LAUSR

Way back in 2010 in these pages I had the pleasure of reviewing the graphic historical novel of early twentiethcentury logic and set theory Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou (writers) and Alexos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna (artists).1 Now we have Sydney Padua’s graphic fantasy The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage and Richard Evan Schwartz’s graphic exposition of cardinality and uncountability, Gallery of the Infinite. All three of these books escape the overmuscled art that dominates the comic mass market, but their art is otherwise quite different. Logicomix is quasi-realistic in a highly two-dimensional way. Lovelace and Babbage consists of exuberant black and white semi-caricature. Gallery of the Infinite, created via InkScape (described on its webpage as “a professional vector graphics editor”), is made of severely flattened somewhat abstract shapes in colors that when not black can best be described as strident. Lovelace and Babbage began life as a web comic, which you can find at sydneypadua.com. I stumbled across it some time ago and was delighted to hear that it had turned into a book. The website contains links to things like primary sources and animations of Babbage’s analytical engine. The book is replete with extensive and highly informative footnotes and endnotes (some of which themselves have footnotes). Padua’s writing exuberantly brings the Victorian age alive. For example, Lovelace’s family background (her father was Lord Byron) is concisely described: “It’s not easy being the daughter of a celebrity mad genius deviant sex god.” Padua’s first chapter is a fifteen-page introduction to the historical Lady Ada Lovelace and the historical Charles Babbage, with a quick summary of Babbage’s difference engine (gears and steam would have made it run if it ever had been built) and two panels that get to Math Graphics: A Review of Two Books