2024-05-10 03:50:00
An alien invites a crew of international scientists on a trip to the heart of the solar system. A very well done educational collection that first introduces us to Mars and Jupiter.
The new Glénat collection offers a long space journey in cartoons, soberly titled “Solar System”. On the program of albums whose release will extend to 2027, the discovery of seven planets – Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Venus, Mercury – and the Sun, their specificities, their place in the solar system and their little secrets.
The principle is simple, a team of six astronauts and international scientists set out to travel around these different planets and share with the reader their knowledge and observations on the ground. Proof of the seriousness of the information provided, everything is monitored by scientists from the Paris Observatory. On the other hand, since such a journey is obviously still impossible in reality, Bruno Lecigne, screenwriter of this collection and former editorial editor of Les Humanoids Associés, imagined a fictional narrative trick: thanking humans for rescuing him from his sleeping vessel on the other side of the moon, an alien nicknamed Clarke invites the crew – an astronaut, a planetary scientist, an asteroid engineer, an exo-biologist, a chemist-geologist and a computer scientist – to a walk through the solar system. We learn pretty quickly that our friend from elsewhere is taking the opportunity to search for another alien ship in distress somewhere, but also that he may be hiding something about his real motivations…
Meanwhile, let’s go to Mars, its red color due to the iron oxide dust that covers it, its spectacular canyons and the many traces of the presence of water it has left behind. Could it be that life-bearing fragments have reached Earth? Then comes the turn, 600 million kilometers further, to the huge Jupiter with its very thin rings. How can we approach it with the gases that make it up and the phenomenal pressure it exerts? Thanks to the realistic representations of the designers, we feel like we are with explorers, in the middle of these incredible panoramas.
In short, all this turns out to be fascinating and within the reach of the general public, the alliance between fiction (with its share of action) and popular science works very well, the character of the computer scientist in a way plays the role of a neophyte reader in terms of scientific knowledge. An eight-page notebook at the end of the album produced by a scientific committee explores the subject further.
Designers: Fabien Bedouel (volume 1); Afif Khaled and Xavier Dujardin (Volume 2) – Author: Bruno Lecigne – Publisher: Glénat, Solar System Collection – Price: 15.50 euros per album.
Screenshot 1715313661
#SOLAR #SYSTEM #Bind #Mars #red #planet #Volume #Jupiter #Shepherd #Asteroids