Dave Baker’s new graphic novel Mary Tyler MooreHawk is a relentlessly inventive sci-fi adventure epic with a large and wacky cast of characters set within a plot so complex as to be headspinning. The eponymous Mary Tyler MooreHawk, a plucky teenage super-heroine with an adorable double Afro-puff hair-do, takes on a succession of monsters, evil robots, and supervillains while dealing with personal tragedy—the death of her scientist-hero mother during a battle with an archenemy. On top of a steady stream of jokes and goofy banter, the graphic novel is also part of a meta-narrative that features scattered segments of prose supposedly taken from a fan-zine (written by a fictional “Dave Baker”) from the future about a TV adaptation of the comic that is broadcast via household dishwashers! Baker’s eye-popping linework animates every panel with finicky, brittle drawings that compel the eye to move from page to page. In this eight-page excerpt, Mary is returning to her headquarters, the MooreHawk Institute for Increasing Tomorrows, following a recent adventure, accompanied by her bodyguard, Roxy Racer, and Cutie-Boy, the world’s cutest robot—who gets stronger the more you say nice things about it. Mary Tyler MooreHawk by Dave Baker is out now from Top Shelf Productions.