Mooncop - Tom Gauld

[fumi]

New graphic novel. September 20th.

 

 

 

 

"Living on the moon. Whatever were we thinking? It seems rather silly now".

 

 

"Despite the jokes—and it is a very funny book—Mooncop has a particular melancholy to it, reflecting its creator’s feeling about the way scientific exploration has fallen out of favor with the general public. “When I look back at the years of the Space Race it feels as though there was such an optimistic wonder about space, the moon, and generally about how technology would improve everyone’s life,” Gauld explains. “Amazing things are still happening in science, but I feel there isn’t the same unreserved positivity about it.”

 

Just because there’s a sadness to the book, don’t mistake that for a lack of hope. “I think many speculations on our future can be a bit too binary: Either the world will be a wonderful utopia or a horrific dystopia,” Gauld says. “I think it’s more likely to be in between, with some things getting better and some worse. That’s not so dramatic, but I actually think it’s more interesting. So, maybe in the story the moon colony is winding down but somebody’s working on a teleport link or a time machine.”

 

Gauld likens the state of his moon colony to the so-called “new towns” of his native Scotland. “The architects and planners had the best of motives and were striving to make something new and better, but, in general, these places haven’t aged well, with many being knocked down or left in disrepair,” he explains. “I wanted my moon colony to feel a bit like this: a brilliant idea which just hadn’t worked out.”