About Your Pal Eric
Location: Chicago IL
Occupation: amateur podcaster, professional aerialist
Bio: I come from Appalachian Hill People.
Posts: 67
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You know those moments where all of a sudden everything seems beautiful, great, and somehow connected? I’m having that kind of day.
Stevie recently got a post office box for the CBQ podcast so we’d have a central place to get comics and other material for review. We’ve gotten fantastic stuff, including a few issues of the turbo-gay and ultra-sweet So Super Duper, created by Pop Syndicate’s own Brian Anderson. We’ll be doing reviews in upcoming weeks, so please tune in.
Today, Stevie showed me something that came in the CBQ mailbox earlier this week, and it completely defies description, but I’ll do my best here.
The envelope appears to be a folded-over magazine page, with a comic strip affixed to the back. The comic strip is only four panels, and stars an outdoorsy 20-something who is apparently touring America in a 4-door sedan with a dog who talks to the audience in thought balloons. The art style is reminiscent of Tintin comics. The front of the envelope has a sticker that says “TIMELIKETOONS” over a picture of a multicultural cast of characters. Underneath the drawing, in tiny print, the sticker says, “Cartoons made for the 21st Century…Even before it was the 21st Century.”
And then comes the magic that made my day turn suddenly amazing and magical. Inside the envelope, there is a simple, unsigned note on Back to the Future II stationery that has only four words: “FOR REVIEW (IF POSSIBLE).” There’s also a tiny, hand-assembled zine entitled “The Out Orb Tribute to Carl Sagan,” by Yul Tolbert.
Here’s the introductory blurb that appears on the inside front cover:
“Since I’m a huge fan of the late astronomer Carl Sagan as well as a huge fan of the science fiction television series Space: 1999, I decided to create a tribute book that celebrates both. This tribute book also celebrates Esperanto—the international language that combines elements from dozens of other languages including English. And with Space: 1999’s Moonbase Alpha (or the Alphan Lunar Authority) being an international organization, I decided to have Esperanto be the official language of Alpha. That’s all I have to say, so read on, Earth Germs!”
The signature line is intriguingly cryptic: “Yul Tolbert, President, Founder, The Out of Earth Orbit Club.” I’m guessing this is a Space: 1999 fan club, given that Moonbase Alpha was hurled out of Earth orbit when the planet was destroyed (and this was retconned and given an explanation in the series, if memory serves).
Under the above passage is an Esperanto translation. In fact, all text in the zine is in both English and Esperanto.
The art is simple and vaguely Jetsons-like in its appearance. There is only one drawing per page, and they’re all lovely. The story involves Carl Sagan going to Moonbase Alpha to oversee the installation of antennas for the SETI program. For those of you who are unfamiliar with SETI, it’s an acronym for “Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence,” a chronically underfunded program that examines “noise” from space in the hopes of detecting evidence of intelligent alien life. Although I’m probably overexplaining things, because if you saw Contact with Jodie Foster, you know damn well what SETI is, you scamp. As a sidenote, let me say that I love Jodie Foster and think that movie was terribly underrated.
Meanwhile, back in the zine, Dr. Sagan takes a shuttle to the moon from Earth, and meets various members of the Moonbase: Alpha crew. He helps align the SETI antennas, and pitches in on a project called Ultra Probe, taking the occasional break to make calls to his wife whom the author makes a point of mentioning by name, first AND last. The story ends six months later with Carl taking a return shuttle back to Earth.
I found this mix of Carl Sagan, Esperanto, and Space: 1999 incredibly weird and equally endearing. I love geeks. I love them. I love that Yul Tolbert is so full of love for scientific curiosity, a (theoretically) world-uniting language, and an early-1970’s science fiction TV show, that he wants to share it. I love that there’s a link in the back of the zine to his website (http://timeliketoons.tripod.com/gyatm-blog/entry.htm) where he posts a fictional blog about a hypothtical, privately-funded trip to Mars.
The next time you’re in your local comic shop, or at a convention, or in a geeky Internet chat room, take time to really look around and notice the other people there. These are your brothers and sisters, my fellow geeks. The things that unite us in geekdom, like utopianism, intellectual curiosity, and super-heroism, these things are noble. Let’s get out there and find each other. Meanwhile, have a happy and safe holiday season. If I knew how to say that in Esperanto, I would. Yul, you’re the man.
