Sydney Padua

Melina Sydney Padua is a graphic artist and animator. She is the author of the 2D Goggles webcomic and her animation work appears in several popular Hollywood films.

She has worked as character animator in feature films such as Marmaduke, Clash of the Titans, The Golden Compass, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The Iron Giant, and Quest for Camelot.

Her work has been exhibited at the BBC Tech Lab and at a Steampunk exhibition by Oxford's Museum of the History of Science. She gave a conference on storytelling at The Story, an event shared with Cory Doctorow, Tim Etchells, David Hepworth, Aleks Krotoski, and Tony White among others.

The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage
Sydney Padua writes the steampunk webcomic 2D Goggles or The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. It features a pocket universe where Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage have actually built an analytical engine and use it to "fight crime" at Queen Victoria's request. Also featured in the comic is the great engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, whom Padua has called "The Wolverine of the early Victorians. "

The comic is based on thorough research on the biographies and correspondence between Babbage and Lovelace, as well as other bits of early Victoriana, which is then twisted for humorous effect. "Some of the documents are more entertaining than the actual comic. Plenty of times, I've thrown something into the comic just so I'd have an excuse to refer to some document," Padua says.

The comic began as a one-shot for Ada Lovelace Day, a celebration of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Disliking the fact that both Babbage and Lovelace died with their life work incomplete, Padua ended the comic with the alternate events, then found that "a lot of people saw it and thought that I was actually going to do a comic, which I had no intention of doing. But then I started thinking, 'What if I actually did the comic?' I started fooling around, and I guess I'm still fooling around with it."

The comic was the source of a limited edition print of 25 to raise money for The Ada Initiative in July 2011. Episodes are also available as an iPhone app.