Wollstonecraft
London 1826: The Advent of the Steam Age
11 year old Ada has a problem: her governess, Miss Coverlet, has quit her job to go get married (a dumb idea if ever there was one, if you ask Ada) and her new tutor Percy (“Peebs”) is a total drip. She’d rather be left to her own devices – literally – inventing things and solving math problems and ignoring people altogether.
She’s also forced to study alongside the imaginative girlie-girl Mary, who’s always going on about romance and exotic travels. Fortunately, Mary’s appetite for adventure leads her to propose the two girls open a detective agency, and when an heiress shows up with a case about a missing diamond, it’s the perfect puzzle to coax Ada out of her shell.
Hey, I just found out that FLORENCE NIGHTENGALE was a statistician! I came across a reference in a stats textbook I’m considering using when I teach this summer, did a bit of Googling, and looky!
So she could be a character I work with in my class (I’m developing a sort of steampunk stats world for my students to work in), but she could probably also appear in this very not-a-comic! :D
Just did this speech for someone else the other day, and it seems appropriate here.
As a performance theory major who made a special study of critique, speaking from education and experience, allow me to offer this bit of feedback:
I don’t want to see what I know I like to see. I really don’t want to see what you think I like to see.. especially if I’ve told you I like to see it.
I want to see what you come up with.
I don’t know what that will look like. I greatly look forward to finding out.
Above all though, I want to see what happens when you have fun with the process. A thimbleful of joy is worth more than a bookshelf of plotting, production values, and all the other paperwork we apply to successful work after we’ve seen it succeed.
Don’t waste time caring what your audience thinks. Most of them don’t know how to steer a work of art, and the ones that do are watching specifically to see how *you* do it. Don’t let yourself be bound by rules more strongly than, “this rule exists so you think before breaking it.”
First and foremost, make art that makes you happy. If you don’t giggle while drawing a page, find the reason why not. Then kill it. Your core product is your own personal taste. The artwork is just a way of pouring ink around it so the rest of us can see how it looks.
Don’t worry about selling it. It’s a fantastic product.
Respect it. Honor it.
And accept our thanks for giving us the opportunity to see it.
WOO-HOO! And historical timelines be damned. Dress ’em in whatever you like and send them out for coffee with anyone interesting who shows up. Just think of the comic value of the Person from Porlock!
Certainly looks that way – poor, tuckered-out little fellow. And Lovelace has nodded off with her pipe still lit, as you can see it reignites when she startles awake. Not safe, but my late engineer dad used to do that all the time. Probably all her bodice fronts have little scorch-holes in them, just like his shirts did…
Her bodice front is always scorching, if you know what I mean. And you may not, if you’re Victorian and not hip to the lingo of this era.
In unrelated news, I have acquired a number of pairs of 3-D glasses from the theater’s recycling bin and constructed two sets of 2-D glasses via the clever method of lens-trading.
Johnon April 3, 2012 at 12:24 am
So…the answer to your question on Twitter is no, then?
Ha! I love it.
I, incidentally, will buy any paper-spewing device that makes a printa-printa-printa (preen-tah, yes?) sound.
Hey Sydney, I just found this project on Kickstarter and thought you might be interested:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/airshipambassador/wollstonecraft
Wollstonecraft
London 1826: The Advent of the Steam Age
11 year old Ada has a problem: her governess, Miss Coverlet, has quit her job to go get married (a dumb idea if ever there was one, if you ask Ada) and her new tutor Percy (“Peebs”) is a total drip. She’d rather be left to her own devices – literally – inventing things and solving math problems and ignoring people altogether.
She’s also forced to study alongside the imaginative girlie-girl Mary, who’s always going on about romance and exotic travels. Fortunately, Mary’s appetite for adventure leads her to propose the two girls open a detective agency, and when an heiress shows up with a case about a missing diamond, it’s the perfect puzzle to coax Ada out of her shell.
Hey, I just found out that FLORENCE NIGHTENGALE was a statistician! I came across a reference in a stats textbook I’m considering using when I teach this summer, did a bit of Googling, and looky!
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/38937/title/Florence_Nightingale_The_passionate_statistician
So she could be a character I work with in my class (I’m developing a sort of steampunk stats world for my students to work in), but she could probably also appear in this very not-a-comic! :D
You tease, you.
Now I’m wondering how to bring plushy security cogs to market…. ;)
Check out Kickstarter for “Wollstonecraft”. The adventures of Ada Lovelace and Mary Shelley as girls.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/airshipambassador/wollstonecraft
I recognize that Dave!
I hope Wollstonecraft is going to get every possible bit of support from here and the Steamy communities all around!
I hate to be a wet blanket, but if you’re trying to get readers enthusiastic about math, there is a danger they will do a subtraction: 1826 – 1797.
Ada was indeed eleven in 1826, but that year, Mary turned 29.
Won’t it damage the storyteller’s credibility if the reader knows he has shaved 15 years off the age of his allegedly-historical heroine?
Just did this speech for someone else the other day, and it seems appropriate here.
As a performance theory major who made a special study of critique, speaking from education and experience, allow me to offer this bit of feedback:
I don’t want to see what I know I like to see. I really don’t want to see what you think I like to see.. especially if I’ve told you I like to see it.
I want to see what you come up with.
I don’t know what that will look like. I greatly look forward to finding out.
Above all though, I want to see what happens when you have fun with the process. A thimbleful of joy is worth more than a bookshelf of plotting, production values, and all the other paperwork we apply to successful work after we’ve seen it succeed.
Don’t waste time caring what your audience thinks. Most of them don’t know how to steer a work of art, and the ones that do are watching specifically to see how *you* do it. Don’t let yourself be bound by rules more strongly than, “this rule exists so you think before breaking it.”
First and foremost, make art that makes you happy. If you don’t giggle while drawing a page, find the reason why not. Then kill it. Your core product is your own personal taste. The artwork is just a way of pouring ink around it so the rest of us can see how it looks.
Don’t worry about selling it. It’s a fantastic product.
Respect it. Honor it.
And accept our thanks for giving us the opportunity to see it.
“Yesssss…” says the steam whistle….
Oh, and it’s calculation, not caluculation… unless Babbage used that circumlocution himself.
And ‘paramater’ is a matriarchal variant on ‘parameter’.
Can’t wait!
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!
*tears at rapidly-diminishing supplies of hair*
Eee! The suspense!
Ah, Babbage and his cog-cum-teddy bear. :D
…a banana!
Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. :)
…What? What is it?!
the suspense is tickling me …
YAY
SO HAPPY
YAY
WOO-HOO! And historical timelines be damned. Dress ’em in whatever you like and send them out for coffee with anyone interesting who shows up. Just think of the comic value of the Person from Porlock!
Can the human form withstand, can the mortal mind encompass, the force and magnitude of the SUSPENSE?
Digging in fingernails now… (BTW, that’s “paramEter” just to be pedantic).
You go, girl! Waiting eagerly!
Oh my — is Babbage holding a security cog?
Certainly looks that way – poor, tuckered-out little fellow. And Lovelace has nodded off with her pipe still lit, as you can see it reignites when she startles awake. Not safe, but my late engineer dad used to do that all the time. Probably all her bodice fronts have little scorch-holes in them, just like his shirts did…
Her bodice front is always scorching, if you know what I mean. And you may not, if you’re Victorian and not hip to the lingo of this era.
In unrelated news, I have acquired a number of pairs of 3-D glasses from the theater’s recycling bin and constructed two sets of 2-D glasses via the clever method of lens-trading.
So…the answer to your question on Twitter is no, then?
Ha! I love it.
I, incidentally, will buy any paper-spewing device that makes a printa-printa-printa (preen-tah, yes?) sound.
Monty Python’s Flying Circus!!!
Do do do do do DOOT do do do do …
I see someone got to it before I could.
Hah, that is EXACTLY what I thought when I read that…
I am missing a cultural reference, I think. What Python thing?
The Souza march that the Monty Python show used at its theme music.
I can’t even hear the word ‘It’s’ without the accompanying soundscape. Makes my life hard as IT’S (da da da da da da DA da da) a very common word.
HA! Truly LOL-ing!! That, my dear Ms. Padua, makes the wait COMPLETELY worthwhile!
Let Art take its own sweet time – I know the final result will be full of the awesomeness.
Thanks for the laugh!
Aaaugh! The suspense is dreadful! The anticipation is delightful! My emotions are befuddled!
And my anticipation is very, very keen.
Haha sorry for dragging it out just have to hammer out some final details!