Planet of the Nerds

In 1988, Chad, Steve, and Drew ruled their Pasadena high school. Jocks patrolled the hallways, maintaining a social order that had stood since time immemorial—nerds were for shaming, wedgies, and stuffing into lockers. Then a science fair experiment went catastrophically wrong, and three of the most popular kids at school were frozen solid in a freak cryogenics accident. When they thaw out in 2019, it’s a whole new world: superhero movies rule the multiplex, impossibly wealthy geeks own multinational corporations, and everyone carries a supercomputer in their pocket. The nerds have inherited the Earth—and Chad, Steve, and Drew declare war on the new status quo.

Planet of the Nerds is the first full-length comic from Seattle journalist and satirist Paul Constant, a five-issue miniseries from AHOY Comics that launched to strong reviews in April 2019. Illustrated by Alan Robinson with a backup feature by Randy Elliott, colored by Felipe Sobreiro, and lettered by Rob Steen, the book is a time-capsule comedy in the vein of Back to the Future and Idiocracy—skewering nostalgia culture while asking whether we’ve become more welcoming, or simply swapped one tyrannical social order for another.

The collected edition optioned by Paramount Players for a feature-film adaptation. Perfect for fans of Revenge of the Nerds, Weird Science, and the films of Paul Constant’s fellow satirist Matt Bors. Read it at AHOY Comics or grab the trade paperback at your local comic shop.