The Future that Wasn’t.
I know I am telling my age, but how many of you more, let’s say chronologically advanced citizens thought for sure that we’d have flying cars by now? You know, the ones that folded into your briefcase like in The Jetsons? Robot Maids and moving sidewalks wherever you went. Of course, The Jetson’s premiered in 1962, so we all figured we had a lot of years for these things to come to pass. Bzzzzz. Wrong. Somehow, things never quite worked out.
Well, leave it to the good folks at Iron Circus Comics to compile a book that examines many of the gadgets, experiments and unrealized technological and societal advances promised in years past, but which never came to be. Kind of like that car briefcase. It’s called Failure to Launch: A Tour of Ill-Fated Futures, which began its crowdfunding campaign on BackerKit February 6th.
What is ‘Failure to Launch?’
Failure to Launch tells the tales of what could have been but wasn’t. “Planned utopias in space, wild inventions, attempts to improve society, robot pets, and predictions of Armageddon. With over 300 pages of full color comics, this collection of disasters explores a wide variety of hopes and dreams falling to pieces.” Sounds like life to me. This compilation contains over 31 different stories by a diverse collection of talented creators. One of those is André Valenté’s Zigurats.
An Exclusive Excerpt
Now, through the generous folks at Iron Circus Comics and creator André Valenté that we are proud to present this exclusive excerpt of his contribution to the book: Zigurats. Along with André’s explanation how this story came together.
André Valenté
“I wrote a story about a cult that exists in Brazil, whose goal is to connect their pyramids to 49 alien races. A kind of universal lighthouse in this convex Earth of ours. My research started out of curiosity about how this group sees and positions itself and ended up becoming a portrait of sorts of their leader, Urandir, a guy who seems to be continuously improvising his ramshackle mythology. What touched me was how the denialism that the cult employs is very similar to what followers of the extreme right believe (such as Trump’s or Bolsonaro’s). That confusion as an ideological project can make people abandon all their ideals in exchange for empty promises.”
Iron Circus Comics Anthology, Failure to Launch: A Tour of Ill-Fated Futures, started its Backerkit campaign on February 6th. You can find it here.
Senior Writer at GeekVibesNation – I am a 60 something child of the 70’s who admits to being a Star Trek/Star Wars/Comic Book junkie who once dove headfirst over a cliff (Ok, it was a small hill) to try to rescue his Fantastic Four comic from a watery grave. I am married to a lovely woman who is as crazy as I am and the proud parent of a 21-year-old young man with autism. My wife and son are my real heroes.
