moon with a view.

Superman prepares Supergirl for a little get away from it all 'one on one' time in Superman/Supergirl- Maelstrom no.1. I like to look at isolated comic book panels, giving each one time on it's own. I have friend that I hardly ever see anymore who now paints birds for a living. The warning signs were already there in his teens, whenever he came round to my house he would take field guides and art books from the shelves and spend hours just staring at each individual plate, eating up and devouring every last feather on the page. It was one of those things that I got from hours spent in the field birdwatching, the joy of exercising the eye, to really notice things, each slightest movement and detail mapped by the habit of constantly scanning. Even now I can't help checking rooftops, bushes, trees, fence posts and telephone wires for birds. This panel got me wondering how superhero capes would react to the lack of gravity in space? The artist here, Phil Noto, has cunningly framed the Earth with the curl of Supergirl's cape, maybe signaling to her regret for mistakes made and her need to care for the Earth's inhabitants?



Something I haven't done for a while is to set up my telescope for a spot of moon watching. The next full moon is on the 13th of November, so if the skies are clear and the light from an infinite number of galaxies wraps around the staggered chimney pots of countless silver rooftops, I will decamp to the back garden and scan its bright benevolent features for signs of life!


My favourite Tin Tin adventure, and rocket!



Panel to panel from The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite no.1, by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba. Incidentally there is a new series of The Umbrella Academy due to hit the comic book shelves very soon.

The tale of the fox that fell in love with a young monk. A lovely story from Neil Gaiman in the Sandman series called 'The Dream Hunters'. This is from issue no.1 which came out last week. The art is by P. Craig Russell.


To finish off this little post on moon related bits and bobs, try out this track by Mike Oldfield,
'Moonlight Shadow' was released as a single in 1983, from the album 'Crises', which I bought at the time. It has a green moon at the centre of the vinyl and I remember playing this track over and over, aaah, such soft innocent times!