A clever story was crafted around the demonstrations planned for our Supercomputing booth. The demos were woven together by two superheroes, a captain, and a universe of planets. Each demo took place on a different planet within a fictional universe. The spacecraft is piloted by the hardscrabble, tattooed Captain Foster. He tasks superheroes Fletcher or Marshal to fly to a planet to tackle a task. Each task is the research being demo’d in the booth.
The book’s layouts are a combination of hand drawn illustrations, plus vector and raster graphics. A traditional layout was designed for the final spread which overviewed each demo’s abstract for those readers who didn’t enjoy the storyline and journey.
Superhero Marshal was named for astronomer and IU faculty member, Marshal Wrubel. Wrubel was one of the organizers and the first Director of the IU Computing Research Center, which was renamed in his honor in 1973. Superhero Fletcher was named for Jessica of Murder, She Wrote fame. The writer of the comic book was a legit fan.
Written by Janae Cummings
Drawings and design by Maria Morris