Author(s) End date 2001 | Launch date 1998 | |
Similar The Dreamland Chronicles, Acme Novelty Library, Liberty Meadows, Mutts, Terry and the Pirates | ||
Astounding Space Thrills is a webcomic by Steve Conley that ran from 1998 until 2001. Consisting of around 500 pages, Conley made use of GIF images and an early precursor to a "share" button while creating Astounding Space Thrills. The series have been remastered into a comic book series published by Image Comics and it was remastered again in 2016 as a webcomic.
Contents
Synopsis
Apparently inspired by early science fiction serials, Astounding Space Thrills follows the adventures of Argosy Smith around the year 2030. He is often accompanied on his adventures by Theremin, formerly a human antique dealer whose body is now composed of "bioglop".
Publication
The pages of Astounding Space Thrills was originally published online as 468 pixels wide GIF images, to allow it to be self-syndicated while keeping the file size low. Dial-up connections were still the main way to reach the web in the late 1990s, and Conley was primarily concerned with keeping his work available online. He was working with much higher quality images, however, and simply scaled them down as he published them. Because he kept the original files, Conley was able to release higher quality versions of Astounding Space Thrills later on.
Conley released his webcomic in comic book form in 2003, which he distributed for free at various comic book conventions. In 2008, IDW Publishing published the strip collection Astounding Space Thrills: Argosy Smith and the Codex Reckoning. It was nominated for a 2009 Harvey Award for Best Domestic Reprint Project. In 2016, Conley started releasing a remastered version of his webcomic on his personal website.