Moon Landing: T Plus 4 Days - Splashdown

Today, the descent stage of Lunar Module remains untouched where it was left in the Sea of Tranquility on the Moon. The ascent stage of the Lunar Module was left in a decaying lunar orbit and eventually crashed into the Moon's surface. The Apollo 11 crew separated the CSM's Command Module from the Service Module, which was left in Earth orbit and eventually burned up on re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere.

Of the 365 feet of Apollo Saturn V that launched on 16 July, only the 11-foot high Command Module, Columbia, returned to Earth where it safely splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean 40 years ago today.


The crew were taken aboard the aircraft carrier USS Hornet by a US Navy Sea King SH-3D helicopter with the code 66 on her side. "Navy 66" was lost several years later in a crash, but her spirit lives on in the toys and models that were produced of her, probably the single most famous of all the hundreds of Sea King helicopters that were built. Dinky produced a die-cast metal toy complete with plastic Apollo Command Module that could be winched up and down while Airfix were considerably more accurate with their 1/72nd scale plastic kit.

Again, Airfix cover art maestro Roy Cross is on top form with the Sea King shown having just dropped off its divers who have climbed onto the floating Command Module ready to attach the winch cable.

Today that Apollo 11 Command Module, Columbia, is on display in the National Air And Space Museum in Washington DC where she is displayed beside the first aircraft to fly, the first aircraft to break the sound barrier, the first aircraft to fly hypersonic and the first manned American craft in space, amongst many others.

British readers have the opportunity to see a real Apollo Command Module in the Science Museum in London where the Apollo 10 Command Module, which also orbited the Moon and was named after the comic strip character Charlie Brown, is on display.

Yesterday - The Future

• Coinciding with Jeremy's countdown to the 40th Anniversary of the first Moon Landing, downthetubes is publishing "Moon Landing 40th Anniversary: A Comics Celebration" - a gallery of illustrations and comic art inspired by space exploration.
Contributions are very welcome: if you don't want to join our forum and upload art but would like to join in with the celebrations, simply send your work to johnfreeman6-moonlandinganniversaryart@yahoo.co.uk. Please ensure images are no larger than 2MB in size and include a brief bio and web link so we can give you deserved credit.

Moon Landing: T Plus 3 Days - The Future

As the Apollo 11 Command Service Module covered the quarter of a million miles back from the Moon back to the Earth, NASA had big plans for the Moon with Apollo only being the first step. However, with the Apollo 11 flight accomplishing President John F Kennedy's pledge to go to the Moon before the decade was out, as well as giving the USA its biggest propaganda victory over the USSR during the Cold War, the political will was no longer there to fund such expensive undertakings whilst the country was still fighting a war in Vietnam.


Airfix remained optimistic however and produced this set of astronauts and their equipment for their HO/OO range of figures. The HO/OO scale of 1/76 was virtually indistinguishable from the 1/72nd scale of the Lunar Lander kit while the set of figures includes extra equipment such as Lunar Rovers and equipment packages. Indeed, the Lunar Rover proved somewhat of a problem for the company, after they got in touch with the real Rover manufacturer Boeing, who had to get permission from their only customer for the Rover before allowing Airfix to produce their version of it.

NASA agreed - on the condition that it was as accurate a representation as possible so that it could be used for educational purposes if required, no doubt oblivious to the fact that in back gardens in Britain the Rover was more likely to be confronted by similarly-sized German soldiers and tanks taking imaginary pot shots at it...

Yesterday - The Return Trip Begins
Tomorrow - Splashdown

• Coinciding with Jeremy's countdown to the 40th Anniversary of the first Moon Landing, downthetubes is publishing "Moon Landing 40th Anniversary: A Comics Celebration" - a gallery of illustrations and comic art inspired by space exploration.
Contributions are very welcome: if you don't want to join our forum and upload art but would like to join in with the celebrations, simply send your work to johnfreeman6-moonlandinganniversaryart@yahoo.co.uk. Please ensure images are no larger than 2MB in size and include a brief bio and web link so we can give you deserved credit.

Moon Landing: T Plus 2 Days - The Return Trip Begins

It was actually 21 July that the return to Earth began. Armstrong and Aldrin spent less than three hours walking on the Moon and lifted off in the Lunar Module's ascent stage less than 22 hours after they had touched down. The ascent stage docked with the Command Service Module in lunar orbit where the astronauts transferred into the CSM in which Mike Collins had remained. They undocked from the ascent stage in the last moments of 21 July and set the CSM on its return course for Earth just before 5am GMT, 40 years ago today.


The image from the Orbit Book Rockets and Spacecraft Book 1 shows the ascent stage left in lunar orbit as the CSM heads for home. The ascent stage was left in a decaying lunar orbit and eventually crashed into the Moon's surface while the descent stage remains untouched where it was left in the Sea of Tranquility.

Yesterday - First Footsteps
Tomorrow - The Future

• Coinciding with Jeremy's countdown to the 40th Anniversary of the first Moon Landing, downthetubes is publishing "Moon Landing 40th Anniversary: A Comics Celebration" - a gallery of illustrations and comic art inspired by space exploration.
Contributions are very welcome: if you don't want to join our forum and upload art but would like to join in with the celebrations, simply send your work to johnfreeman6-moonlandinganniversaryart@yahoo.co.uk. Please ensure images are no larger than 2MB in size and include a brief bio and web link so we can give you deserved credit.

Moon Landing: T Plus 1 Day - First Footsteps

Americans would have us believe that Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the Moon on 20 July 1969 because they saw it happen in their late evening. However British audiences saw it happen in the early hours of 21 July 1969. Since NASA operates on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which to all intensive purposes is Greenwich Mean Time, they also consider that the first footsteps on the Moon took place on 21 July.

After the early design illustration of the Lunar Module shown yesterday, today we are showing the rather more accurate Airfix illustration. As with all the best Airfix box covers this was painted by Roy Cross and shows both astronauts on the Moon's surface in this 1/72nd scale kit. However, it was painted prior to any of the landings taking place and the most obvious inaccuracy in it is the lack of gold foil surrounding the Lunar Module's descent stage.

Rather less accurate, but considerably larger and probably more fun to build, was Lego's Space Module toy which was based on the Lunar Module. This was released in early 1975 and so includes a Lego version of the Lunar Rover vehicle which was carried to the Moon on the final three Apollo lunar missions. The astronauts are based on the large early 1970s Lego figures since this toy predates the style of Lego "mini-fig" people that are so prevalent now and which were used in the science fiction Lego Space sets produced in the late seventies.

The kit may not look as accurate as the company would produce today but that is because they used then existing Lego bricks to design it rather that the more modern concept of producing specialist bricks for specific kits. Indeed, Lego did release a smaller but much more accurate version of the Lunar Module in 2004 complete with mini-fig astronauts.

Yesterday - The Eagle Has Landed
Tomorrow - The Return Trip Begins

• Coinciding with Jeremy's countdown to the 40th Anniversary of the first Moon Landing, downthetubes is publishing "Moon Landing 40th Anniversary: A Comics Celebration" - a gallery of illustrations and comic art inspired by space exploration.
Contributions are very welcome: if you don't want to join our forum and upload art but would like to join in with the celebrations, simply send your work to johnfreeman6-moonlandinganniversaryart@yahoo.co.uk. Please ensure images are no larger than 2MB in size and include a brief bio and web link so we can give you deserved credit.

Graeme Neil Reid: Walking on the Moon

Here's the latest contribution to our marking of the 40th Anniversary of the first Moon Landing: "Walking on the Moon", a stunning piece of art by top Scottish illustrator and comics artist Graeme Neil Reid, whose credits include the Radio Times and is one of the contributors to Scotch Corner, a new combi-blog for Scottish artists.

Graeme is a freelance illustrator based in Edinburgh, Scotland, mostly known for comic work for various publishers including Image Comics and Caliber Comics. He's also worked in the advertising and marketing industry for over 15 years. Working with both traditional tools and computer software such as Photoshop, Painter and Illustrator, Graeme is probably best known for his strong ink line and computer colouring - but he's also happy to get his hands dirty with oil paints when needed!

His illustration will soon join our "Moon Landing 40th Anniversary: A Comics Celebration" - a gallery of illustrations and comic art inspired by space exploration - which includes art by Martin Baines, Nick Abadzis, Colin Howard, Mike Nicoll and others.

Further contributions are very welcome: if you don't want to join our forum and upload art but would like to join in with the celebrations, simply send your work to johnfreeman6-moonlandinganniversaryart@yahoo.co.uk.

Please ensure images are no larger than 2MB in size and include a brief bio and web link so we can give you deserved credit.

On today, the actual anniversary of the landing, our thanks to everyone who found time to contribute in their busy schedules so far!

• Read the latest news on the work of much-in-demand artist Graeme Neil Reid on his blog at www.gnreid.blogspot.com

Moon Landing: T Minus 0 Days - The Eagle Has Landed

Forty years ago today, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin boarded the Lunar Module, Eagle, and undocked from the Command Service Module, Columbia. Leaving Mike Collins alone in the CSM in lunar orbit, they descended towards the Moon's surface where Eagle safely touched down in the Sea of Tranquility at 8:17pm GMT.

Wilf Hardy's illustration from Look and Learn issue 907, dated 19 May 1979, shows the Lunar Module flying separately from the CSM as it descends towards the Moon's surface while this illustration from him shows the LM the moment before touchdown.

This is the cover for the LP recording of Journey To The Moon, a factual album from Gerry Anderson's Century 21 organisation which used the cast of Fireball XL5 to tell what was to them the historical event of the first moon landing. Today it makes for an interesting listen as its writer, Alan Fennell, has to put into the past tense events that were still in the future as far as its young listeners in 1965 were concerned. This album is better known from its rerelease in the 7 inch EP format by Century 21 records as the first of their "21 Minutes Of Adventure" mini albums and it has also been remastered recently onto CD by the Gerry Anderson club Fanderson. As such it has shrunk in size as recording technology has changed in the last four decades.

The final illustration is from Rockets and Spacecraft Book 1 and shows an early concept of how the Lander would have looked on the surface. As this book was published early in the Apollo program and as with the record sleeve above, it shows the then current design of a circular hatchway for the astronauts to exit the vehicle through, which was soon changed to a more rectangular design to allow the astronauts to get their backpacks through it more easily. Interestingly, the uncredited artist does not include a ladder for the astronauts to descend to the surface on...

Americans would have us believe that Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the Moon on 20 July 1969 because they saw it happen in their late evening. However British television audiences saw it happen in the early hours of Monday 21 July 1969. Since NASA operates on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which to all intensive purposes is Greenwich Mean Time, they also consider that the first footsteps on the Moon took place on 21 July.

Yesterday – What Could Go Wrong
Tomorrow - First Footsteps

• Coinciding with Jeremy's countdown to the 40th Anniversary of the first Moon Landing, downthetubes is publishing "Moon Landing 40th Anniversary: A Comics Celebration" - a gallery of illustrations and comic art inspired by space exploration.
Contributions are very welcome: if you don't want to join our forum and upload art but would like to join in with the celebrations, simply send your work to johnfreeman6-moonlandinganniversaryart@yahoo.co.uk. Please ensure images are no larger than 2MB in size and include a brief bio and web link so we can give you deserved credit.

Moon Landing: T Minus 1 Days - What Could Go Wrong

Forty years ago today, the crew of Apollo 11 were almost at the Moon with their mission progressing smoothly.

The crew of Apollo 13 were not so lucky when, on 14th April 1970, an explosion occurred in their Service Module 55 hours and 55 minutes into their journey to the Moon. Orbital mechanics prevented them just turning around and coming home and they had to use their Lunar Module as a lifeboat to fly around the Moon and back again to the Earth before returning to their damaged CSM and a nervous re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere.

Look and Learn artist Wilf Hardy catches the moment of the explosion on the front cover of the magazine's issue 450, dated 29 August 1970. The Apollo 13 crew did return home safely and intricacies of their mission is now well known due to the Apollo 13 film.

Yesterday - The Command and Service Module
Tomorrow - The Eagle Has Landed

• Look and Learn Official Web Site: www.lookandlearn.com

• Coinciding with Jeremy's countdown to the 40th Anniversary of the first Moon Landing, downthetubes is publishing "Moon Landing 40th Anniversary: A Comics Celebration" - a gallery of illusrtrations and comic art inspired by space exploration.
Contributions are very welcome: if you don't want to join our forum and upload art but would like to join in with the celebrations, simply send your work to johnfreeman6-moonlandinganniversaryart@yahoo.co.uk. Please ensure images are no larger than 2MB in size and include a brief bio and web link so we can give you deserved credit.

Moon Landing: T Minus 2 Days - The Spacecraft

Forty years ago today, Apollo 11 and its crew were at the half way stage in their journey from Earth orbit to lunar orbit in their Command Service Module, Columbia. The CSM consisted of two sections, the manned conical Command Module at the front and the unmanned Service Module which housed the engine and the equipment required for the voyage. The Command Module was attached to the Lunar module at its pointed end.



This illustration comes from the weekly Countdown comic which, as its title might suggest, was heavily influenced by the space race and advertised itself as “The Space Age Comic!”

Published in Countdown issue 31 dated 18 September 1971, the illustration originally comes from Kenneth Gatland's book Manned Spacecraft, one of a set of four books published by Blandford Press beginning in 1967 under the series title of The Pocket Encyclopedia Of Spaceflight In Colour.

Yesterday - Mission Overview
Tomorrow – What Could Go Wrong

• Coinciding with Jeremy's countdown to the 40th Anniversary of the first Moon Landing, downthetubes is publishing "Moon Landing 40th Anniversary: A Comics Celebration" - a gallery of illustrations and comic art inspired by space exploration.
Contributions are very welcome: if you don't want to join our forum and upload art but would like to join in with the celebrations, simply send your work to johnfreeman6-moonlandinganniversaryart@yahoo.co.uk. Please ensure images are no larger than 2MB in size and include a brief bio and web link so we can give you deserved credit.

Nick Abadzis: Apollo Remembered

Here's a fab image from Nick Abadzis he's sent us for our Moon Landing Comics Celebration album.

Nick should need no introduction here: his comics and contributions to British comics are legendary, with strips featured in The Times and elsewhere.

"I did this portrait of the Apollo 11 crew for a strip that ran in a DK book," he says, "but then later tweaked it just for my own satisfaction."

Nick is of course no stranger to using space travel as a story theme. His superb graphic novel, Laika, a wonderful story inspired by the first dog in space, was released in 2007, and is highly recommended...

He's also written two Torchwood strips for Titan's official magazine, coming out next month and the month after, drawn by the excellent Paul Grist.

"Everything else I'm doing is long-term stuff," he reveals, "the follow-up to Laika for First Second, etc..." Whatever he's doing it will be worth the wait and we're delighted he found time to join in with our Moon Landing comics project.

• View Moon Landing 40th Anniversary: A Comics Celebration" - a gallery of illustrations and comic art inspired by space exploration.
Contributions are still very welcome: latest additions include an illustration by Chris Wood, who runs the British Horror Films website, and a humour strip by Paul Eldridge.

If you don't want to join our forum and upload art but would like to join in with the celebrations, simply send your work to johnfreeman6-moonlandinganniversaryart@yahoo.co.uk. Please ensure images are no larger than 2MB in size and include a brief bio and web link so we can give you deserved credit. Thanks!

Moon Landing: T Minus 3 Days - Mission Overview

Forty years ago today, Apollo 11 and its crew were on the first day of their journey from Earth orbit to lunar orbit. As much as science fiction stories suggest that space travel is fast, in reality the distances involved are so enormous that it does take time - it would take three days to cross the quarter of a million miles to the Moon.



This gives us time to look at the mission in more detail. This illustration is the centrespread of Rockets and Spacecraft Book 1, one of a number of small but heavily illustrated children's books that Collins published in the 1960s under their Orbit Books imprint. While undated, the book was produced early in the Apollo program, indicated by it referring to the lander as the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM). This was changed by NASA in May 1966 to the shorter Lunar Module (LM) although its pronunciation remained as "lem".

Yesterday - Launch
Tomorrow – The Spacecraft

• Coinciding with Jeremy's countdown to the 40th Anniversary of the first Moon Landing, downthetubes is publishing "Moon Landing 40th Anniversary: A Comics Celebration" - a gallery of illustrations and comic art inspired by space exploration.
Contributions are very welcome: if you don't want to join our forum and upload art but would like to join in with the celebrations, simply send your work to johnfreeman6-moonlandinganniversaryart@yahoo.co.uk. Please ensure images are no larger than 2MB in size and include a brief bio and web link so we can give you deserved credit.

The Doctor Lands on the Moon for the BBC

London Underground Comics organiser Oli Smith has penned a new Doctor Who short story for the BBC Doctor Who web site to help celebrate the 40th anniversary of man first stepping foot on the Moon.

Blue Moon, which begins today on the official site, is a completely new adventure that puts the Doctor slap bang in the middle of the first Apollo Moon landing. It's set during the tumultuous days of 16th, 17th and 20th July, 1969 and the next three parts will run on those dates, with the first part published today, Wednesday, 15th July.

There's everything you could want from a story set during such a crucial moment in Earth's history - mysterious aliens, sinister US agents, a threat to the future of mankind and, err, BBC Radio 4's The Archers.

"I’ve tried to make this story as ‘real time’ as possible," says Oli of the story on on his web site. "The events in the story correspond to the day that each part is put up. I’m really proud of it." In fact, he enjoyed it so much he's done a bit of fan art for the story (above) which he hopes will whet your appetite.

"I didn't want the Doctor to take anything away from the achievements of the Apollo mission," he says of the story on the BBC site, "but rather to prevent outside influences, both extra terrestrial and closer to home, from manipulating events for their own ends."

This is Oli's second short story for Doctor Who, his first being “Total Eclipse of the Heart” for the Doctor Who Storybook 2010 (Annual), out on 1st August, illustrated by the brilliant Martin Geraghty.

"Surprisingly," says Oli, "both stories are pretty hard sci fi (well, for Doctor Who anyway) but both have been a complete blast to write so long may my adventuring with the Doctor continue."

Alongside Blue Moon the BBC is also a publishing material looking at representations of the Moon in Doctor Who. There's a new Lunar Gallery showing some striking imagery from several moon-related stories.

Some of those adventures are briefly revisited in a series of Video Clips and they also present The Dark Side of the Moon, a precise history of how the silvery satellite has been depicted in Doctor Who.

Moon Landing: T Minus 4 Days - Launch

Forty years ago today, Apollo 11 and its crew of three blasted of from Pad 39A at Cape Canaveral. The Saturn V moon rocket remains the largest booster rocket yet flown. While the little known Russian N-1 moon rocket exploded on each of its four launches, the Saturn V flew successfully on each of its 13 launches, from its first test launch with the unmanned Apollo 4 capsule in 1967 to its final curtain call in 1973 putting NASA's Skylab space station into Earth orbit.


This illustration is a very familiar one to plastic modelers - Airfix's 1/144th scale Apollo Saturn kit. Regular Airfix artist Roy Cross portrays the immense power of the rocket's first stage as it climbs away from the pad with NASA's 525 foot tall Vehicle Assembly Building, in which it was built, dwindling into the distance. There are many more Airfix box illustrations in the Roy Cross’ own book, The Vintage Years Of Airfix Box Art.

Back in 1969, the first and second stages of the Saturn V separated as scheduled and the third stage placed the Apollo Command Service Module (CSM), with the astronauts on board, and the Lunar Module (LM) into a lunar transfer orbit. The crew detached the CSM from the rest and turned it through 180 degrees to dock with the LM before pulling the LM clear of the Saturn V's third stage. They then lit the CSM's engine and began their three day voyage to the Moon.


Yesterday - Predicting The Date
Tomorrow - Mission Overview

• Coinciding with Jeremy's countdown to the 40th Anniversary of the first Moon Landing, downthetubes is publishing "Moon Landing 40th Anniversary: A Comics Celebration" - a gallery of illustrations and comic art inspired by space exploration.
Contributions are very welcome: if you don't want to join our forum and upload art but would like to join in with the celebrations, simply send your work to johnfreeman6-moonlandinganniversaryart@yahoo.co.uk. Please ensure images are no larger than 2MB in size and include a brief bio and web link so we can give you deserved credit.

Moon Landing: T Minus 5 Days - Predicting The Date

40 years ago today, the three astronauts making up the crew of Apollo 11, Command Module Pilot Mike Collins, Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin and Mission Commander Neil Armstrong were preparing for their launch on a Saturn V rocket from Pad 39A at Cape Canaveral in Florida. They were going where only nine men had been before, lunar orbit. However, they were scheduled to go one step further than all the previous Apollo crews - they were going to land.

During the next week and a half downthetubes will be taking you through the entire Apollo 11 mission as it was presented to children in comics, magazines, storybooks and through toys, from launch on 16th July to splashdown on the 24th July.

Today, as a taster, we present two predictions for the actual landing date. One from the Daily Express' Jeff Hawke strip and an eerily accurate prediction from Dennis The Menace in The Beano.

Jeff Hawke © Express Newspapers plc
The Jeff Hawke panels come from the 1959 story Time Out Of Mind, set on the moon, and both written and illustrated by Sydney Jordan a year and a half before the Soviet Union put Yuri Gagarin into orbit. This story was reprinted in the Jeff Hawke’s Cosmos album Lunar 10, in which Jordan reveals, “my stab at the date for the first real landing was informed by the growing body of data coming out of the American and Russian programmes that would eventually put Man into space.”

Dennis the Menace © DC Thomson
The Dennis The Menace panel would appear to come from an early appearance in The Beano, before Dennis got his familiar red and black striped jumper and is remarkably accurate in its date. However, as if to prove that it is not just American superheroes that can be ret-conned, in 2000 for publicity purposes DC Thomson produced a one page strip that told the story of how Dennis got his now familiar jumper and included this "prediction". The full Dennis story can be read on page 289 of Morris Heggie's excellent book The History Of The Beano.


Tomorrow - Launch

• Coinciding with Jeremy's countdown to the 40th Anniversary of the first Moon Landing, downthetubes is publishing "Moon Landing 40th Anniversary: A Comics Celebration" - a gallery of illustrations and comic art inspired by space exploration.
Contributions are very welcome: if you don't want to join our forum and upload art but would like to join in with the celebrations, simply send your work to johnfreeman6-moonlandinganniversaryart@yahoo.co.uk. Please ensure images are no larger than 2MB in size and include a brief bio and web link so we can give you deserved credit.

Tube Surfing, 11 July 2009: Starblazer Sculptures, Moon Landings and an Oxfam ComicFest

• Dundee-based artist Trevor Gordon has been in touch, to let you us of a collaborative art project going ahead in Dundee at the Mills Observatory. "I am working with archival material from DC Thomsons and creating sculptural pieces influenced by the work," he reveals. "There will a number of original Starblazer works on display and a number of strange sculptural pieces in a range of mediums.
"[DC Thomson staffer and former Starblazer editor] Bill McLoughlin has been extremely friendly and supportive throughout the process and it has been a joy to get my hands on these cherished images," Trevor reveals, " and [artist] Enrique Alcatena has also been a delight and there will be a wee note on his thoughts on Starblazer also." More details as soon as we get them: meanwhle, check out Trevor's work at www.trevoragordon.com

• Jeremy Briggs has completed a series of Moon Landing Anniversary posts for downthetubes, which will be published daily starting on Wednesday (15th July). The posts feature art and comics work published during or after the first Moon Landing. Meanwhile, our Comics Celebration of the 40th Anniversary gathers pace, with our album of art now featuring work by Adam Grose, Martin Baines, Ian Duerden and others. The album can be embedded on any web site to help celebrate this major endeavour of human exploration. Further art - illustration, strip, cartoons is welcome: If you don't want to join our forum and upload art but would like to join in with the celebrations, simply send your work to johnfreeman6-moonlandinganniversaryart@yahoo.co.uk. Please ensure images are no larger than 2MB in size.

• Talking of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, we spotted a reprint of the Daily Mirror for 21 July or thereabouts in WH Smiths today, complete with DVD of footage of the Apollo landing: it will be interesting to see what Garth was up to (and The Perishers!) on that momentous day in 1969...

• The British Film Institute's "One Giant Leap" season in London continues this coming week with screenings of the films 2001: A Space Odyssey, Countdown and Moonwalk One, the premiere of newly remastered Director's Cut in high definition of Theo Kamecke's film, commissioned by NASA to cover their historic Apollo 11 moonshot. With an atmospheric original score by Charles Morrow and a moody narration by Laurence Luckinbill, Kamecke's documentary has been described as perhaps the most significant time-capsule record of Apollo 11 ever made.

• Our thanks to comic creator Emma Vieceli, who kindly gave downthtubes a positive plug on her blog (despite Jeremy Briggs saying that she looked like a Manga character...) - view her comments here. Emma was recently interviewed for BBC Blast, revealing How To Get Creative!

• Graeme Neil Reid has announced he will be joining a huge number of comic creators at the Thought Bubble in Leeds at the end of November, so if you are thinking of going to any comic cons this year that would be one to consider.

• Talking of events, Insomnia Publications will be part of the line up at the Oxfam Comics Fest on 18th July at Macdonald Road, Edinburgh from 12 noon to 3.00pm. We've given this a plug recently, but Oxfam has been in touch with an update, reporting there will be discussion panels on Comics In Scotland and The Ups And Downs Of Small Press Publishing, featuring writers Ferg Handley (Marvel Heroes, Commando) and David Bishop (2000AD, Doctor Who) and other guests.
"We'll be holding a silent auction of some great comic book related merchandise, including a piece of original artwork from Spectacular Spider-Man," reveals organiser James McConnell, "signed by the artist, presented with a page of the script, signed by the writer, and other excellent items.
"There will also be an exclusive sneak peek at some never before seen pages from the upcoming Burke & Hare graphic novel from Insomnia Publications, and a stall selling comics and graphic novels."
•Tickets are £3.00 at all Oxfam Bookshops in Edinburgh, on sale now!

Apollo 11: Behind the Scenes?

Contributions to our 40th Anniversary of the Moon Landing Comics Celebration album on the downthetubes forum are coming in daily, with this latest gem from comics, storyboard artist and illustrator Martin Baines, a tongue-in-cheek tip of the hat to the film Capricorn One, which capitalised on deeply ingrained claims that the moon landings never happened by positing a faked landing on Mars, all shot in a remote film studio.

Martin's credits include work for Match of the Day Magazine, Spaceship Away and many other magazines: he's represented by Smudged Pencil.

Here at downthetubes we're unconvinced by sceptics - given voice recently by character Tyrone Dobbs in Coronation Street, of all places - that the moon landings never happened, but Martin's art gave us a laugh.

Other contributors so far include Bugpowder contributor Dan Fish with a strip called "The Moon's A Balloon", the Etherington Brothers, Mike Nicoll, Malcolm Kirk, Doctor Who illustrator Colin Howard, games artist Gary Hall and Bob Bello.

More contributions from comics artists and illustrators to help mark this major anniversary for space exploration are very welcome: we see it as an opportunity to present a portfolio of themed work based on space and space exploration (real or imagined) that should generate press interest given the upcoming anniversary.

The album can be “embedded” on any web site. If there’s a strong response to this, we may also do a MyEbook version.

Text pieces are also welcomed: we're not quite sure how to present those yet, perhaps in another part of the downthetubes forum. We don’t want writers to be left out.

If you don't want to join our forum and upload art but would like to join in with the celebrations, simply send your work to johnfreeman6-moonlandinganniversaryart@yahoo.co.uk. Please ensure images are no larger than 2MB in size.

• Visit the downthetubes forum at: http://downthetubes.ning.com

Ex Astris Artist Celebrates Moon Landings

Mike Nicoll, the creator of CGI comic Ex Astris featured in Spaceship Away, has sent us this fab piece of art to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first human moon landing, which forms part of a gallery of art marking the event over on thedownthetubes forum.

Several artists have contributed images so far for our celebration, including Doctor Who illustrator Colin Howard, Space Age Magazine editor Bob Bello and the Etherington Brothers.

More contributions are welcome. More details on how to contribute here

Blink Twice Battle to Save Mankind!

All right, all right -- we admit we did a bit of a double take when we got this piece of hyperbole in our mailbox -- surely even for those plucky Etherington Brothers, the creators of Monkey Nuts, Moon and other comic gems (such as this cover, right, by Lorenzo for Titan's Transformers #16, last year), this was a slightly over ambitious title for an announcement - but then, you've got to have goals in life!

As it turns out, the boys were just keen to let us know that they're involved in Titan Magazines ongoing bumper monthly Terminator Salvation Comic, inspired by the film starring Christian Bale.

Robin has been charged with unearthing a series of data files from the Skynet archives covering all manner of scientific and military wonders, from Time Travel to Nuclear war and beyond. The first article appears in Issue 2, which is on sale now. Click here to order a subscription to this superb comic, or visit your nearest Newsagent!

Oh, and keep an eye on the studioblinktwice blog as Lorenzo will be posting a very special piece of Terminator artwork soon!

In addition to their work for Titan, the Etheringtons are also teasing their many fans with hints of some new projects. "Contractually we aren't allowed to share any specifics at the moment," they tease. "All we can say is that there are two major Etherington publications confirmed for release, with a third under review and looking incredibly positive.

"Until we are given the go ahead to post real details with you all, this teaser will have to suffice. But trust us - we're working on some wonderful projects and the wait for an official announcement is not far off."

Meanwhile, you could head over to our new "Moon Landing Anniversary" album on the downthtetubes forum, where the boys were one of the first creators to give us something for our Apollo celebrations!

• For all the latest from Bob and the Blink Twice Boys, visit www.studioblinktwice.com