all of her kisses and electricity

[turtlesoup]

Yesterday, my small group of classmates handed in forty copies of a screenprinted, die-cut, assembled and bound comics anthology entitled Future Inc: six stories about a deceptively cheerful and optimistic future society, informed by the science fiction of the 1950s (and the 30s, a little bit). Now that I've had some sleep, I'm excited to share my story with you! It's the longest piece I've done this semester (or in years, if it comes down to it), and while it's fairly melodramatic and silly, I had a great deal of fun putting it together!

In the book, each of our stories was preceded by a 50s-inspired advertisement related in some way to the story. This one was designed and penciled by me, and inked & greytoned by the incredibly talented Sophie Goldstein:


























I had, originally, been planning to tell a story about a young scientist who created and fell in love with an android; a futuristic, lesbian Pygmalion. I decided early on that I didn't really want to delve into the question of whether a machine could have feelings; it's been dealt with extensively by many clever people, and anyway, it's not a theme that comes naturally to me. Somehow, I find myself automatically skeptical of the idea when creating my own world, even though I enjoy it in others' writings. However, I soon found that the story I was playing with was sterile and empty, so after a certain amount of soul-searching and some fantastic handholding from various people, I decided to turn it into a love triangle of sorts--or, more of a love deflection--between two creators and their creation. The story's too short to be particularly nuanced, but I enjoyed playing with this concept!

Also, I tend to have a lot of trouble with costume design, so ... having a specific era and references to play around with was surprisingly fun and helpful. The cityscape was also surprisingly enjoyable to draw, although there's certainly room for improvement there. I wish I could have spent a bit more time on the main environment (the lab), but that's the trouble with these school exercises, and something I'm trying to learn to accept about them; there's a point at which I have to stop, and it's never the point I'd have chosen on my own.

I think I'm going to wind up creating a minicomic edition of the story (which is cheesily entitled A.I.♥.U.) ... and probably designing a parody 1950s romance comic cover for it. I did enjoy that assignment!

Here are a few photos of the finished book:


Cover design by Sophie Goldstein.




Page designs by Luke Howard.

Also, here's my diary comic for this week:


I think that says it all at this point, really. :) We have another week or so of class, but apart from crit (which I look forward to, a little anxiously), this semester's pretty much done. I'm definitely ready to rest, and draw ... whatever I feel like, for a bit.

Comments

[turtlesoup]

Thanks! I try.