A Comic Biography of Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand — born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum, but renamed herself after her Rand typewriter — is a great philosopher to some (my girlfriend, for one), and an overrated hack to others (Yours Truly, for instance). My girlfriend’s licence plate frame asks “Who is John Galt?” and my own internal voice usually answers “No one you’d really want to know.”

I’ve read Rand’s stuff, and back when I was a young adolescent fascinated with computers, it held some fascination for me, partly because I was a teenage boy with all the associated self-centredness, and partly because Rand’s writing appeals to geeks with their revenge fantasies. It’s lost its appeal and isn’t really for me, and if it’s for you, well, I try not to let politics get in the way of personal relationships, as my continuing status of Really Awesome Boyfriend shows.

I don’t think any Rand fans will be fans of the comic biography created by Darryl Cunningham, but it does put a little context behind her writing — and maybe even her being a fan of the 1970s TV series Charlie’s Angels. There’s an excerpt below, and you can read the full comic (so far) at Act-i-vate.