bradbury:
*    Apparently the Class of ’74 sign would place the timing of this story (where Walter and Bell meet) in 1970
*    Walter wears glasses in the comics, but not in the episodes.  He can only be seen wearing glasses in older family photos in the episodes.
*    Walter appears to be bothered by Bell’s liking for music (which he claims helps him to think). This is in contrast to the Walter we see in the episodes, who uses music frequently in his labnotes and to help trigger his memory.
*    He find out William Bell was born around 1950 (twenty years old in the comic)
*    an “Observer-like” figure appears to be standing in the audience during Walter’s lecture (but this will most likely turn out to be a character we meet in the next comic)
*    William Bell believes in a soul, where as Walter does not. Bell is also compassionate towards animals, where as Walter is more indifferent and cold.
*    The procedure on the mice is similar to the synaptic transfer system Walter sets up for Olivia and John Scott (obviously). It is during this experiment, though, that Walter gets the idea to use a drug cocktail to induce transference and relax the “subjects”. We will later find out from Walter’s labnotes for the Pilot that the mixture of drugs in the cocktail must be an exact ratio equal to Phi.
*    Bell notices a wall move in Walter’s lab (similar to what we might see from the tech used in The Equation or Safe, or possibly even the dimensional doorway opening from Jones in the finale) Walter will comment on the walls several times in his labnotes from the episodes as well.
*    Bell obviously receives a transfer of images the mouse noticed into his own memory, but he describes a deja-vu type feeling. Walter discusses what causes deja-vu in “The Road Not Taken”.
*    A possible reference for the origin of the ring around Walter’s neck will come later in Comic #4

.

.

The Prisoner – Full Synopsis

In Nebraska, Frank proposes to Sarah, who accepts. That night, wide awake in bed with Sarah, Frank suddenly finds himself in a prison – with a different name (“Jones”) and body! While using a weekly sole phone call allotment to reach Sarah, she claims Frank is with her. Frank, in Jones’ body, provokes a fellow prisoner to injure him so he can make another call to Sarah – but by then, her number has been disconnected. The story shifts to Montana, where an electronic transference between humans seemingly fails. Then an English-speaking woman suddenly finds herself in the body of a Russian astronaut in a spacecraft orbiting Earth.

.

OBSERVATIONS BY BRADBURY

Bradbury:
*    Frank proposes to Sarah in Littleton, NE.  Mark Young (Dreamscape) was supposed to fly out to Omaha, NE on 12/22/2008.
*    it’s interesting the man in jail’s name is Jones.  We will obviously meet another famous prisoner in jail named Jones later in the episodes ….
*    the doctor performing the transference experiments in Montana resembles the “Frank” of Littleton, NE.  Could this be his brother or possibly his twin, and thus explain the “random” switch?
*    who is the person who gets “switched” into the Russian female cosmonaut?
*    notice the apple in the final scene of the story … is it to link to the idea’s presented by the apple glyph?

.

.