MIRACLE
OF
SCIENCE
:
An Online
Comic
By Jon
Kilgannon
and Mark
Sachs
:
Updated
Mondays
and
Thursdays
:
Last
Update:
Apr. 1,
2006
:
Comments
:
When I began writing MoS in 1979, it was published as an ashcan comic
that was available only at genre conventions specializing in slash fanfic.
Quickly realizing I had misjudged my audience, I moved it online in 1983
(distributing it at first via FTP and Usenet). Unfortunately my original
artist, a crazy kid named Dave Sim, didn't follow me to the new electronic
medium. I wonder what he's doing nowadays.
I was fortunate to find a young Frank Miller to replace Dave. We worked together on MoS throughout the 1980s. You can see his work in Chapter One, which features Frank's signature black-and-white art style.
MoS lay fallow through the 1990s, at which time I was deeply engaged in writing propaganda for the newly liberated government of Lithuania. You may have seen the film we made, The Hunt for Red October, with its plucky Lithuanian hero, Captain Marko Ramius.
In 2001, the series was revived when Mark Sachs began drawing the comic. Within a few years, we had a successful franchise. While Mark's lawyers would have you believe the rift between myself and Mark is due to questions over the division of profits from merchandising, the sad fact is that the real question is whether the courts in Pennsylvania or in the Canadian Illinois Protectorate have jurisdiction over our case. I say that the American courts have jurisdiction, and that anyone who thinks differently is an evil Canadian!
While things may look bleak, with the comic ending after all these wonderful years and Mark and I communicating only through lawyers and the occasional assassin, there are some bright spots on the horizon. Most importantly, the MoS movie has been greenlighted by Universal with Michael Shanks signed on to play Benjamin. The studio has changed directors again, but I don't see that as a negative; James Cameron wanted to make too many changes to the story for my tastes.
As I sit here writing this by the warm glow of Belmont Crater visible
through my apartment window, I just have to marvel. Wow. So this is it, the
very last page ever of A Miracle of Science. What a long, strange trip
it's been, huh? When Jon and I started MoS five years ago, we never imagined
it would get as big as it did. Or that it would run as long as it did -- or
change as much as it has. I mean heck, this started out as a wacky slapstick
comedy about an aardvark with a sword! Jon never had it planned out more
than a week in advance, so it was constantly a surprise to me how the story
twisted and turned. But it allowed me to grow as an artist; I'm
particularily proud of my work on the thirty-page Martian hot springs
sequence which started on page 183.
Jon and I can't talk much any more, of course -- not with that bruising legal battle over the proceeds from the sale of MoS mousepads, coffee mugs, and thong underwear through our CafePress shop still going on. But through our attorneys we believe our friendship is as strong as ever. And really, in this crazy old world, friendship is all you have to hold onto, isn't it? Disclaimer: the preceding sentence is not to be understood as yielding any claim in currently pending litigation.
Finally, I'd like to say a special thanks to the Canadian occupation authorities, particularily RCMP Col. Mullins (Chicago Sector) who, during those eight weeks I spent in that detention camp in Manitoba, allowed me to update the comic using my cell phone's email functions. I don't care what Amnesty International says -- you guys are the best!