Mare Cognitum

By Marnie Galloway. Published by So What? Press.

Softcover, 16 pages, B&W, 2015.

Marnie Galloway dramatizes the 65-hour life of the lunar probe Ranger 7 in Mare Cognitum. Marnie explains that Ranger 7’s flight allowed humans to see the first close images of our moon’s surface. NASA accomplished this by throwing the probe at the moon, and it took pictures of the surface until it smashed into the moon.

Drawn with graphite, the art evokes the black and white images that were shot back from Ranger 7 in 1964. The comic spends a lot of time detailing the different stages of the probe’s launch, emphasizing the extremely detailed and laborious ends scientists go to in order to advance their knowledge, even for just 17 minutes of photographs of the moon. Marnie’s art too is ridiculously detailed and labored over for a 16-page mini about a short-lived lunar probe.

But who would argue it wasn’t worth it?

This edition was published by So What? Press in 2015