Coiled Comics

Nikola Tesla

By Peter

The life of Nikola Tesla, the Serbian-born inventor, weaves itself in and out of Coiled. I had stumbled on a biography of Tesla as a teenager, and became somewhat obsessed by this eccentric genius. One of his many inventions was the Tesla coil, which radiated electromagnetic waves with enough power to light up light bulbs at a distance, but which were harmless to people. (Well, at least as far as anyone could tell at the time.)

Tesla envisioned cities powered by Tesla coils. I was a teenager during the 1970s energy crisis, and I knew that a system that wasted so much energy was not practical. But I could imagine a space station powered by the sun, having more energy than it could ever know what to do with, using Tesla coils to provide energy to its inhabitants.

Now, what exactly is Space Station Tesla, and how did Joshua’s mother know about it so that she could tell Joshua bedtime stories? All in good time.