So I’m in the store yesterday and I’m picking up Brian Azzarello and Jim Lee’s Superman trade and Josh Middleton’s Shazam book (neither characters really do it for me but all creators attached are superb in every meaning of the word) but I wasn’t saticified with just these two books. So I started looking around and there I see it, Ministry of Space. I’ve been wanting to buy this mini-series by Warren Ellis and Chris Weston for a good long while.
When it first came out a couple of years ago I was really very excited about it all and couldn’t wait to read it as a trade. It was three issues so it’s short, sweet and to the point. This was back when I was just starting to move away from reading my sequential stories in 22 page pamphlets and concentrating on the trade paperbacks. So I waited, and waited some more. It was one of those series that was supremely delayed due to a number of reasons, writer falling back, Chris commiting to something else, and so when it finally was announced it was going to be collected into a trade paperback (a couple of years after the first issue was released) you can imagine my glee. However for some reason which I can’t understand Image Comics (the official publisher of the book) really screwed it up. Here in the UK is practically impossible to find the damn book for ages.
Well I got my copy and I’ve ripped through the book in less than an hour, however I’ll be going back for more. As I’ve said the book collected a three issue mini-series published by Image Comics. It was part of Warren Ellis’s drive at the time to write, create and own all his properties. He’s since gone back to the monthly grind of working for the Man, but he did try and he does have a serious volume of work that is creator owned so you can’t really fault the man, he’s just trying to earn a living. It’s just a shame that he can’t earn one just writing Ministry of Space stories because I’d buy it in a second.
The story starts at the end of the Second World War. Britian has taken actions to ensure that the German scientists behind the V2 rocket engines now work for the British Empire. Churchill gives the green light to John Dashwood to create the Ministry of Space, to lead Britain’s space programme. Sandwiched inbetween this backstory of grasping for the stars there’s another plot running through the series that follows a much older John Dashwood. The series combines a great sense of the time and the characters, although have limited time on the page (it’s a short story), do have very distinct voices which Ellis is very good at doing. While all of this is happening Ellis provides some a clear political message in all of this, which I’ll be sure to try and uncover some proper discussions about this series because that last panel deserves some more attention.
What I love about this series is the fact that Ellis and Weston make it all feel real. This alternate reality could have come to pass, if the stars and moons were aligned. It’s an exceptionally difficult thing to suspend my disbelief to such a level that I could actually see this world that these gentlemen have constructed be the real deal. The character dialogue is always crackling in a way only Ellis knows how to pull off to such a great degree.
The real star of the show in my eyes however is Chris Weston. It’s clear from all the pages that the man was having an emmense amount of fun creating this book. There’s a great deal of love and attention to detail on every single page, and I for one would have paid for this book if it was illustrated by Weston and written by a monkey (which Ellis most definitely isn’t). If only all short mini-series were drawn as well as this.
Laura Martin is without a doubt one of the, if not the best colourist in the business. She gets colours better than anyone else. None of her work seems forced and none of it gets printed off incorrectly. She understands what it takes to enhance a book, and Ellis is very smart to make sure all his books have her wonderful palette finish everything off. I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that Planetary/Authority has the same writer/colourist combination.
Generally speaking I tend to shy away from Titan comics as I see them as complete leaches. They take a book that costs $9, repackage it for unknown reasons to me, slap their logo on it and raise the price to £9. If that’s not bad enough they used to slap a sticker on the back of the actual book and raise the price accordingly as well, which used to fuck me off something cronic. For the first time I actually recommend buying the Titan version because it’s actually got better production values, which is crazy in my eyes. Image have been doing this for a good long time, how they dropped the ball on this series is beyond me. It truely deserves better treatment, as it’s easily one of the gems in it’s library, and in fact on anyone’s library. The book has also been released as a hardcover as well, but if you can’t find it, don’t fret, just buy this book, you’ll be glad you did.