In his lifetime, the amazingly prolific Isaac Asimov wrote or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. Considered one of the three masters of hard science fiction (along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke), Asimov’s body of work spanned from the sprawling Foundation series to acclaimed short stories like Nightfall and The Bicentennial Man.
And while Nightfall has been acknowledged as the greatest science fiction short story of all time by literary critics the world over, Asimov personally considered The Last Question as his personal favorite. First published in the November 1956 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly, The Last Question was then reprinted in the collections Nine Tomorrows (1959), The Best of Isaac Asimov (1973), Robot Dreams (1986), the retrospective Opus 100 (1969), and in Isaac Asimov: The Complete Stories, Vol. 1. The short story has been adapted into numerous plays and has been aired on the radio countless times.
So it was only natural that the story about the Multivac computer be adapted for the internet age. Imgur user CardinalXim has uploaded the full story in webtoon/comic/graphic novel form, done up by a Ryul, and adapted from Korean into English by Supreme Cream Scanlations.
We will not spoil one of the greatest sci-fi stories ever written by giving away its plot, but suffice to say that this author, even after having read the story and all of Asimov’s works, emerged from the comic with teary eyes and a newfound consciousness that will, hopefully, last for some time.
Although we stumbled upon the webcomic (calling The Last Question that sounds so cheap, but there’s no better description) on our favorite image-sharing site, a little digging in the course of writing this report found us the original site where you can read the same thing, but with some very somber musical accompaniment. It is befitting of the great story, and we highly suggest you head there for the full experience.
But if you’d rather read the full story in its original text form, here’s the link to it.
And once you’re done with the comic, we’d suggest reading The Last Answer, another marvelous Asimov story that tackles a topic as vast as the one in The Last Question.
