Comics geeks we love: James Kakalios

When booking an author for an in-store signing, Chicago Comics doesn’t typically line up non-fiction prose writers. But then again, James Kakalios is no ordinary academic author. He easily held the attention of his audience at last spring’s C2E2, the Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo — we were there, laughing with the crowd (and watching the room fill up with new attendees as people texted and tweeted to their friends). So this evening’s two-hour appearance should be a highly entertaining geekapalooza as Kakalios dissects the science behind much of our beloved pop culture.

A University of Minnesota professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy, Kakalios first stepped into publishing in 2005 with The Physics of Superheroes. In those pages, he applied his trademark wit to various subjects, like how Superman can fly and whether physics professor Ray Palmer could really harness the power of a white dwarf star to become the Atom. Most compellingly, he settled a long-simmering debate among comics geeks: What really killed Gwen Stacy after the Green Goblin tossed her off the bridge? (Spoiler alert: The answer doesn’t reflect well on the last-second rescue attempt of a distraught Spidey.)

In his latest book, The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics: A Math-Free Exploration of the Science that Made Our World (Gotham Books, $26), Kakalios adapts his approach to a wider range of material, peering into sci-fi and pulp fiction along with superhero comics, explaining how the science fiction of our not-too-distant past sometimes translates into science reality today. The book also contains some of the insights Kakalios provided as a consultant to Watchmen filmmakers regarding the fantastical nature of Dr. Manhattan, the naked blue de facto deity. (His video about the character, included with the DVD release, can be seen here.)

“This [new book] reaches across the genres,” says Eric Thornton, Chicago Comics manager. “It covers a lot of Buck Rogers-y stuff. He writes about how these crazy-cool abstract ideas from the past turned into things we use every day — like, an MRI machine — but just not in the way we ever anticipated.”

Kakalios will be speaking and signing books at Chicago Comics (3244 N Clark St, 773-528-1983) from 5-7.