Monday 4 February 2008

Manhattan on Mars

Crater on Mars, photograph reproduced from The Daily Telegraph web-site, 2008:


Crater on Mars, panels reproduced from Watchmen by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons and John Higgins, 1987:


It’s either a coincidence or a quite remarkable marketing effort for the upcoming movie …

Update, 5 February Oops. It seems that I have been misled by the Telegraph running that story a little late. Over 20 years late, in fact. (See the comments section.)

Next on Gad, Sir! Comics!, the startling news that it looks like there is a man in the Moon. And, hey, don't those stars form a line that's a bit like a plough?
at

6 comments:

  1. Steven4 February 2008 at 21:17

    Erm, coincidence, sort of.

    In that, the crater was discovered a little before Gibbons started drawing the first issue, and when Moore found out that there was a happy face crater on Mars, they shifted the plot so that Manhattan ended up on Mars (instead of the Moon).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Richard4 February 2008 at 23:21

    Hi Steve
    As far as I remember there was a pic of it in the Watchmen Graphitti edition as well with Gibbon's art and notes.
    I think. My memory is a thing of vast empty spaces.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tim Chapman5 February 2008 at 14:51

    It's not so much coincidence as sloppy journalism from the Telegraph (cribbed from the Sun, in fact). It's the same 'smiley' crater that's been known about for decades, but Nasa has released a new pic of it from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Steve Flanagan5 February 2008 at 20:03

    Thanks, all. My face is now the traditional colour of Mars.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Tim Chapman6 February 2008 at 14:10

    Actually, I wasn't right in the earlier comment - this is a different crater to the Galle crater photographed 20-odd years ago - see, for instance http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001314/

    Good recent pic of Galle here -
    http://www.esa.int/esaMI/Mars_Express/SEMMTFNFGLE_0.html

    This new one's much smaller than Galle. They're not too far apart though, both close to the Argyre Planitia.

    ReplyDelete
  6. dMart8 February 2008 at 02:21

    hello, mr. steve flanagan!

    this is a off commentary (because I could not find your contact).

    when possible, please, take a look at www.pastoreio.org (a brazilian graphic novel about a slave boy).

    thanks for your attention.

    baita abraço!

    dMart

    ReplyDelete