Join us in an exploration of Earth’s history with Mars and how they learned to contact across the vast gulf of space. This is a fun, simple 29-page issue to lighten the tone after that big, dark story. Don’t worry, Julia and Melissa WILL return, but don’t they deserve a vacation?

Researching this cover was an interesting affair because there wasn’t as much speculative art on Martian life as I expected. William R. Leigh’s illustrations for H. G. Wells article provided the major inspiration, as did the illustrations for the 1835 “Great Moon Hoax” articles. I snuck in some influences from Hélène Smith, who claimed to communicate telepathically with Martians via seance. Also always enjoy the excuse to do things in the art nouveau style~