Never Mind the Gap
Sci-fi small-town romanceComic 133 - V
Author Notes:
Originally they started as a nonpolitical open hardware movement for DIY people using advanced minifacturing (3D printing and so on).
However, the corporations declared war on them, not only via patent lawsuits, but also by buying changes to regulations to make DIY increasingly illegal. In their pursuit of "the solar power thieves", they ended up arresting the four humans in the photo - exceedingly charismatic and none of them older than 16.
Once the political warfare began, indieVisible struck back, and one of their major points was lobbying for robot rights. A flood of self-aware and semi-aware robots joined the organization.
Within 5 years, the open hardware blueprints for robots were better than the corporate blueprints - cheaper, lighter, more durable, and so on. Because every robot on the planet wants to know where their next rotor joint replacement will come from, and the corporations are known for planned obsolescence...
In the end, the indieVisible V became inextricably linked with robot rights. However, inversely, it inextricably linked the concept of open hardware and living naturally with humans into the robot rights movement.
None of the group were particularly leaders of indieVisible, because there weren't really any leaders. But they were celebrities, due to being arrested shortly after this award was given.
... None of this is important to the story, any more than Mace Windu is important to Luke Skywalker.
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and how can you steal solar power? i mean, if the sun isn't public property then nothing is.
i want to see the dumbass who tries to put a flag on the sun.
It's also already illegal to use unverified panels: only those brands tested in qualified labs are allowed, at least in many states.
As to the trash can... maybeeee someone else will be nice enough to tell you...
But you're right.
Strangely enough, the fast food franchises are the likely future corporate model. Where the designs for the goods are owned by the franchising company as well as the supply chain for raw materials.
Copyright laws are already being subverted by corporations to give them indefinite monopolies on some designs. So it looks like things are sliding the way View is seeing them in her story.
Question: Is IndieVisible a portmanteau of Indianapolis Invisible?
indieVisible is has nothing to do with Indianapolis and everything to do with "indies", as in independent music, comics, and game publishing.
It's a pun on "indivisible" - as in, the human race cannot be divided. Which is accomplished by giving individuals exceptional power, visibility, and resources.
Until I read the notes, I was worried we'd have a couple parallel actions going on in the strips ahead, where half the page is Jim's uber-slow exploration of Mary's abdomen, and the other half is flipping through the expository printed material in the trash. Which gave me all kinds of bad flashbacks to Sim's "Reads" chapter of Cerebus.
I have a ton of faith in your ability to tell a visual story between characters, View. I just worry that so much of the relevant history these characters share happens pre-comic, and requires a lot of catch-up. And when most of that is delivered via author's notes, it makes the comic harder to penetrate. Especially if you someday plan on compiling this into a volume without the luxury of author's notes after each page.
But I could just be worried for no good reason. I dunno. You've said you wanted critique before; there's mine.
I got a piece of 3D-printed hardware just in front of me. And two open hardware microcontrollers on my desk.
The future you've seen is coming quickly.
I'll take the occasion to thank you for this comic because it is really meaningufl for me.
Will this site stay online for long? I would like to keep returning to it regulary but I'm not sure of when it will 404. Should I plan on saving my favourites panels now?