Tom Gauld

Mooncop goes about his daily routine on the moon, where the population is dwindling fast. He has a 100% crime solution rate, mainly because there is no crime. He gets a donut and coffee, looks for a lost dog, and sees people off at the jetport.

Both funny and melancholy, this graphic novel addresses the existential loneliness that results from automation and the advances of technology. The drawings are simple line drawings set against a background of midnight blue. Although I enjoyed Mooncop, show more I prefer the author's book and librarian comics. show less

I love Tom Gauld's cartoons when they appear in The Guardian, so I was excited when his graphic novel Mooncop came out.

It's a salutary tale about brave new horizons, failed experiments, the death of community, and hope for the future.

Across its 94 pages, we follow the last police officer on the moon. He has a 100% crime solution rate. There aren't many people left on this lunar outpost of the earth, though, so no crime happens.

Gauld's illustrations are beautiful in their simplicity and the show more sparse dialogue punctuates moments of reflection captured in views of the moon's surface, starscapes and views of the earth.

It's a melancholy tale with a wry humour and closes with a glimmer of hope for the future. As a distraction from everything going on here on earth right now, it was a touching read. show less

A collection of science-themed cartoons whose subject matter ranges from the relatively mundane (a flowchart of the cartoonist's "scientific method" featuring naps and fantasies about the Nobel Prize) to the whimsical (the new director of research is three children in a trench coat, a conference for vampire scientists) to the slightly surreal. It's full of nerdy charm, and it made me laugh multiple times. And though I'd already seen a number of the cartoons online, they all were still just show more as entertaining the second time. You probably do have to be some level of science nerd to fully appreciate all of them, but for those who are, it's kind of delightful. show less

This takes place on a moon base with a population in the single digits. A lunar cop goes about his day, waking up, getting a donut and coffee, driving around, and taking care of the few things that need him. His crime-solving rate is 100% because there are no crimes, and as more people leave the colony, there's even less for him to do.

This was mostly about loneliness, with a dash of dark work humor of the "useless jobs with useless metrics" sort. That said, even with things generally show more changing for the worse, with no actual end in sight, the story's main character somehow found things to appreciate.

Brief, kind of sad, and weirdly gentle? I'm not quite sure what to think about this graphic novel.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less