Melina Sydney Padua [1] is a graphic artist and animator based in the United Kingdom. She is the author of The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage steampunk comic, and her animation work appears in several popular Hollywood films.
She has worked as character animator in feature films such as Marmaduke , Clash of the Titans , The Golden Compass , The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian , The Iron Giant , Quest for Camelot , and The Jungle Book . [2] [3]
Her work has been exhibited at the BBC Tech Lab [4] and at a steampunk exhibition by the Oxford Museum of the History of Science. [5] She gave a conference on storytelling at The Story, [6] [7] an event shared with Cory Doctorow, Tim Etchells, David Hepworth, Aleks Krotoski, and Tony White among others. In December 2015, she was awarded the biennial Neumann Prize of the British Society for the History of Mathematics for The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. [1] In April 2016, she was nominated for the Eisner Award in the Best Writer/Artist category, and The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage in the Best Graphic Album—New category. [8]
In 2004 Padua decided to teach herself how to animate on a computer. She started by sketching a storyboard for a short film. The end result was the 2.5-minute Agricultural Report. [9] This film ended up being shown at over 200 festivals and won a few awards, including Best Short Film at the Taormina Film Festival and Audience Award for Best First Film at AnimaMundi Brazil.
Padua grew up in Mexico City and in the Canadian prairie (Western Canada). She now resides in Edinburgh, Scotland, with her husband.
Sydney Padua wrote the steampunk webcomic 2D Goggles or The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. [10] [11] It features a pocket universe where Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage have actually built an analytical engine and use it to "fight crime" at Queen Victoria's request. [12] In April 2015, the comic was published as a 320-page book titled The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Pantheon Books. [13]
The comic is based on thorough research on the biographies of and correspondence between Babbage and Lovelace, as well as other bits of early Victoriana, which is then twisted for humorous effect. It began as a one-shot for Ada Lovelace Day, a celebration of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The comic was the source of a limited edition print of 25 to raise money for The Ada Initiative in July 2011. [14]
Episodes are also available as an iPhone app.
The comic was adapted as a stage show, A Note of Dischord, by Theatre Paradok at the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe Festival [15] and as an opera by Guerilla Opera in 2023. [16]
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. She was the first to recognise that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation.
The analytical engine was a proposed digital mechanical general-purpose computer designed by English mathematician and computer pioneer Charles Babbage. It was first described in 1837 as the successor to Babbage's difference engine, which was a design for a simpler mechanical calculator.
Charles Babbage was an English polymath. A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer.
Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and aesthetics inspired by, but not limited to, 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian era or the American "Wild West", where steam power remains in mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power.
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Jordan Stratford is a Canadian author of children's fiction.
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer is a steampunk graphic novel written and drawn by Sydney Padua. It features Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage in an alternative universe where they have successfully built an Analytical Engine and use it to "fight crime".
Stan Lee's 'God Woke' is a 2016 graphic novel by former Marvel Comics editor and publisher Stan Lee, using the text of his 1970s epic poem. Comic-book writer Fabian Nicieza created visualizations to match the text, with artwork by his brother Mariano Nicieza and others. It was published by Shatner Singularity, founded by actor and author William Shatner. In addition to the main story, the book also contains the poem by itself, the visualization script, a 16-page background article and a newly written afterword by Lee.