In a marriage made at Intel Corp., the Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am has partnered with futurist Brian David Johnson on a new comic book, Wizards & Robots. Both the multi-talented entertainer and the futurist work with Intel (INTC) in different capacities, and it's their introduction there that led to the creative collaboration that has crafted a transmedia take on comics. The prequel to the IDW Publishing graphic novel trilogy, The Hope Algorithm, which is available free through the creators' Tumblr (YHOO) site, made its debut at New York Comic Con last month. The first graphic novel, which features art from Batman: Arkham City artist Adam Archer, launches in March 2014.

    "The idea [for Wizards & Robots] came from Brian's work around robotics and my work around science, technology, engineering and mathematics for inner city kids," said the Black Eyed Peas frontman (given name: Will Adams). "I was concerned about the lack of funding we have in education in inner cities, juxtaposed against the advancement in robotics and micro processing."

    Adams's living room on Halloween 2011 was the birthplace for this new universe, which focuses on robots from the future that come back and do battle with a group of wizards. What separates this comic from other sci-fi works, besides its creators, is that it's based in reality. "It's based on real robotics and the magic is from quantum physics," said Johnson, who tracks the breakthroughs in modern-day robotics. "We've really started designing robots so they could possibly have emotions. We design them to actually act like and interact with people."

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    The comic is set in the present day: elements such as how time travel could occur are explained for readers, and there's even a new language created for and included in the story. Adams and Johnson worked together on it outside of Intel to build this universe, which they hope will eventually expand with the help of others. "We wanted to make sure that we gave real contextual details on what the story is about before launching the graphic novel so that anybody else, whether it's film or video games, that wants to collaborate and turn this into different media properties has a greater sense of what our vision is for Wizards & Robots," said Adams.

    In fact, one offshoot of the universe has already become reality. New York Comic Con also saw the debut of 200 Kaku robot sculptures. Technology, which is a driving force within the fictional universe, played a key role in bringing the miniature sculptures and the larger-scale replica that was featured at the Intel Comic Con booth to life.

    合唱团黑眼豆豆（Black Eyed Peas）主唱Will.i.am在加入英特尔公司（Intel Corp.）后，与未来派画家布莱恩•大卫•约翰逊合作，推出了全新漫画书《巫师与机器人》（Wizards & Robots）。这两位才华横溢的艺人在英特尔公司各施所长，而正是有赖他们创造性的合作，才诞生了这部跨媒体的漫画作品。这部漫画小说三部曲将由IDW出版集团（IDW Publishing）出版，前传《希望算法》（The Hope Algorithm）可以在作者的Tumblr微博客上免费阅读，并已在上个月的纽约国际动漫展（New York Comic Con）上初次登台亮相。小说的第一部中有《蝙蝠侠：阿卡姆之城》（Batman: Arkham City）的画师亚当•阿彻作品的影子，将于2014年3月出版。

    黑眼豆豆的主唱（本名威尔•亚当斯）说：“（这本漫画书的）想法来源于布莱恩在机器人技术领域上的工作，以及我在为市中心的孩子进行STEM（科学、技术、工程和数学）教育的体会。我很关注市中心在教育上的资金紧缺问题，也同样关心机器人技术和微处理技术的进展。”

    漫画小说中的世界于2011年万圣节诞生在亚当斯的客厅里。在这个世界里，从未来返回的机器人与一群巫师展开了对决。与其他科幻作品相比，这部小说的不同之处除了作者之外，还在于它有着事实根据。约翰逊一直在关注当今机器人技术上的重大突破，他说：“这个世界是根据真实的机器人技术架构的，而里面的魔法都来源于量子物理学。我们确实已经开始设计机器人，它们也许能有感情。我们要把它们设计得能够像人一样行动，能与人交流。”

    漫画的故事背景被设定在当代：故事中向读者解释了如何才能时空旅行这类的问题，里面甚至还创造并使用了一种新的语言。亚当斯和约翰逊利用在英特尔的工作之余展开合作，创造了这个世界。他们相信，在其他人的帮助下，这个世界以后会进一步扩大。亚当斯说：“我们希望确保在这本漫画小说出版之前，讲清故事真正的来龙去脉。这样一来，无论是电影制片人还是游戏开发商，只要他们想和我们合作，把这个故事转变为不同的媒体形式，都能够充分了解到我们对这个故事抱有怎样的想法。”

    实际上，这个世界中提到的一点已经变成了现实。纽约国际动漫展（New York Comic Con）上，200个卡酷机器人（Kaku robot）模型首次亮相。这部小说的世界中的驱动力量：技术，是让这些小模型和更多的模型复制品栩栩如生的关键因素。这些模型成为了这次国际动漫展的特色之一。

    "Four months ago I was emailed a rendering of Kaku, and now he's real," said Adams, referring to the robot historian from the year 3000 that's a central character in the story. "All that creativity and collaboration used to just be in our heads and now it's come to life." Adams refers to the phenomenon of technology democratizing the creative process: "We call it VAVADA, which is Visual, Audio, Virtual to Actual, Digits to Atoms. It's the power of VAVADA right now in society."

    In addition to action figures, Adams is excited about the video-game potential for this new universe. He previously worked with Microsoft (MSFT) and Ubisoft (UBSFY) on the Kinect Xbox 360 dance music game, The Black Eyed Peas Experience. "The computational power in today's video games are just amazing," he said. "I grew up with a joystick in my hand. I grew up with Atari 2600. To see the level of intelligence and the types of games and the artificial intelligence that's actually in them, that's just amazing how sophisticated games are now and how you can now physically interact with them like you couldn't before."

    Wizards & Robots offers an escape for Adams to relive his childhood, while at the same time helping to shed light on the power of STEM education for kids. He grew up reading traditional comics like Superman, Spider-Man and Batman, and watched cartoons like Transformers,Centurions and Mighty Max. He even appeared as John Wraith in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. "I'm still like a kid," Adams said. "I'm an adult that's been brought up in this society and culture, but my curiosity is still like a kid. That's where this interpretation of merging real science and robotics within a fantastic fantasy world came from."

    The secret to Adams's success in multiple business ventures has been the partners he's teamed up with, he says.

    "It's all the power of your collaboration and your circle of people that you can potentially collaborate with," said Adams. "It's the same with my hardware like Beats headphones or Intel ultrabooks. I'm happy for that to be a part of an extension of my creativity."

    In case it's not completely obvious by this point, Adams is fascinated by technology. He's been involved with organizations like NASA and FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) that push technology forward, while promoting the education of science.

    "Computers amplify my ideas and my life," he said. "Being able to spit ideas into a computer to make and compose songs and share them with the world in real-time just fascinated me. It sparked my curiosity to go from writing songs on computers to wanting to learn how to program code on computers. Now I'm taking a computer science course at MIT as a result of my passion for technology."

    That passion has also led to a new project for the musician, although he won't go into much detail at the moment. But it does involve two of his loves: robots and music.

    "There are some things that I'm dabbling in with other folks that I'm creating with that I want to reveal in 2014, when it comes to machines and composing music," he said. "I'm working on that now, actually."

    For now, Adams is going to score the soundtrack for Wizards & Robots with the Prague Philharmonic. The score will fuse computer music with orchestral compositions. He is also working on an app and a hyper-interactive website for the graphic novel. And the future looks bright for this new IP.

    故事的主人公之一是从公元3000年穿越回来的机器人历史学家。谈到这位虚构的人物时，亚当斯说：“四个月前，我在电子邮箱里收到了一张卡酷机器人的草图，如今他已经变成真的了。”他还提到了实现创意过程的技术现象：“创意和合作原来都只存在于我们的脑海，现在已经变成了现实。我们把它称作VAVADA，即将视觉的、听觉的、虚拟的东西转化为现实的东西，将数据转化为由原子组成的实物。这就是人类现在VAVADA的能力。”

    除了会动的机器人之外，亚当斯还对故事里这个新世界的电子游戏潜力感到兴奋。他曾经为微软（Microsoft）和育碧（Ubisoft）开发Kinect Xbox 360的音乐跳舞游戏《黑眼豆豆：生涯》（The Black Eyed Peas Experience）。“如今电子游戏的运算能力令人惊讶。我自己就是握着游戏操纵杆长大的，游戏机雅达利2600伴随着我的童年。看看游戏的智力水平、游戏的种类和游戏里的人工智能，现在的游戏是多么复杂细致。大家可以通过身体与它们互动，这是以前做不到的。这是多么令人惊奇的事情啊。”

    《巫师与机器人》让亚当斯能有机会重温童年。与此同时，这个故事还对学生的STEM教育有所帮助。亚当斯是看着传统漫画《超人》（Superman）、《蜘蛛侠》（Spider-Man）和《蝙蝠侠》（Batman），动画卡通《变形金刚》（Transformers）、《正义战士》（Centurions）和《万能麦斯》（Mighty Max）长大的。他甚至还在《X战警前传：金刚狼》（X-Men Origins: Wolverine）中出演了“幻影”约翰•瑞斯。他说：“我现在仍然像个孩子。在这个社会和文化氛围中，我长成了一个成年人，但我的好奇心依然像孩子一样。所以我在奇妙的幻想世界中融入了真实的科学和机器人技术。”

    亚当斯表示，他在许多企业中获得成功的秘诀在于他选择了好的合作伙伴。

    亚当斯说：“这就是你有可能与之合作的人际圈的力量。这就像我的Beats耳机或英特尔超级本一样。我很高兴让这些成为我的创造力的延伸。”

    如果说这一点并不是体现得十分明显，亚当斯还对技术十分着迷。他还与美国国家航空航天局（NASA）和科技灵感与认知组织（FIRST, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology）这类推动技术进步、同时促进科学教育的机构有着密切的联系。

    他说：“计算机拓展了我的想法和我的生活。能够把自己的想法输入电脑，创作和编写歌曲，并与全世界实时分享，这深深吸引了我。它激发了我的好奇心，让我从在计算机上写歌发展到希望学习如何编写程序。我对技术充满热情，现在还在麻省理工学院（MIT）进修计算机科学课程。”

    这种热情还带领着他开展了一个新的音乐项目，尽管他目前还不愿意透露太多细节。其中包含两项他的爱好：机器人和音乐。

    他说：“我和其他人正在创作一些东西，我打算在2014年公布出来。它涉及到机器和作曲。实际上，我正在忙着这个呢。”

    目前，亚当斯打算与布拉格爱乐乐团（Prague Philharmonic）合作，为《巫师和机器人》配乐。音乐会结合电脑音乐和管弦乐的风格。他还在制作一款应用，同时还在设计一个与这部漫画小说有关的网站，其中包括大量互动内容。总之，这部新的原创作品看起来前途一片大好。（财富中文网）

    译者：严匡正