For decades in this country, space travel was seen as this uniting force for decency and good. (Or, at the very least, providing low-level optimism). Despite very real social issues, people could at least look up to the stars and hope for a better, more equitable future. Nowadays, with so many issues on terra firma, exploring our place in the universe doesn’t seem quie as significant. (It doesn’t help that a blockhead like Elon Musk has used colonizing Mars as some kind of alt-right dog whistle.)
Fortunately, there may be at least some hope on the horizon. Writer Kenny Porter (Superboy: Man of Tomorrow) and artist Mike Becker (Young Offenders!) have teamed up for a new series that should remind you why space truly is the final frontier in mankind’s ongoing journey. Today, AIPT is happy to help announce The New Space, coming later this year from Mad Cave Studios.
In The New Space Age, we follow astronaut Mark Mitchell, whose space-faring work only came about when his brother, Joey, was abducted years prior. With the traditional space program out of his reach, Mark creates his own ship with Bobby the engineer and an unlikely ally, a famous magician named Stacey. Together, the group discover “the greatest secret in the world — UFOs and UAPs don’t travel based on physics, they travel based on magic.” As Mark “wrestle(s) with mankind’s fate in the stars,” The New Space Age asks questions about the future of interstellar exploration and, perhaps most importantly, if humanity will “accept technology designed to explore, not destroy?”
Described as “Flight of the Navigator for a new era,” The New Space Age promises to tackle a vital question of our day while reminding us that our need to come together and explore can often defeat even our most base instincts. But before you get your hands on it (solicitations drop on September 19), both Porter and Becker were kind enough to answer some questions. That includes the story’s themes of grief and personal belief, their creative/collaborative process, standout moments from The New Space Age #1, America’s declining love affair with space, and how they’d fare as astronauts themselves.
AIPT: What was the specific genesis of this story?
Kenny Porter: I felt like we didn’t have enough hopeful science fiction out in the world. We’d lost that magic behind the idea of space travel and exploration. From there, I started thinking about how actual magic could factor into space travel, and how I could use that to explore themes around family that we can all identify with.
AIPT: Kenny, you’d mentioned how personal this story is to you and that you’ve sat with it for years. Is it hard to create something you’re so close to, and did sitting with this story change it somehow?
KP: I always try to put myself and personal experiences into my stories, whether it’s for established characters or my own. It’s definitely a challenge to put yourself out there and share those kinds of personal feelings, but it always makes me more excited about the story that I get to tell with the incredible artists, inkers, colorists, letterers, and editors I get to work with. The more we put ourselves into stories, the more we can share those unique moments in life and thoughts we all have.
I think sitting with it for a while really helped me understand what I wanted to say about the complicated feelings that I was having. So it’s definitely evolved from the original genesis of the idea!
Cover A. Courtesy of Mad Cave Studios.
AIPT: I feel like this story takes a slightly novel approach to exploring grief: That you need to believe in something wonderful/miraculous to keep on going. Am I close, and can you touch on those ideas a little more?
KP: That’s exactly it! Grief, trauma, and loss are always going to be in our lives. Finding the wonderful and the miraculous in life, and using that as inspiration to move forward, is something that really helped me through tough times in childhood and as a young adult. If this book can inspire others to look for that wonder, whatever it may be, then Mike and I will have done our job!
AIPT: I like the idea of melding “hard science” with more magic/metaphysical elements. Why is this kind of dynamic so interesting/compelling?
Mike Becker: I likewise really loved the fusion of magic and science we created in the story! Kenny’s idea is that crop circles are an alien language of magic sigils left as a code for humanity to unlock to guide them to the stars. It’s really elegant, clever, and perfectly bizarre. Magic spaceships??
The secret is that belief is the key. Total trust in the will that is represented symbolically as these crop-circle sigils. You have to believe something will happen so fully that it just does. That is how magic works! Sigils are just how that belief is represented visually and thus focused. So, they apply this logic to building their comic book dream-machines.
AIPT: The press for this book mentions the “last of the public space program (has been) defunded.” Is this book at all a response to dwindling interest in the space travel of yesterday and what that practice meant for huge chunks of American history/society?
KP: Absolutely. This is a near future where all of the wonder and funding have been taken out of it, and Mark, our main character, isn’t helping by being considered “crazy.” There was a time when we used to invest in people, ideas, and exploration, and now the internet and people are filled with so much hate. I wanted to give people a story that gave hope that you can always explore and learn more, even if the rest of the world isn’t interested.
AIPT: Do either of you have a favorite moment/panel/page from issue #1 – something that speaks to the true heart of this story?
KP: There are two moments for me! I’ll try not to spoil anything, but there’s a flashback to Mark’s childhood that I think captures a lot of what we’re going to explore throughout the series. Also, there’s a great scene with a cow that I think people are going to love.
MB: I have a few highlights from issue one! Hard not to say the floating cow. I really enjoy that whole sequence because it’s funny, a little spooky, and we get to see Mark Mitchell in action as this UFO investigator. It’s also where the character and the world really came to life for me. For the first 16 pages, I was still getting a handle on how to draw him, getting to know him. But from then on, I just knew him.
But my personal favorite page is the IC show! That was my “flex page” of the first issue. Trying to capture the theatricality and the illusion of danger in a big establishing shot was the challenge. I secretly really enjoy drawing crowd scenes because I love populating the world with random little “NPCs.” It’s an opportunity to do a little visual storytelling about their world and the not-so-distant future they live in.
Cover B. Courtesy of Mad Cave Studios.
AIPT: The book’s described as “Flight of the Navigator for a new era.” Do you have any specific sci-fi/space influences here, and why those films, books, etc.?
KP: Absolutely! Flight of the Navigator and Explorers were films I watched a lot as a kid and filled me with that science fiction wonder. I also really love The Incal, which definitely influences some scenes later in the story with Mike’s outstanding artwork. I’d also say that there’s a lot of Darwyn Cooke’s DC: The New Frontier in this story when it comes to the bigger, more epic moments.
MB: As the artist, I pulled from dozens of sci-fi influences. Artistically, first and foremost is Jack Kirby. Most specifically, his 2001: A Space Odyssey adaptation, his Argo illustrations, and a lot of his more obscure psychedelic illustrative work. Especially his later body of work is quite surrealist, and everything he does radiates this optimistic dream of a future world that I have always responded to and hoped to channel into the comic.
For the world of The New Space Age, I looked at a lot of sci-fi illustrations from the ’70s and ’80s, and created a shape-focused retro-futuristic Googie aesthetic for the not-so-far-off future of 2055. I imagine they’re only a hop and a skip ahead of us today, in a future that has stagnated and lost the will to hope. It has slightly more advanced-looking technology, but I wanted the world to feel tactile and familiar.
(It’s also so funny you mention Flight of the Navigator, because The New Space Age has always reminded me of that movie, but I couldn’t put it into words until now. The only time I watched it was at maybe 10 or 12 years old on a big Boy Scout camping retreat with one of my brothers and our dad. It always stuck with me because the idea of losing time by going to space and imagining that happening to my brothers really blew my tiny, young mind. But I never knew what it was called! And nobody else I knew had ever seen it or brought it up. So, it was like this half-forgotten childhood dream for a long time, or a song that you heard once at a store and never got the name of.)
AIPT: What was the collaborative process like for The New Space Age? How would you “rank” this among some other projects, and does a story like this one best reflect the true value of teamwork and close collaboration?
KP: Mike is so much fun to work with. We both love a lot of the same comics, animation, and movies, so we were able to use that shorthand to talk about certain scenes, designs, and tones for different issues.
Every project is different, so it’s hard for me to rank anything. The most important aspect is always agreeing upon the best approach. And considering the story, I think it definitely reflects the importance of teamwork and collaboration. Both of us brought a lot of ideas that we combined and refined to make something completely new.
MB: I loved working with Kenny! He has been a huge support system and champion for me throughout the project. I would send him sketches and updates when I was hyped up about how something was turning out. Or any questions if I need a little brainstorm or a second pair of eyes. We had a few phone calls that would always stretch on and way off topic, which were a ton of fun!
Cover C. Courtesy of Mad Cave Studios.
AIPT: Here’s a fun, dumb question: How would you perform as an astronaut?
KP: Oh, I’m guessing not so great. Considering how I do on roller coasters, I’m not sure I’d pass the training.
MB: Y’know, I think if I were really presented with the opportunity, I could do what it took to get into it. Granted, I’m not much of a thrill-seeker, but I can be adventurous! And I’m good in a crisis. The idea of getting to experience zero gravity would be too incredible. I’m not sure I’d need to be the pilot, but because I’ve been a swimmer my whole life, I think that I would be pretty good at moving around inside the space station or exploring moons.
AIPT: Is there anything else we should know about The New Space Age, sci-fi, comics, hope, grief, space travel, etc.?
KP: The New Space Age is our love letter to the science fiction that shaped us, whether it’s comics, movies, novels, or TV. It’s a story to let people know that they’re not alone in dealing with grief, and that we all experience it as a part of life. But I hope that we can all find that wonder and magic out in the stars or in our lives to give us new meaning and a new drive for a better future.
MB: Arriving on our world from beyond space and time: The New Space Age (the comic book itself) is a lot like a magic spaceship. The whole genesis of the project was born as an invisible, abstract concept in Kenny’s mind. Then he translated that into a script. And I transformed his words from text into images. It is a lot like deciphering an alien code!
Then, I pass the torch to Kevin Betou, who adds the colors, and suddenly we have a work of art. What’s more magical than that? The comic book is our magic artifact, our dream-machine. The alchemical result of the meeting of creative minds. From the ether to reality.
I’m paraphrasing here, but I remember on our first phone call about The New Space Age, Kenny said something about how he wasn’t concerned about adaptation at all and wanted this to be an “unfilmable” comic book. The magic system and the language of the art are inextricable. I think all art is magic. But comic books are uniquely qualified to deliver big ideas like this because they are an active medium. They require the audience to bring them to life. Today, we’re drowning in passive-media video content that happens to us, and we simply absorb. Comics are like toys or video games; they only come to life when we engage with them. That’s why they’re so fun and so powerful, our own imagination.
So, I hope that The New Space Age can ignite minds and imaginations and inspire a little will to action in the lives of our readers.
