Robots From Tomorrow!

Robots From Tomorrow

A comix podcast coming to you from somewhere in the multiverse. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.

  1. 21 May

    Halpern + Faste on INFECTED FOR SCIENCE

    Today's episode has Greg chatting with Sydney Halpern, a historical sociologist from the University of Chicago who has written extensively about twentieth-century American medical institutions and biomedical science, including 2021's Dangerous Medicine: The Story Behind Human Experiments with Hepatitis, and Trigvy Faste, an Associate Professor in the Department of Product Design at the University of Oregon, as well as an illustrator and designer in his own right. Their book, Infected for Science, coming out May 26th from Graphic Mundi, looks at religious pacifist David Miller and a group of conscientious objectors who took on an extraordinary mission during World War II: signing up for government-sponsored medical experiments that intentionally infected them with hepatitis to help scientists understand a disease that was sickening American soldiers fighting on the front lines. It also looks at the project's aftermath and legacy almost 80 years later.  [This episode is number 835 in a series.]  CHAPTERS 00:00 - Intro  01:22 - Discovering the Archives  03:45 - Trygve Finds Comics Again  05:33 - Meeting Through Comics Class  07:31 - Comics Influences and Models  08:34 - Trygve Comic Origins  12:30 - Building Dual Timeline Story  15:15 - Miller Cartoons Tone  18:56 - Art Style and Accent Color  23:14 - Publisher Pitch and Feedback  28:38 - Page Design and Lettering  31:03 - Seamless Reading Flow  32:12 - Internal Logic Design  33:08 - Dance With Death Spread  38:12 - Creative Nonfiction Boundaries  38:54 - Ethics And Compensation  42:51 - Who Gets Harmed  45:58 - Why Comics Worked  49:14 - Collaboration And Outreach  52:52 - Moral Complexity And Empathy  59:17 - Outro

    1hr 3min
  2. 14 May

    J. Marshall Smith on TESTAMENT

    J. Marshall Smith is a cartoonist, illustrator, and educator based in Baltimore (making us de facto neighbors) who came up through the disciplines of painting and printmaking before finding his way to comics. And that background shows, because his work doesn't look like it comes from someone who learned to draw from comics, but rather from someone who developed a way of looking at things and then figuring out what comics could do with that. He's built his readership carefully and honestly – self-publishing collections of comics and art through Kickstarter, mailing drawings to his Patreon supporters, teaching, tabling at festivals, doing the quiet unglamorous work of caretaking that relationship between creator and audience. He recently tabled at the MoCCA festival in New York, launching a new collaborative comic called The Vanishing Man with illustrator Katherine Lams – about running into your bad ex in a nursing home, about frailty and memory and what we do and don't owe each other. But it's the topic of his debut graphic novel Testament, published by Bulgilhan Press (think bull-gee-lan) and available now, that brings him to the show today. Testament follows an android caretaker – designation: Testament – designed to tend to the members of the Order of the Abundant Grace of the Cosmic Christ during their monastic and scholarly existence studying a distant planet. As the all-female Order dwindles and only one Sister remains, Testament is left to reckon with faith, grief, memory, and the prospect of immortality in a solitary but spiritual infinity. [This episode is number 834 in a series.]  CHAPTERS 00:00 – Intro 01:59 – MoCCA Festival Recap 03:35 – The Vanishing Man Collaboration 09:53 – Teaching Life And Time 11:51 – An Unprecious Art Philosophy 16:25 – Designing Testament Faces 29:04 – Origins And Faith Questions 36:40 – What's In A Name? 41:59 – Faith and Science 52:22 – Designing the Plots 01:02:31 – Revisiting the Setting 01:05:00 – What's Next Projects 01:07:37 – Freelance Life 01:28:21 – Outro

    1hr 35min
  3. 7 May

    Aditya Bidikar on IN YOUR SKIN

    Aditya Bidikar, back on the show after 4 years, is a man of letters in the most literal sense.  In the more than a decade he has been plying the lettering trade, he has worked with every major North American comics publisher and formed strong collaborations with several groups of creators, none more so than with writer Ram V and artist Anand K.  In the words of Multiversity Comics alum and SKTCHD guru David Harper, it is a career consisting of "all bangers".  But he is on the show today to talk about IN YOUR SKIN, his first major work as a comics writer.  IN YOUR SKIN, with artist SOM and colorist Francesco Segala for Image Comics and Tiny Onion and released on April 22nd, combines Bollywood culture with body horror and erotic fiction. The solicitation also name-checks David Cronenberg and THE SUBSTANCE. We  would throw in some Scorsese and Satoshi Kon as well, but… we will get into that. Aditya is at a fairly unique point in comics: a first-time comics writer with years of experience making comics, a letterer making his own words fit onto the page of his own story, a perennial collaborator stepping into a lead role…however you want to look at it, this is a fascinating time to be Aditya Bidikar, and today's chat dives into just why that is the case. [This episode is number 833 in a series.]  CHAPTERS 00:00 - Intro 05:42 – Bollywood & Dance 17:19 – Influences and PERFECT BLUE  18:12 – Male Gaze and Patriarchy 24:19 – Wanting to Be vs Be With 29:13 – Parasocial Horror and Identity 38:07 – Writing Sympathy for Priyanka 42:13 – Drama First Genre Second 45:11 – Priyanka Redefined 47:10 – Script as Blueprint 51:02 – Rewriting to the Finale 53:04 – Ownership and Fingerprints 54:29– The Showrunner Mindset 01:04:28 – Personal Stakes and Finishing 01:10:11 – Lettering and Burnout 01:12:55 – Finding Theme While Writing 01:18:06 – Stories Not Essays 01:21:18 – Outro

    1hr 22min

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A comix podcast coming to you from somewhere in the multiverse. Stay safe and enjoy your funny books.