Comics aren’t typically my genre, but I love this concept. I’m not really qualified to comment on the historical plausibility of anything, but I did have one thought:
In many cases there were more complicated reasons why a technology took so long to develop. For example, the difficult thing about wheeled carts wasn’t inventing the wheel, it was the ability to manufacture a straight axle long enough. It might be cool to see some of that explored. For example, the steam engine you teased would be really interesting to me because it necessitates a boiler that can withstand that kind of pressure.
Or, I’d also probably enjoy it if it took some liberties and just had fun with the concept. It’s the sort of thing I daydream about all the time. I just think the idea is fun. I don’t know how much it’s been done before, but it’s a cool idea! I really think I would read this.
Yes, exactly! Even the simplest printing press needs a screw, a nut, and movable types, each one is its own little invention. To make just those three things, they need good metalworking skills, a way to make threads that fit together, and tools to shape the letters. So even one simple machine like the most basic printing press depends on a bunch of other smaller breakthroughs. That’s what makes it so fun to think about, every step opens the door to ten more.
rmah 35 minutes ago [-]
One of the key components of metal movable type printing presses is an appropriate ink. The concept of using a press to print on paper was well known for 100's of years across the world from China to Europe. Movable type had even been invented earlier, often using wood or ceramics instead of lead. Getting the ink right to work with metal type was not simple and recipes used by various printers were considered trade secrets (though obviously leaked as printing spread widely and rapidly).
Many inventions are like this. They seem simple in hindsight, but at the time, required putting together tools, techniques, materials and insight from multiple sources. There's an old BBC TV show called "Connections" that explores the origins of many modern technology and the often strange paths that led us there. For example, without people loving perfume, internal combustion engines might have taken decades longer to have been developed.
miki_tyler 23 minutes ago [-]
One of the fun things about writing fiction is that I don’t have to stick to the natural flow of events the way history actually unfolded.
Kind of like how some countries in Africa skipped landlines and went straight to mobile phones, I can let the Romans stumble onto just the right ink recipe a bit early.
adrianmonk 1 hours ago [-]
The concept reminds me of that story from Reddit that was going to get turned into a movie but never did:
I’m familiar with it. Not sure what ended up happening to the project though.
Animats 25 minutes ago [-]
I want to see how he makes a non-toy steam engine using Roman technology.
miki_tyler 19 minutes ago [-]
It’s not so much about using only Roman technology to build a steam engine directly. The more interesting question is: what’s the smallest set of tools the Romans could have made that would let them build a basic working steam engine?
Years since the founding of the City (Rome), Ab Urbe Condita. Although during Imperial times they used years since the current emperor started his mandate, ehich could be confusing as sometimes there would be three emperors in a year.
Btw I loved the comic and I will anxiously wait for the next edition.
tomrod 1 hours ago [-]
Rome Sweet Rome comes to mind. Looking forward to the concept.
ggm 3 hours ago [-]
'lest darkness fall' by L Sprague De Camp..1939
miki_tyler 3 hours ago [-]
This is very interesting. It seems similar to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, which also features a time traveler. I'll try to get a used copy from eBay.
tgbugs 2 hours ago [-]
Came here to post this as well and took a moment to reflect that Martin Padway has probably inspired me more than almost any other character in all literature to memorize and know things that might come in handy some day if for the most absurdly impossible reason that I might be pulled through a wormhole to ancient Rome.
huangjingyun 15 minutes ago [-]
做不出来的，没有牛顿，没有瓦特，没有达芬奇，就没有所谓的工业革命
don-code 2 hours ago [-]
I love the first issue and went to follow the site's RSS feed, but the four posts on the feed seem like spam? They each start with "Leverage agile frameworks to provide a robust synopsis..."
miki_tyler 2 hours ago [-]
Apologies, I use 11ty for most of my personal projects. It’s primarily a static blog generator, but I also use it for plain web pages. I forgot to delete the example blog post pages that came with the template. It didn’t even occur to me that someone might want to use the RSS feed!
notavalleyman 1 hours ago [-]
How much of the part 1 pdf was made by a person versus chatgpt if you don't mind me asking?
The MC's hair colour and stubble change between the first three frames and everything has that yellow sheen.
miki_tyler 1 hours ago [-]
I explain the whole process in “The Making Of” section, but happy to share more here if you have specific questions!
notavalleyman 1 hours ago [-]
My personal detector feedback is that this is slop, the images have the yellow fake sheen, none of the characters were drawn in an interesting way, and the text font is unreadable. The idea of submitting AI generated slop with 0% human input, and then burying it under 'making of' and not even admitting it here when asked, is a bad sign for me
Edit, to be less rude of me, clearly what you've worked hard on here is a chatgpt prompt which generates a fun comic. Why don't you submit that for discussion/comparison instead of a sample of model outputs without providing the prompt
miki_tyler 53 minutes ago [-]
Not my intention. I actually broke the process down by task and role in the themakingof/ section. If I had drawn the sketches myself, just the line work would’ve taken about 50% more time, before even getting to color.
As for the writing, the story, structure, dialogue, I’d say 90–95% of it is human-made. If there’s anything you’re curious about that’s not covered on the site, I’m happy to share more details.
whateveracct 5 minutes ago [-]
This reads to me like "I don't have the skill, so I don't understand what quality even means." Which is the main issue with using AI.
Comic art is as abstract, expressive, and integral to the final product as "story, structure, and dialogue." Using the art to express motion, setting, emotion, etc is so key. It's why most comic artists are masters of figure drawing.
cellis 41 minutes ago [-]
Pretty good. Reminds me of the Sword of Jupiter (Imperium series).
1 hours ago [-]
90s_dev 1 hours ago [-]
I always wondered if Archimedes could have realized more applications of his lever and invented the gear and kicked off the industrial revolution early.
miki_tyler 1 hours ago [-]
He might have a "cameo". At some point I will need the Romans to make screws and nuts!
krapp 1 hours ago [-]
The Antikythera mechanism was likely within Archimedes' lifetime or not long after his death, so he certainly knew what gears were.
1 hours ago [-]
kristopolous 2 hours ago [-]
I've always wondered if China was actually closer
Findeton 1 hours ago [-]
Nah they were too centralised. Actually I think the Greeks were closer by having city-states and inventing the aeolipile.
chucksmash 47 minutes ago [-]
The "Who invented the steam engine?"[0] section of "The Book of General Ignorance" refers to a "brilliant essay" by Arnold Toynbee that imagines a global Greek empire enabled by a rail network derived from combining the aeolopile and the Diolkos. I'd love to read that essay but they don't cite it and I have yet to come across it myself.
Absolutely. One of the reasons I chose ancient Rome over other settings is simply because, while I’m no expert, it’s the one I know the most about.
Findeton 57 minutes ago [-]
One of the problems with Rome was that by using slaves, the rich didn’t value work. People are more productive if they are compensated according to their productivity. Also the rich didn’t systematically reinvest their capital in the most productive way as capitalists do nowadays, instead they bought titles/positions, land or married their children.
miki_tyler 47 minutes ago [-]
That’s something I really want to explore. If Rome had an industrial revolution, where progress didn’t rely on slaves anymore, it could lead to big political conflicts. You’d have the old guard trying to hold on to power, and a new group pushing for change, a la American Revolution.
Rendered at 03:44:07 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Many inventions are like this. They seem simple in hindsight, but at the time, required putting together tools, techniques, materials and insight from multiple sources. There's an old BBC TV show called "Connections" that explores the origins of many modern technology and the often strange paths that led us there. For example, without people loving perfume, internal combustion engines might have taken decades longer to have been developed.
Kind of like how some countries in Africa skipped landlines and went straight to mobile phones, I can let the Romans stumble onto just the right ink recipe a bit early.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome,_Sweet_Rome
I think this is the original Reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/k067x/could_i_de...
Years since the founding of the City (Rome), Ab Urbe Condita. Although during Imperial times they used years since the current emperor started his mandate, ehich could be confusing as sometimes there would be three emperors in a year.
Btw I loved the comic and I will anxiously wait for the next edition.
The MC's hair colour and stubble change between the first three frames and everything has that yellow sheen.
Edit, to be less rude of me, clearly what you've worked hard on here is a chatgpt prompt which generates a fun comic. Why don't you submit that for discussion/comparison instead of a sample of model outputs without providing the prompt
As for the writing, the story, structure, dialogue, I’d say 90–95% of it is human-made. If there’s anything you’re curious about that’s not covered on the site, I’m happy to share more details.
Comic art is as abstract, expressive, and integral to the final product as "story, structure, and dialogue." Using the art to express motion, setting, emotion, etc is so key. It's why most comic artists are masters of figure drawing.
[0]: https://books.google.com/books?id=1Mjd2GCRPmAC&newbks=1&newb...