Next stop on my impromptu space week is a brilliant little graphic novel called Ministry Of Space. Written by Warren Ellis, drawn by Chris Weston, coloured by Laura Martin and lettered by Michael Heisler, this 2005 creation gives us an alternate history. Imagine a world where at the end of WW2 Britain nabbed those all-important German rocket scientists and alone dominated flight and ultimately space travel. Britain landed on the moon first, Britain colonised mars and built fabulous space stations.
Without spoiling things I’m a bit limited in what I can tell you, but Ellis has created a thoughtful, intriguing and highly feasible future here, which has been sumptuously realised through Weston’s peerless artwork – Ministry Of Space first caught my eye through his work on (now defunct) Brit hard rockers Tokyo Dragons Give Me The Fear, also from 2005 which I was forced to buy on evil silver disc.
This is a sly little graphic novel though, what Ellis shows us is a dominant Britain, a Great Britain with all its idealised pastoral views and strengths, but he shows us at what cost this was won too, the ways in which a powerful, unchallenged Britain might not have developed. But I digress, you’ve come for the eye candy:
I simply can’t recommend this little beauty enough to y’all.
573 Down (still)
Just got this on your recommendation. Wow. As others have said, Warren Ellis at his best. And the spacecraft really evoke the early 1950s / 60s jet age when the big aviation firms built dozens of increasingly costly prototype planes in response to government design briefs, that more often than not never made it to production and wasted huge amounts of money. Some real in-depth research has been done for this beauty! And sly is a great way to describe the plot. Just when you think you’ve had the big reveal about the immorality of it all, the true cost to society is subtly shown in the very last panel. Genius. Thanks for this. Now if only I could find an affordable copy of “The Fade-Out”…
Hi Tim, so glad you enjoyed – I hadn’t realised you were into big boy comics too. This seems to be a very unheralded little gem, I love the way it shows the assumptions and cruelties untrammelled British power would have been built on, whilst simultaneously giving us all the eye candy.
Big boy comics indeed and other top shelf publications… ahem. Read a lot of graphic novels / comics at uni and when I lived in Birmingham in the late ’90s / early 2000s the central library had an insanely good GN section.
But as with music am now hopelessly out of touch so your back pages are providing lots of suggestions (including “The Fade-Out”, had never come across it before). I think you’ve covered Chris Foss here before – some of the space station panels in Ministry… remind me of his stuff. But you’re right, the guts of this story are in that vision of concentrated, unchecked and relentless power-seeking. Totally agree it deserves a lot wider exposure!
I really looooove Warren Ellis! Love love love! And this one looks gorgeous. YES!!!
It’s ace! Trust me I’m a doctor!*
*in a very amateur, have-a-go way,
1:54 – 2:200
Sorry, 1:54 – 2:00
The art here is pretty terrific – a very familiar looking style, even if it’s not something I’ve ever seen before.
Very cool, the animation reminds me a lot of the film Heavy Metal.
The illustration and coloring is reason enough to own this. Simply beautiful.
It’s just a brilliant little thing.
Fabulous artwork.
LOVE LOVE LOVE post WW II alt history! I must have this.
Excellent, you’d love this then. One of my absolute favourites, this.
I think I would too. The art is really cool. I hope you don’t have to be British to enjoy 😉
No, but you’d have to read it in an English accent.