The History of Comics in 500 Issues
In this episode I describe the British comic Puck #1 and its mad scientist/wacky inventor, Professor Radium, who turns out to be more influential than one might suppose. I go in depth on the history of the mad scientist and the wacky inventor, with stops at Faustus of Mileve, Roger Bacon, Dante's Inferno, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, Gulliver's Travels, the Marquis de Sade, Frankenstein, penny dreadfuls, the Romantics, the furor poeticus, the Victorian burlesque, Heath Robinson, the radium girls, Vannevar Bush, and much, much more!