Image courtesy Zander and Kevin Cannon (no relation).
After my review of Astronaut Dad, I felt a hunger for more comic books about the space race. Luckily, Jim Ottaviani, Zander Cannon, and Kevin Cannon came up with T-Minus just in time to sate that hunger. But while Astronaut Dad was a work of historical fiction, T-Minus is pure nonfiction, a genre that is sorely underrepresented in comics. The two most well-known and well-established nonfiction comics writers are Larry Gonick, whose Cartoon Guide series has covered everything from mathematics to sex, and Mr. Ottaviani himself, whose books tend to be a little more specialized, focusing on one scientist (as in his biography of Niels Bohr, Suspended in Language) or on a number of scientists (as in his book about the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, Fallout). This book falls squarely into the latter category, covering seemingly every major scientist with an interest in space in both America and Russia in the 1950s and ‘60s.
During the launch of Apollo 11. Image courtesy the Cannons.
The book chronicles the space race from its beginnings in the labs of NACA and the Baikonur Cosmodrome, through unsuccessful experiments and fatal accidents, all the while counting down (“T-minus four years, four months, two days”) to Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon. Candid moments in the lives of the scientists, designers, and of course the astronauts are depicted, as well as the large-scale spectacle of rockets launching--or, as was common in those early days, exploding on the pad. Ottaviani has a wonderful eye for detail--the page depicting Yuri Gagarin’s landing in a Russian field, excitedly greeting the peasant farmers fearful of the spaceman, is wonderful--as well as timing--he spends eight panels depicting a bored cosmonaut sitting in his capsule, waiting for the launch to finally start. He reminds us of the days when space travel was something grand and noble, not routine government overspending.
Similarly, the Cannons’ art style is just cartoony enough to make the work exciting--showing a capsule falling back to Earth, enveloped in flames, for example--while maintaining enough fine detail to show the enormous amount of research that went into the book. Pick pretty much any panel in the book; it’ll show some period detail (a cabinet television, a station wagon, a bulky spacesuit) that perfectly captures the era.
If the book has a flaw, it’s one that can’t be blamed on either the writer or the artists. Pretty much every major character in this history is a middle-aged white guy, and it can be difficult to tell them all apart. The Cannons are both skilled caricaturists, but there’s only so much they can do.
But that’s nitpicking. T-Minus is a fine and beautiful book, depicting a time when humanity reached past nationalistic squabbles, dangerous and untested technology, and the quarrels of men--reached past, and touched the stars.
Comments