Sokar: I have issues with the Schrödinger's cat experiment. [...] In the period before observing the outcome, [the cat] is said to be in "superposition," a state of both decay and not decay, meaning [it] is both dead and not dead. Observer-dependent physics undermines the gods' decision three thousand years ago to ban cats from straddling the borders of the Netherworld. We won't have it! Kimiko: I have reservations about reconciling a quantum mechanics thought experiment with Egyptian mythology. More importantly, what possible threat could superpositioned cats pose? Sokar: Somewhere, Niels Bohr walks among us, unobserved and immortal.
Dresden Codak is a webcomic by Aaron Diaz that has been running at an irregular (and very slow) pace since 2005. It offers whimsical humor focused on physics, philosophy, and transhumanism — except for the Hob storyline, which, while having the same focus, was much more serious. The current story, Dark Science, starts out humorous, but this doesn't last long.Dresden Codak is a sometimes Dada, sometimes Mind Screw comic focusing on the (mis)adventures of several often unrelated characters:
Kimiko "Thunderbolt" Ross: A misanthropic, cybernetically-enhanced Mad Scientist.
Dmitri and Alina Tokamak: A parody of the Wonder Twins and Marvel Family. They also have similar powers, except rather than using transformation and...water... they use physics.
"D.H." Ron Awning: A caricature of the literary-minded artsy intellectual.
Yvonne "Vonnie" Awning: Ron's sister and a fashionable, trend-focused bureaucrat, fitting, considering she works for the Department of Taste.
Rupert and Hubert: Two elderly Victorian scientists who live in a castle they built on the moon.
Not to be confused with The Dresden Files or the city of Dresden, though its name is a reference to the Dresden Codex.The comic also has a number of similarly surreal one-shots, including the page that we adapted into the Essential Third Act Twists.
Alliterative Name: Kim's dad (Kaito Kusanagi) and Kim herself as a child, before she had her surname changed.
Anachronism Stew: Kimiko knew that a group of people were time travelers because they were dressed in a mismash of styles from all eras and segments of the 20th century, in a similar fashion to how other centuries are portrayed in modern media.
Arc Symbol: the "rising sun" half-circle, aka the mark of Dark Science.
Art Evolution: The art quality increases immensely as the comic progressed. For full effect, compare this first strip to this more recent strip and this even more recent strip. The art is actually starting to get kind of ridiculously detailed. Perhaps not coincidentally, author Aaron Diaz considers Moebius to be his most important artistic influence.
Big Eater: Kimiko's prostheses run on glucose , which requires her to eat huge amounts of sweet stuff.
Book Dumb: Kimiko got very poor grades in school. According to Word Of God, this is because she generally didn't bother to do her schoolwork in the first place.
Cerebus Syndrome: The comic started out as lighthearted and whimsical. Characters talked to Egyptian gods, Niels Bohr is apparently a cat, and everybody was all happy-happy-joy-joy-let's-go-to-the-moon-and/or-play-tabletop-RPGs. Then this came along. And then this, which seems to swing right back to comedy again.
Changed My Jumper: The time travelers in the Hob storyline who look like mashups of several pop culture characters.
Character Blog: Kimiko, D.H. Ron, and Tiny Carl Jung have their own Twitter accounts.
Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Possibly averted in that Kimiko seems no more or less human after losing her arm and legs in the Hob storyline.
Considering that Diaz is an avowed transhumanist, it's pretty clear that the comic is a complete aversion.
If anything she's more human now.
Believed by the time travelers from the future. When talking about the mediators, they said "There were, however, those who had sacrificed their humanity to merge directly with technology." Of course they're generally depicted as Luddites and the mediator they dealt with was the somewhat misanthropic to start with Kimiko so they were probably wrong.
Deep Immersion Gaming: Whenever the characters engage in a tabletop roleplaying session.
Disappeared Dad: Kimiko's father who was always away doing his job.
In Name Only: Ronnie's "adaptations." Kimiko sponsors them in order to harvest the energy of their original creators spinning in their graves.
Ironic Hell: Hell is apparently reserved strictly for religious types. This comic also has an ironic heaven, namely, Secular Heaven, a parody of Fluffy Cloud Heaven
Kick the Dog: Dark Science has Mathias Melchior, Director of the Department of Opposition, who in his first appearance trips a scientist/bureaucrat carrying a huge stack of paper and tosses a old lady with a walking frame off the side of a building. But then again, that's his job.
Her estranged father seems to be a bit out of touch with reality as well.
Meaningful Name: Biblical names seem to be popular in Nephilopolis and, worryingly enough, a lot of high-ranking officials are named after demons. They also look suspiciously tanned...
Unknown, but the fellows apprehending Balthazar here seem to have something of a resemblance to "Spy"
The Singularity: Kimiko mentions it a few times in the comic. She (and the author) are futurists, after all.
In addition, the time travelers are refugees from an alternate timeline where this almost happened, but they rebelled and killed off anyone beyond baseline human intelligence, and the series climax involves a second, small scale one causing a Deus Exit Machina.
Space Amish: The time travelers in the Hob arc destroyed future Earth because they believed post-singularity technology had taken all meaning from their lives, and they planned to colonize the past Earth and live like us "noble savages"
Springtime for Hitler: "Your "Pay by the hour apartment" concept actually makes money. -go back 2-"
Super Senses: According to the author, Kimiko's robotic eye shifts, the iris becoming more square, to give her better vision in low light.
Swiss Army Appendage: Kim's artificial arm. It's apparently weaker than her real one, though.
Talkative Loon: "Radnar!" "By the stone of Daggoth!" "Keeper of the five rings!"
"By the moat of Maggoth!" "The cloak of Bungo!"
Teen Genius: Kimiko. Who has entered her early twenties (it says so on the cast page!), but continues to fit in the looser sense of being young, brilliant, and angsty.
It does tend to refer to all sorts of weird and obscure topics; but the author, unsurprisingly, expects readers to augment their own intelligences with the Internet while reading, as mentioned in the comic comment here.
Word Of God: The author has stated that Kimiko, the protagonist, is meant to come off as more than a bit misanthropic, describing her version of transhumanism as how he felt when he was a teenager.
What Year Is This?: The time travelers in the Hob storyline, when they realize Kimiko is their Big Bad.
is a webcomic by Aaron Diaz that has been running at an irregular (and very slow) pace since 2005. It offers whimsical humor focused on physics, philosophy, and transhumanism — except for the Hob storyline, which, while having the same focus, was much more serious. The current story, Dark Science,
0 reviews