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Drift Marlo: The Space Race by Phile Evans & Tom Cooke, Collected

Drift Marlo: The Space Race newspaper strip by Phile Evans & Tom Cooke, collected by About Comics after 65 years

It was 1961. Both the Soviets and Americans had just launched the first astronauts into space when Drift Marlo, a new comic strip focused on the space race, landed in newspapers. Billed as the first authentic space comic, the series was not like Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon. It did not focus on galactic princesses or brutish Venusians, but instead was tied to the very real space exploration efforts that were in the works. Written and drawn by comic strip veterans Phile Evans and Tom Cooke, the series also relied on scientist and engineer I. M. Levitt to keep it tied to reality. This daily series is a snapshot of the time as well as a predictor of the future, but it has never been collected, until now. As About Comics has just released Drift Marlo: The Space Race Comic Strip.

Title character Drift Marlo handles security at an American base. A handsome man with a background so mysterious that even he doesn't know what it is, Marlo has to deal with those who wish ill on America's space efforts, whether it be spies, saboteurs, blackmailers, or just simple protestors. He has to protect not only the types of missions that were actia;;u already underway, like the launching of weather satellites, but those that were still a few years to come, such as multi-person-crewed spaceflight and the delivery of technology to the moon. All of this is driven both by the opportunities for exploration and by the need for America to take leadership in space activities.

Drift Marlo: The Space Race Comic Strip collects the first four storylines from the strip, with hundreds of well-drawn daily installments from 1961 and 1962. (The strip ended on New Year's Day, 1965, due to artist Tom Cooke having been in a car accident that left him unable to continue.) "This book probably wouldn't make sense for most publishers," says Nat Gertler, founder and sole honcho at About Comics. "Due to its short run, Drift Marlo is not widely remembered. But because gift shops at museums and historic sites are a significant part of the About Comics market, books of comics that tell the tale of their time have the chance to be successful."

Drift Marlo: The Space Race Comic Strip (ISBN: 978-1-949996-88-3) is a 124-page black-and-white 8.5"x6" paperback with a cover price of $15. It is available for immediate order from Amazon in the US. The minuscule About Comics has been publishing comics for over a quarter of a century courtesy of owner Nat Gertler, an Eisner Award-winning comics history writer, putting work back into print that had been unduly forgotten, missed out from the canon or in urgent need of archiving. From religious-themed cartoons to superhero comic The Factor, from Stephen Weiner's analysis of Jeff Smith's Bone, to a facsimile of The Green Book, his work as About Comics is always worthy of note…

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