Scrambling My Brains

 

For some time, I have been trying to find copies of a sixties colouring book series called ‘We Land on the Moon’. The series, which has at least six different editions includes drawings based on the Ed Valigusky paintings in the Time Life book, ‘Man in Space’. 

Ed Valigursky's 'Moon Base' from 'Man in Space'

An example of the colouring book, with some of the artwork including the MEV and Sword Moonbase modules can be found on Dave Sisson’s wonderful space book site - Dreams of Space. 

http://dreamsofspace.blogspot.com/2017/07/we-land-on-moon-coloring-book-based-on_7.html

Memory can be a difficult beast and after seeing this edition, I recalled having a colouring book back when I was 8, which was left in my old house the day we moved out, along with a Thunderbirds book, bought at the same time. Ordinarily, I would just put it down to the passage of time and being in a rush to leave the property. But the more I thought about it, It occurred to me that the reason I missed the book was because it contained references to Project SWORD. At first, I assumed I was just recalling the Valigursky drawings, but the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that the colouring book had a drawing of a Sword Moon Crawler in it. Since then I have checked various copies of the We Land on the Moon series, to no avail.

Then, a few weeks ago, while visiting a local car boot with Woodsy, we found an old used copy of a colouring book in a box of annuals, which I bought for 50p. 'Man on the Moon' is a British publication and a similar format to the American series, but not as well produced.

Some of the illustrations had been partly coloured in, but 90% of the pages were untouched. It started off with some satellite pictures and various astronauts, before moving to Apollo Moon Landing themes.

Pioneer and Sputnik

Ranger 4 and 5

Some of the drawings are clearly based on photo reference, such as the classic Ed White spacewalk, while others show more unusual fare, such as the suggested rogallo parawing capsule return for the Gemini missions.

One or two of the pages had some high spirited colouring, but nothing too bad on the more interesting artwork.

Once more, some of the astronaut suits were a little fanciful and some of the futuristic themed art is inspired by conceptual images, such as the West German Junkers shuttle concept seen in Kenneth Gatlands ‘Frontiers of Space’.

Other drawings clearly showed the relation to contemporary media such as Thunderbirds.

One of the drawings has more than a passing resemblance to a rocket pencil sharpener from the same period.

However, what was most satisfying of all lay near the back of the book and confirmed that my memory had been partially correct, as there were several drawings clearly referencing Project SWORD, but not the Moon Crawler, but the Scramble Bug!

The first major indication that it had been borrowed from somewhere was the ‘Moon Vehicle Depot’ drawing, which is loosely based on the illustration in the 1969 TV21 Annual, for the Project Sword text story, ‘The Loyal and the Dead’.

The bug then appears in other drawings, notably in a spread next to the Junkers Shuttle, which again is influenced by the TV21 annual.

This drawing takes its design from either Ron Embleton's beautiful painted art from the 3031 article, or Malcolm Stokes' interpretation of the drawing for the text story, ‘Ace of Spades’

The remainder of the bugs appearances are incidental to the main pictures, appearing in the background.

Finally, tucked away is another more oblique Sword reference in the form of a large ‘moon bus’.

So there you have it, another mystery solved and another annoying itch scratched!