This is a reflective essay about my comic Thin Air, about the counter-intuitive fact that trees build themselves from carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. They are built from exactly the same stuff that breezes past their trunks! This essay describes my research process, including my view that van Helmont was actually a bad scientist.
Read the rest of this entry »
This is a reflective essay about my comic Type III. I describe the underlying concept of ecological succession, and reveal how I decided that Mount St. Helens should form the backdrop to my comic. I also mention real-life examples of Type III systems, such as the Kalundborg Eco-Industrial Park.
Read the rest of this entry »
This is a reflective essay about my comic Supernormal Stimuli. The comic is about the work of ethologist Niko Tinbergen, and was inspired by reading a book by psychologist Deirdre Barrett. I discuss where my dinosaur ‘reptile brain’ artwork concept came from.
Read the rest of this entry »
This is a reflective essay about my comic Purpose. The comic was hugely influenced by the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. This essay shares the headspace I was in when writing Purpose.
Read the rest of this entry »
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn was my favourite book that I read in 2011. Broadly about the concept of ‘sustainability’, it is a book about the author’s quest to understand the deep reasons why our civilisation acts in destructive ways.
Read the rest of this entry »
