A look back at the Launch Night for Eliza - The Ghost in Every Machine, hosted by Imperial College London, on the 20th of October 2025.

On the 20th of October 2025, Imperial College London kindly hosted the Launch Night for Eliza - The Ghost in Every Machine➚, where I launched my “Complete Cartoon Collection”, a 184 page, self-published hardback that collects all the cartoons I’d been drawing since 2021, which originally went out on my website and social media.

I’d drawn these cartoons weekly between March of 2021, and October of 2023, and I’d spend about two years since completing the book layouts, additional art and design, and printing and publishing.

Additionally, I had spent the previous 12 months finishing a 32 page paperback comic “Imagine with Eliza”, which takes the project to the world of speculative fiction anthology. This will be a part of an upcoming graphic novel far off in the distance.

The realists of larger realities

The reason why I write and draw Eliza at all, is because technology isn’t working for us the way it was supposed to. The implications of technological products coming out of Silicon Valley today are against their own principles of making life better. There is so much to kick back against in 2025.

The way things are going need to be critiqued, and better futures need to be imagined.

We started the session with a snippet from this talk by Ursula Le Guin, which in my head was a great way to set the theme for what the Eliza project stands for.

I wanted to bring in voices who tackle different aspects of the same problem that I think about, in their own ways.

For this, we had Diego Muñoz Iglesias➚, showing his group project ‘Surya Arka’ that recycles Solar Panels. To me, it was a wonderful, hands on, optimistic solution to a problem that might be few years away from being incredibly mainstream. Diego and his team’s solution lies a few years ahead.

Next, Arthur Gouillart➚ showed his work realising speculative artefacts with the artist Marguerite Humeau through engineering and mechanical design; and speculative writing. Arthur has always been strong at imagining concepts that are far beyond the obvious.

Following this, I did a deep dive on the making of the book in about 30 minutes. Here, I touched upon:

The history of the name ‘Eliza’➚, and it’s connection to the MIT chatbot.
How one of my design principles was to treat the project as if it was big and established already, and you just didn’t know about it. The character should feel like you may have seen it somewhere. This translates to the character design, and to the book layout and typography choices
The evolution of Eliza’s character design through the years.
The many technological, philosophical, design, and social topics that Eliza touches upon.
A critique of how Silicon Valley technologies take from dystopian novels… unironically, to make inventions out of them! Eg. The Metaverse.
A reflection on how technology used to be exciting, not exhausting; and how there’s so much to kick back against in today’s tech landscape. So Eliza can always be relevant.
How I started by deliberately sitting down to collect evidence of what’s happening around us to write about, but how it’s become natural instinct now.
How I went back and edited out every mention of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ or AI from the book, because I want the book to last beyond the hype that we are in right now. More here➚.
How going to the Hergé Museum➚ was the key moment that inspired me to make a physical, hardback, book with Bande Dessinée stylings.
How I wanted to make something that’s more substantial than online ‘content’, that’s frivolous and fickle.
How I ended up buying a small library’s worth of graphic novels of my own, from indie English language comics to Bande Dessinée that were instrumental in making my own book.
Here are a selected few books I’m inspired by; Rusty Brown  Chris Ware, Palookaville by  Seth, A River at Night by  Kevin Huizenga, Total Swarte by  Joost Swarte, The World of Edena by  Moebius (Jean Giraud), Monsieur Jean by  Dupuy et Berberian, Tintin series by  Hergé, and Astro Boy by  Osamu Tezuka.
How I evolved visual elements including the “Higgledy-piggledy” typography (as I call it), a Ligne Claire➚ art style, the cover layout, the endpapers, the design of fictional products in the book and much more.
How the book ends up feeling like a Frankenstein’s monster: somewhere between speculative design academic books, short speculative fiction anthologies, and comics.
The traction the project has received so far.
And finally a reading of some pages from “Imagine with Eliza”, the future direction for the project.

Finally, I sat down for some Q&A led by Audrey Gaulard and Arthur Gouillart.

The event had over 90 people attending it! Here are some retrospective social media posts from Wigy Ramadhan➚, Wen Yang➚, and me➚.

A special thanks to:

Imperial College @idecourse for hosting us!
Diego Muñoz Iglesias @diegomuig for sharing his team’s Surya Arka project: an optimistic future made real.
Arthur Gouillart @arthurgouillart for his writing on speculation and his production work with Marguerite Humeau.
Larissa Kunstel-Tabet @makerbakerabroad for the beautiful cake.
Sam McKenney for ushering guests in.
Audrey Gaulard @audreynicoleg for masterminding the event, logistics, and so much more.
And to Juliet Roe @julie.bubble, my amazing partner, for holding down the shop, and for years of inspiration and support.