By Schultz, Cannon & Cannon
Publisher: Hill & Wang
ISBN: 9780809089475
What I’ve always loved about comics and cartoons is the way they can introduce you to moments in history, distant places and cutting edge scientific and technological thinking which can then go on to spark an interest in something deeper. Usually this happens within the context of a broader narrative, but every now and again along comes a cartoon strip that only exists to exploit the unique aspects of the medium.
The Stuff Of Life is written by Mark Schultz, famous for his utterly splendid Xenozoic Tales (or Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, depending when and where you’ve read it) and illustrated by Zander Cannon and Kevin Cannon who illustrated the excellent true story of the 1800s’ palaeontological rivalry between Cope and Marsh in Bone Sharps, Cowboys & Thunder Lizards.
The aim of the book is explain the intricacies of genetics, starting with the very basics, using cartoon representations to get across the trickier concepts. To make it flow and tie the threads together, the strip is given an over-arching narrative of an alien reporting back to his home world about how human genetics works compared to their own (they reproduce by duplicating their gentic make up, so essentially cloning, whereas human reproduction involves the combining of genetic material). Because we see it through their eyes, the explanations have to start small and simple and they build in complexity as the strip moves on, covering adenines to zygotes and from cytokinesis to parthenogenisis.
Complicated inner workings of cells, for example, are cartoonified, so we can easily follow the processes within, and are given further clarity by the questions and explanations of the alien reporter and his audience.
It’s a strikingly elegant and comprehensive way to get across the complexity and scale of the subject matter, and it’s quite good fun too.
As an introduction to genetics, or even as a top up to those of us who have dabbled further with popular science books, it’s entertaining, absorbing and easy to get into, and the perfect example of why the art of cartooning deserves a greater respect for what it can achieve.
And if you liked that: See if you can find a copy of Bone Sharps, Cowboys & Thunder Lizards
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