Comic Cuts - 25 September 2020

After a break last week to write a book introduction, I'm back to writing for BAM! — the new magazine I'm putting together. I've had a pretty good couple of days working on an article that I've been looking forward to writing. At the tail-end of August I spoke to John Burns, one of my favourite artists, and I'm now piecing together a look at his very extensive — sixty-six year! — career in both comics and newspapers.

I've been waiting for this opportunity for over a decade. When I was still finding my feet with Bear Alley Books, one of the ideas was to do a magazine, with a big interview or career overview as its centrepiece. Had that idea taken off at the time, Burns was one of the big names I wanted to chase down. For such an amazing artist, there have been very few interviews; I can think of only half a dozen. I published one in Comic World. Back then it took me 14 issues to get John in — timed to coincide with the release of A Silent Armageddon — but I'm making up for that by putting him centre stage in the first issue this time.

There's a feature on the history of pocket libraries, one on Frank Bellamy and some early artwork by Dave Gibbons, plus a look at an old SF newspaper strip. I have been playing around with some layouts, which I'm now happy with. I don't like over-complicated layouts where you can barely read the text, but I like an occasional flourish, as anyone who has read any of the books from Bear Alley will know as I'm not only head cook and bottle washer, but I've designed all our books, too. (That sounded a bit more smug than I intended... sorry.)

More news on the contents and when BAM! will make its appearance when I know more myself.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I'd started watching The Plot Against America, an alternate history of the USA based on the novel by Philip Roth in which Charles Lindbergh won the 1940 election on a platform of keeping America out of the war in Europe. He signs a neutrality agreement with Hitler and brings in his own right wing agenda which has terrible consequences for the Jewish families the show centres upon.

The show received some fine reviews and the first two episodes were compelling drama. However, I wasn't in the right mood for it — I've read the book and things weren't going to get any more cheerful — and instead I switched to something with a bit less on the nose fascism and a bit more action, hence Condor and Snowpiercer. I'll get back to The Plot Against America after November.

(Spoilers below the pic, so skip to the end if you don't like that kind of thing.)

However, the urge for an alternate history led me to For All Mankind, which imagines what might have happened if the Russians had won the space race. Tensions at NASA run high when Alexei Leonov becomes the first cosmonaut to set foot on the Moon (in reality, he was to have been the commander of a planned Russian moon landing that was cancelled). The Apollo 11 landing is close to being a disaster and, back on Earth, astronaut Ed Baldwin raises hackles when he tells a reporter that he could have landed Apollo 10 rather than just fly over the surface. As a result, Baldwin is reassigned to a desk job.

Baldwin's comments are seen by some to prove that mission director Werner von Braun is too cautious and a way is found to remove him, a step in the direction of President Nixon's plans to build a military base on the Moon. Meanwhile, the Soviets trump the US again when they land a female cosmonaut on the surface and NASA are ordered to find a female astronaut, throwing planned missions into disarray.

I really enjoyed it. It has taken me almost a year to get around to watching it (it debuted on Apple TV in November 2019) but I'm glad I got there in the end. 2019 was a celebratory year, with the anniversary of the Moon landings all over TV in high definition. One thing that came out of those various shows (and, indeed, the movie Apollo 13 fifteen years ago) is that knowing the outcome doesn't mean that they weren't filled with drama and tension. We learned more about the astronauts, their families, the people behind the flight crew and the people who populated mission control. They all had a story to tell and hearing them, and seeing their reactions to events as they unfolded, gave us all a stake in the game.

For All Mankind also relies on this soap-operatic style of storytelling. The show has a small group of fictional characters who are blended into known history and real historical figures. So while Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman) is an invention of executive producers Ronald D. Moore (of revamped Battlestar Galactica fame), Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi, we also meet real astronauts like Neil Amstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, who take Apollo 11 to the Moon. We also meet Ed's family (wife and son) and the families of his fellow astronauts; we follow them as the various crews train and fly missions, react to each Soviet advance/threat (depending on how you see it), and each American failure, most notably the destruction of Apollo 23, which traps three astronauts in Jamestown Base at the edge of a crater with a Soviet base only a few miles away.

While some of the more soap opera aspects of the show puncture the tension a little, there is enough to propel you right to the end and beyond... because the trailer for season two has dropped and I'll hopefully get to see it in a more timely fashion. The trailer hints that the cooperation seen between astronauts and cosmonauts at the end of season one will break down and the US, now under Reagan, and Soviets could be turning the lunar surface into a battleground. Yikes.