RASL
| RASL | |
|---|---|
Cover of the first issue.
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Cartoon Books (self-published) |
| Schedule | Bimonthly, originally 3 issues annually, typically delayed |
| Format | Ongoing series |
| Genre | |
| Publication date | February 2008 – August 2012 |
| Number of issues | 15 |
| Main character(s) | RASL Miles Riley Maya Riley |
| Creative team | |
| Writer(s) | Jeff Smith |
| Artist(s) | Jeff Smith |
| Creator(s) | Jeff Smith |
| Collected editions | |
| Volume 1: The Drift | |
| Volume 2: Fire of St. George | |
| Volume 3: Romance at the Speed of Light | |
| RASL color collected edition | |
RASL is a 2013 graphic novel by cartoonist Jeff Smith. A sci-fi noir, it is the story of RASL (Dr. Robert Joseph Johnson), an art thief who jumps to parallel universes in attempts to steal famous paintings, but runs into danger as he is pursued by the government.
RASL draws influences from real-life events, people, and places, including Nikola Tesla, Southwestern Native American culture, and hardboiled crime fiction. The book's central storyline is narrated extensively through the protagonist's thoughts, aided by the use of flashbacks to tell the story of his past. Smith's art style is high-contrast black-and-white, and is notably more detailed and "human" than his previous work Bone.
RASL originally appeared in serial form in an independently published black-and-white comic book published from 2008–2012.
Jeff Smith has stated that RASL came from a desire to do something completely different from his previous work Bone. He came up with the idea in 1999 during the process of inking Bone, inspired by his thoughts of how films like Blade Runner and the Bourne film series could come together. Smith then talked to cartoonists Paul Pope and Frank Miller about the idea and gained support. Smith postponed his idea on RASL as to complete Bone, and came back to it in 2007. He developed an idea of how the story would end and what would happen but needed to organize it into a full-fledged story. He flew out to Arizona, as he knew the story would be set in the desert. He found the quiet and heat helped him develop his ideas for the story and characters. Smith was also interested in the visual aspects of film noir, such as intense angles, heavy shadows, and a sense of discomfort. He then spent a year researching the latest in the theories of physics, M-theory, and string theory from the work of Brian Greene, Stephen Hawking, and Carl Sagan to get a feel of what scientists believe is happening with parallel worlds.
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