Moon Landing Comics Celebration: Andrew Cheverton

This is Andrew Cheverton's contribution to the downthetubes "Moon Landing 40th Anniversary: A Comics Celebration" - a gallery of illustrations and comic art inspired by the Apollo expedition and space exploration which is being published on the downthetubes forum.

It sums up perfectly how I felt about the Moon Landing back in 1969 (yes, I know I'm showing my age!), so I have no hesitation in giving it wider exposure this morning.

Andrew creates small press comics under the Angry Candy name, ranging in genre from westerns to science fiction to horror and all those odd little spaces in between. Check out his work at angrycandy.co.uk

More contributions to our Moon Landing celebrations 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.

Comics International Specials Go On Sale

Two Comics International Specials are now on sale in comic shops -- but the regular magazine is still in limbo, the next announced as not due until August.

The Star Trek Special celebrates the recent released JJ Abrams’ Star Trek movie reboot, looking back over four decades of the comicbook adventures of the Starship Enterprise. Charting the course of Star Trek comics from the very first 1967 issue from Gold Key all the way to IDW’s latest titles and taking in alternate realities, multiverse crossovers and more, this latest CI one-shot takes you on a warp speed tour through some of the strangest new worlds and civilisations you’ll never see on TV.

Heavily illustrated and showcasing unpublished artwork and more, it features interviews with key Star Trek creators, including British contributors to the Trek mythos - Dan Abnett, Mike Collins and Ian Edginton - as well as creators such as writers Mike W Barr and Diane Duane along with artists Gordon Purcell, David Messina and Scott Tipton. Star Trek fans who aren't even that interested in comics may be persuaded to pick up the £4.99 Special by the inclusion of interviews with Walter Koenig, who played Chekov in the original Star Trek series and Voyager‘s Doctor, Robert Picardo.

The Magazine is well designed - although perhaps with even more pages, the creator interviews could have been given more space and additional visuals - but this is a mere nitpick. It also includes a feature on the British Star Trek material created for the 1960s title Joe 90: Top Secret and later issues of TV21, material that many US Star Trek fans are unaware of. Definitely one for Trek fans to check out.

Also out now is Comics International Horror Special, going behind the scenes on some of the goriest and scariest titles in recent months. Designed more like the 'regular' Comics International title, it includes interviews with Tim Bradstreet, Alan Grant and other writers and artists responsible for such fear-drenched comics as Stephen King’s The Stand, Age of Desire, Savage, The Dead, Golly and Zombie Cop.

Also featured are Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch (sadly, in what looks like a print error that also seems to have affected the alignment of pages, the interview with Si Spurrier is unexpectedly truncated, simply cut at the bottom of the page, mid-sentence, never to be returned to) Superman and Batman vs Vampires and Werewolves.

The 52-page issue costs just £2.50 ($4.99) and is again on sale in many comic shops.

While it's great to see these Specials on sale -- particularly the Star Trek title, which is an impressive piece of work in terms of interview material and breadth alone -- along with these Specials comes the perhaps grim news that the next regular issue of Comics International (#208) is now currently not set to appear until early August. The continued delay is not helping the magazine: even loyal readers who've been in touch with downthetubes are in despair over its missing-in-action status.

"I'm a bit miffed at CI's attitude to be honest to its customers," said one on the downthetubes forum. "I think it's really poor - and having 're-discovered' [Diamond trade catalogue] Previews, it has all I need really and can be counted on month after month to be on the shelves

"If Comics International gets back on track properly I may go back to it, or if #208 is a good relevant up to date issue I may pick it up."

While we're aware that there have been many behind the scenes problems that have sadly combined, through no fault of those directly involved in the magazine's production, to sabotage attempts to re-establish a monthly frequency, the future of Comics International still seems far from secure. Let's hope the naysayers fears are, however, unfounded...

• More about Comics International at: www.comics-international.co.uk

Mike Battle, Back in Action!

The latest issue of Graham Pearce's brilliant self-published comic, Sgt Mike Battle: The Greatest American Hero! has just been released - and it's another brilliant adventure. Anyone who can't wait for GI Joe to hit the cinema later this year should simply shell out and buy a copy of this terrific homage to all things action-adventure.

The latest issue (#13) is unlike any other, with Sgt. Mike Battle, Agent of Stars and Stripes have a fight in a sauna, see suave British Secret Agent Roger Knightly resigning from Crown and Sceptre and the lovely Shapely Charms getting fitted for her wedding dress!

Confused? Then that's your own fault for not picking up previous issues of Sgt Mike, what indie writer/artist Graham Pearce likes to call “the best kept secret in comics” -- and rightly so. Don't worry though, you'll soon get the hang of things. This issue is set, once again, in 1965 -- but sees a dramatic change as Sgt Mike Battle takes a step back and the focus turns to Roger Knightly who is starting to panic about his impending wedding to Shapely Charms.

“For various reasons Roger is starting to worry about the wedding” explains Pearce. “He is convinced that with all the English and American VIPs in attendance, the Soviets are going to attack the church and wipe them all out. Some people think that Roger is being paranoid, other’s think he doesn’t want to get married and is using it as an excuse to call it off.”

With some stunning looking art (click the image left or here to view sample of the opening page of the issue!), the issue definitely looks like one to look out for at upcoming British comics events - or simply buy it from the Sgt. Mike Battle official web site.

Pearce explains why the story is told from Roger Knightly’s perspective. “At the end of issue #12 we discovered something about Roger that shocked everyone. At some point in the past he started working with the Soviet Union and that decision has come back to haunt him. In issue #13 I needed to make it clear that he isn’t as bad as the revelation suggests, to show that maybe he isn’t as brave as we previously thought but also that he is actually torn between his secret agenda and his true feeling for Shapely Charms. The only way to effectively show his inner turmoil was to tell the story from his point of view.”

Originally the romance between Roger Knightly and Shapely Charms was meant to conclude in #13 but Pearce chose to extend it into #14.

“The story kept growing and I simply didn’t have enough space for everything. I couldn’t fit everything it all into a single issue so rather than cram it all into 24 pages I decided to spread it over 2 issues. The event of #13 now focus on the build up to the wedding and #14 is the wedding itself (and the inevitable overblown fight scene that may or may not ensue).

Graham Pearce is always subverting genre clichés in Sgt Mike Battle: The Greatest American Hero! and remains tight-lipped about the exact events of #14.

Of issue #13, Comics Bulletin says “Sgt. Mike Battle: The Greatest American Hero has definitely had a change of tone and focus with the introduction of Roger Knightly, but it remains a compelling and often very funny title, easily one of the best comics being put out by the self-publishing movement and utterly deserving of a far wider audience.”

• Sgt Mike Battle: The Greatest American Hero! #ISSUE 13, 36 PAGES, Colour cover, b/w interiors, £1.50, available now from www.sgtmikebattle.co.uk or by PayPal to grahampearce8@netscape.net