This July, acclaimed comic book creators Matt Fraction (Hawkeye, Casanova, Iron Man) and Howard Chaykin
(BLACK KISS, AMERICAN FLAGG) will take readers back to the Golden Age
of Television, a time when innocence was as manufactured a fiction as
the perfect families in the comedies that captivated audiences at home.
Their new Image Comics series SATELLITE SAM, debuting
in July, takes a look at the darkness behind the small screen when, in
1951, Carlyle Bishop, the star of the beloved serial "Satellite Sam”
turns up dead in a filthy flophouse.
Carlyle's
son Michael has a hunch that his father's death was anything but
natural, but the only clue is a box full of photographs of women in
various states of undress — and Mike can't bring himself to stay sober
long enough to make any sense of it.
For
Fraction and Chaykin, SATELLITE SAM is a chance to tell a murder
mystery while simultaneously divesting the 1950s of its mantle of moral
purity.
"It's
a detective story, a history of television, and a record of addiction,
sex, and depravity during a time when the antiseptic shine off Ozzie and
Harriet obscure what was really happening in the world,” said writer
Fraction. "And these are just a few of the many joys that come from
telling a story about television while it was being invented as a mass
medium in New York City.”
The
creative team researched television's early days in preparation for the
series, getting a feel for the era and for the people who lived real
lives while inventing an idealized — and fictionalized — image of
families and relationships.
"We'd
been talking about SATELLITE SAM for a while, but what really got it
going was a long Winter's day Matt and I spent wandering New York,
feeling the city's ghosts, its lost and found architecture, ending up at
the Paley Center, where we watched kinescopes of long dead men and
women, acting out children's fantasies, while living complex lives
off-camera,” said Chaykin. "To say that I'm both having the time of my
life collaborating on this project, and getting my ass kicked in the
process, is to grossly understate the case.”
SATELLITE
SAM is an ongoing black-and-white series. Its first issue can be
pre-ordered now from the May issue of Previews and will be in stores on
July 3.
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