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[MarkWarner]

This week's reading book choice shouted out "READ ME ... READ ME" as soon as I laid eyes on it.

Being born a couple of months before Yuri Gagarin went into space, I was 8 when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. I loved space as a kid and still do, exactly the same ... just like a kid!

Personally my thoughts are it a huge shame, and massive mistake that more effort (money and resources) has not been put into manned spaceflight. The benefits (such as inspiring) are priceless!

Anyway I'll just hop off this soapbox and do the boring admin stuff.

The book can be found here: https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=65535. As it is only 16 pages, this is a cover to cover job ... and if it is even half way good I'll probably read it about 5 times!

[bdw]

I love these books in general, but this particular one is high up the list. I like the perspective of when it was written, after the 1st satellites, but before manned spaceflight.

The art is solid too.

This would be a solid thumbs up, even if it wasn't my scan.

[Captain Audio]

These are really cool !

I was a small youngster when this was printed but my eldest brother keep a whole chest full of his comics so I had comics from pre WW2 onwards to read. I'm sure I read this one.
He was a member of the old time Civil Air Patrol and was interested in all things pertaining to aviation. He also introduced me to Edgar Rice Burroughs novels and Sci Fi in general. Oddly though he never believed men had ever actually walked on the moon.

PS
Years ago I found a very nice site with illustrations from very old children's sci fi books.
I'll try to find it again and post a link.

[Morgus]

Any idea WHO did the art and the writing? A great read and they combined the information with story and illustration masterfully. Kind of sad in a way, for two reasons. One: it reminds me of when we had expectations as a society. Two: something that Arthur C Clarke once said:"if we had just skipped Viet Nam, we would be on Mars now."
but the comic was great. For a couple of seconds it was like reading the stuff from the Apollo and pre-Apollo days.

[bdw]

George Roussos did the art on most of this series, per CBpop over at DCM

I would hazard a guess that a wide assortment of people at GE did the writing/scripting.

remember one of the goals of this type of book was to "sell" GE

[EHowie60]

A great snapshot of the early space race. Some highly educated animals worked on the space program? Does he mean the test animals sent up? Great art, and though it was promotional it didn't hit the reader over the head with constant GE references.

Actually on re-reading it does lay the GE stuff on a bit thick. Interesting though, how space technology and military technology were so closely linked and discussed as one.

[SuperScrounge]

Interesting. Sadly that whole casual "people taking rockets to other planets" seems to be a whole lot further in the future than the writer thought it would be. (Guess GE didn't work hard enough on that.  )

I notice you don't have the link to the GCD for this one. it's http://www.comics.org/issue/393974/

[paw broon]

Very interesting and entertaining.  The company have to be congratulated on a decent piece of work with this comic.  I've always been fascinated by astronomy and man getting into space and had I read this when I was a lad, I'd have thoroughly enjoyed it.  I once did a short talk to the local astronomy club based on the astronomy pages that appeared in DC comics at one time and, although a lot of the information was out of date by that time, it still went down well.
Unfortunately, although we now have monorail systems, the idea of man getting to the planets is still a long way off - and spaceports even further away. 
Good art and much to enjoy.

[crashryan]

It's hard to read these GE comics without getting a sour taste in the mouth. As a kid I totally bought into the fantasy world they promised: the selflessness and altruism of research, the nobility of space exploration, the marvels of safe nuclear power that will make electricity too cheap to meter. In time it all proved to be hype for what came to be called the Military-Industrial Complex. You make a lot more money inventing new weapon systems than by exploring space.

But at the time I found these comics exciting and inspiring. Even back then I recognized that the artwork was very good. George Roussos definitely gave the ad agency their money's worth. It's the best stuff he ever did. Seeing what Roussos could do makes me even more unhappy with the perfunctory ink jobs he gave Kirby's early Marvel superhero stories.

Funny to see the emphasis given the Vanguard satellite. I remember the rivalry between the Army project, Explorer, and the Navy's Vanguard project. We were a Navy family so my brother and I scorned Explorer for using a "second-hand" launch vehicle while Vanguard's rocket was new from the ground up. Of course Vanguard blew up on the pad and Explorer became the first American satellite. According to Wikipedia Vanguard I is still up there. Amazing to think it was only 6 inches in diameter and weighed three pounds.

[Morgus]

Wow! Six inches and three pounds??? That is amazing...

Hey, has anybody ever done a book on the comics that corporations and others commissioned? I know Eisner has been covered, but hey, he's Eisner...I just wondered if anybody bothered to track all the comics that folks like GE or the Cancer Society or WHOEVER was the client commissioned and what it was like working at the agencies involved...It's a thought that just occurred to me now...

[crashryan]

That would be a great idea, Morgus. Such a book would be a heck of a big project. There seem to have been three or four larger shops producing sponsored comics: Pictorial Media, Inc. did the GE comics and Al Stenzel's shop did books like Steel Jack Sparling drew a ton of government and sponsored comics, which might mean that he worked through an agency--though of course he might simply have knocked on a lot of doors by himself. Then there were many projects which apparently were one-time commissions by various small organizations like Wisconsin's Forests and Sprocket Man. There's a book in there, all right.

[MarkWarner]

I was really surprised by this week's book. It was genuinely educational with a wealth of facts. The destructive power was underplayed to zero. I did however like the sentiments of "the most exciting and complicated of all -- the SPACE missile"

And I think most of the "know it all" space buffs (eg: me) were rather taken aback that the Vanguard 1 satellite  launched March 1958 is still orbiting ...

Verdict: I guessed that this would be a hit ... but it exceeded all expectations ... a bit like Vanguard 1

[bdw]

I'm really glad so many people have liked this book and the GE books in general.

There are more in the queue I just scanned 3 more and CBpop will be editing them soon.

There are also more coming from other sources, plus promotional books from other companies.

[narfstar]

OH no a dissenter. I started out enjoying this but soon got bored to death. I was a science major and I love science fiction. BUT space science is just of not interest to me. The art was good but the story just did not do it for me.