NASA releases AR comic book about first woman to fly to the moon

• Published date: 27 September 2021
• Author: AARON REICH
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Dubbed First Woman: NASA's Promise for Humanity, these graphic novels tell the story of Callie Rodriguez, a fictional character created by NASA who, in her story, is the first woman and person of color to head for the lunar surface.

Written by Brad Gann and Steven List and illustrated by Brent Donoho and Kaitlin Reid, the first issue was released Saturday in honor of Free Comic Book Day and is available on NASA's website. Titled "Dream to Reality," it shows Callie's journey to prepare for her mission, featuring her robot sidekick RT.

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The 44-page comic shows Callie and RT in space, while also flashing back in time to tell her life story, back to her childhood at her father's auto shop fascinated with space, going through school and into NASA, overcoming challenges and loss to eventually become the astronaut she has dreamed of being her whole life.

The story itself ends on somewhat of a literal cliffhanger, with Callie losing contact with Mission Control and RT mysteriously stopping to function, adding drama to an otherwise heartwarming story and leaving readers something to look forward to in the next issue.

The comic can be read online or be downloaded as a PDF, but what really makes this stand out is the interactive experiences included in the comic itself, making it an Augmented Reality (AR) experience as much as a normal comic book.

The comic includes QR codes at various points of the story. By scanning these codes, readers can meet RT and learn about the many objects astronauts use.

By downloading the First Woman app on the Apple App Store or Google Play, more features become available. By scanning pages themselves, readers can...