Sydney Padua, who admits the whole thing is experimental, as she's not a comic artist by profession, describes it as:
either the agonizing birth pangs, or monstrous death-throes, of a comic.
I hope it proceeds to fruition. Her style is brilliant (akin to that of Posy Simmonds) and the commentary about the history and development process is worth reading too:
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was like the Wolverine of the early Victorians.
...
I read the extraordinary Charles Babbage’s comic masterpiece of an autobiography. I urge everyone to read it immediately. It has charts. CHARTS!
And there are generally interesting (if you're a bit geeky) Lovelace/Babbage links such as the Lego and Meccano Difference Engines. The merchandise is fun too, especially that with the nice ST:TNG pastiche of Ada working in the Difference Tubes.
- Ray
Now who could this be? (From here): He was indeed a genius, to judge by what he planned to achieve as well as what he did achieve. His irascibility was notorious. (he) was thoroughly British, stubbornly eccentric, tenaciously visionary, sometimes scatterbrained, and quite wealthy...
ReplyDeleteI can think of only one candidate (maybe two)...
Oh, and one "error" I discovered in the biography. In the intro to the chapter on "Street Nuisances" one group of aficionados of street music are labeled "Ladies of elastic virtue" whereas in the table you reference they are the more prosaic "Ladies of doubtful virtue." My own opinion, for what it is worth, is that "elastic" has the superior cachet.
Don't mean to be a Babbage Picker but we wouldn't want the master of numbers of 50 significant digits to be caught in an error. Must be a typo
Hmph: I wish I was quite wealthy.
ReplyDeleteYes, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher uses both: "elastic" in the nearby text is far more picturesque.