Outer Space Jokes!

It seems so very long ago now that mankind actually left this globe and set foot on another planet. Since those halcyon days of exploration, we have used technology to look at other places in the cosmos, but we've not yet put our actual toes onto another sphere of any kind. I expected more when I was ten and this news of a man named Neil Armstrong standing on the Moon broke across the world. In celebration of that event (which did take place, so no nagging about it already) I offer up this tiny glimpse of a Will Eisner package titled 101 Outer Space Jokes. 

The audacity to go to the Moon is what makes it the utterly fabulous event in human history that it should be celebrated as. 

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Rocket Riders And Bulleteers!

Getting all that power between your legs has lots of implications, many of which I will not be exploring. But the cowboy bronco buster is an iconic American image and to attempt to translate that image into the modern world, we find a great number of cartoon characters astride rockets and missiles and all manner of ballistic entities. It's a symbol of man's attempt to control technology and consequently his world, but at the same time shows just how precarious man's control of these great energies really is.

Whether it's Kirk Alyn as Superman atop a missile with a smile on his face in a sky-high frolic in the serial Superman,

Or Slim Pickens as Major "King" Kong riding a nuclear bomb in a nihilistic joyride to oblivion in Dr.Strangelove, the image of a man atop such a device tickles the deep imagination of us all.

Even The Three Stooges evoke a sense of adventure when they ride a rocket in Have Rocket, Will Travel. 

Here are some comic book covers which play around with this imagery in some entertaining and sometimes thought-provoking ways.

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