Ask most lads who grew up in the 1960s what they were interested in and "space" would be in the top few answers for many, or at least the imaginative ones anyway. The space race between America and the USSR was regularly in the news and manufacturers of toys, comics, and TV shows were eager to latch onto the huge interest in space exploration.
Even Zoom ice lolly was rocket shaped, and in 1963 it gave away a free space picture card tucked in the sleeve of every lolly. Add an endorsement by Steve Zodiac of Fireball XL5 and who could resist?
This advert is from Boys' World No.22, dated 22nd June 1963. I was only four then, and ice lollies gave me stomach ache so I never had those cards. (I was always ok with ice cream. It was ice lollies that disagreed with me.) I thought I'd show the ad here today though to stir the memories of those of you who did collect them and its album. Anyone remember it?
I don't often review small press comics here. Not that I have anything against them. Quite the opposite, as I started out in self-publishing myself many years ago and applaud the efforts of anyone who tries to forge their own path in the business. It's mostly because I don't have time to review every title that people ask me to review. Also, the main focus of this blog is on old British comics and mainstream news. There are other sites that do an excellent job covering the indie scene (such as Forbidden Planet International blog) so I prefer to focus on classic UK comics which aren't covered as widely.
However, every now and then I'll contradict myself and review a small press comic anyway. What a maverick eh? :) Man From Space is a title I promised to review months ago and have only just gotten around to it, so first up, my apologies to its creator Marc Jackson for the delay.
A 32 page full colour humour comic featuring 'The intergalactic adventures of an outer-space a**hole and his sidekick Michael the fish', Man From Space is completely drawn in Illustrator using basic forms. This means that there's a lot of repetitiveness to the figures but at the same time that's part of its charm. Like The Ricky Gervais Show, it's the dialogue that drives the humour, and the minimalist cartoon style accentuates that. My only criticism is that perhaps the Man from Space needed eyebrows to convey some subtle emotion, as using the same face throughout the story made him appear to under react in some panels.
Actually, the art style is deceptively basic, because Marc's sequential art skills are quite sophisticated. The story moves well, the use of close ups, medium, and long shots is spot on, and there's no confusion as to what's transpiring. In lesser hands this technique could have gone horribly wrong but Marc clearly knows what he's doing and it works well. The story is daft and amusing, with a dash of mystery. What's not to like?
I understand issue 2 will be out soon so grab yourself a copy of the first issue now.http://issuu.com/itsmanfromspace/docs/man_from_space_one.
