About
Mad Art Lab is a group blog about the intersection of art, science, skepticism, and geek culture. All Mad Art Lab contributors are artists representing a variety of media like webcomics, music, writing, and performance art. This blog is part of the Skepchick Network.
WHO is WHO
 Amy Davis Roth a.k.a. Surly Amy is the fearless leader and managing editor of this team of super-intelligent and highly creative artists poised to take over the universe. They keep talking about the world but Amy has bigger plans. Amy is a visual artist who resides in the heart of Hollywood, California. She is the creator and maker of Surly-Ramics. She also writes for Skepchick.org and kicks ass on a daily basis. Follow her on twitter @SurlyAmy. |
 Steve is a computer programmer living in North Carolina. His Mad Art Lab superpowers include satire and making weird crafty things, neither of which are much good if you’re interested in world domination. Not that he is, of course. Oh sure, if they were taking applications for the World Emperor position, he’d at least consider sending in his resume. Y’know, assuming it paid well and had a decent vision plan. In the meantime, Steve is content to run the webcomic Tree Lobsters and write scripts for Death By Puppets. He’s also the third-best cheesecake baker on Mad Art Lab. Maybe fourth. Definitely in the top ten. |
 Maggie was born under a bad sign. It was poorly laid out and used an ugly font. During the day she runs an IT organization, wrestles servers and reads a crapload of email. But when the night comes, she repairs to her hidden island fortress where she plots the downfall of reality television and builds things — robots and electronics mostly, but sometimes movie props and replicas. She’s also an organizer for Boston Skeptics and draws a webcomic called SacreMoo. If you wanted to know more about her, you could visit her website, I guess. |
 Ryan is an engineering graduate student living in Waterloo, Ontario. When not destroying things for science, he is a sculptor, armor smith, art teacher, writer, juggler and nerd. His Mad Art Lab Superpowers include mathamancy and illusions. To him, global domination seems like rather a lot of work and he’d much rather spend the time building things and eating cake. |
 Maki Naro is a master draughtsman and a graduate of the John J. Hephaestus School of Metallurgical Artifice. In Japan, he studied the art of mounted archery, or Kyuudo, and can hit a man from a 100 yards while riding at full gallop. He has only done this once, and he hasn’t been back to Japan since. Currently, he runs the webcomic Sci-ənce, where he draws comics about science. But the height of his career was when he created an animated SuperEgo short that was featured on FunnyorDie.com. Maki is an incurable geek and a lover of small animals, cooking, and the movie, Blade Runner. He is also filled with gooey nougat. |
 Cloë Ashton is a carbon based food tube who enjoys a peaceful existence on Earth in the 21st century. In order to put food through her tube she works hard drawing things that will make other food tubes happy enough to give her green paper. Green paper isn’t very good to eat, but you can usually trade it for better tube food. Visit her website obviouslycloe.com and follow her on twitter @Obviously_Cloe. |
 Smashley realized her destiny to become a saxophone player after a bite from a radioactive jazz musician left her incapable of enjoying a song’s tonic note. She can often be spotted cavorting around Chicago playing tenor with a funk band in seedy rock venues, playing various woodwinds with a musical’s pit orchestra at swanky theaters, and playing awful guitar chords when she’s all alone in her darkened room behind a sign that says “Keep Out – That Means You, MOM.” She also writes for a living, but if she told you where, she’d have to kill you. In her free time, she enjoys running on the beach with her beloved husband and two dogs, all of which are imaginary. She does not actually live with her mom. |
 Anne Sauer is less interested in dominating the world than she is in dominating your palate. An atheist with a passion for science, good food, and feminism, Anne enjoys helping San Franciscans of legal drinking age bring a little nerdiness to their imbibing as a member of Cocktail Lab. Anne is also one of the organizers of the San Francisco Atheist Film Festival, the oldest film fest of its kind. If you like pictures of homemade food and fluffy kitties, you should follow her on Twitter @aynsavoy. |
 Victor scrawled plans for world domination on the bars of his crib when he was little and if he ever tracks down that crib, the world will be a much better place, or at least it would have better cheesecake. Until such a time, he spends his days writing poems describing the wonders of the natural world and taking apart irrational arguments. He can be found asleep at the wheel after being up in the wee hours of the night making cheesecake and mumbling to himself during his more lucid moments. On the more frequent occasion that he is less than lucid, he can be found participating in arguments on the internet. If you live near the San Francisco Bay Area, you can order one of his creations at reuschelles.com and meet the man in person to find out why you should support his scheme for world domination. |
 Brian George is an illustrator who lives and works in the Van Beardswick neighborhood of Brooklyn. His fierce love of cheesecake is often (but not always) thwarted by his intolerance for lactose. He will draw and paint for your amusement (‘amusement’ is archaic Etruscan slang for ‘money’). Visit his portfolio at bgeorgestudio.com and follow his tweets @brianggeorgeBrian’s Top Seven Jeopardy! Dream Categories would be:
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 Melissa S. Kaercher is a visual arts Jane-of-all-trades. Her body of work includes work in comics, writing, photography, filmmaking, performance art, archaeology, and the biological sciences. She holds a BS of Biology from the University of Minnesota, which she garnered while also working on a BA of Fine Arts. She lords over an ever-growing collection of zombie movies, computers, and Godzilla action figures. She lives in Minneapolis, MN, and on Twitter (as @chebutykin). She has proclaimed herself to be the Queen of the Lizard People. |
 Maria Walters (a.k.a. Masala Skeptic) has spent a lot of time in ‘furrin parts,’ including Hong Kong, Kenya,Trinidad, and Pittsburgh. Although her passport is from India, she’s spent most of her adult life in the United States. She currently lives in Atlanta and is a founding member of the Atlanta Skeptics. She has an unhealthy affection for science fiction, puppies, Neil Gaiman and all things Muppet. She is a producer and puppeteer for the upcoming webseries Death By Puppets and eats cheesecake as often as she can. Follow her escapades on Twitter: @masalaskeptic. |
 Donna is the sole proprietor of Sheer Brick Studio, an award-winning design shop in the Historic District of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She has the great fortune to work with good guys who specialize in being talented badasses. She’s a preferred vendor to her clients, Ms. Information for George Hrab and the Geologic Universe, the Diva of Design for Dark Øverlord Media, the media technician for her city’s Mounted Police, and now, a Skepchick at Mad Art Lab. Donna likes cheesecake and world domination but would much prefer a plate of ziti and a nice Sangiovese. She enjoys the occasional ribald typography joke. If the design industry tanks, Donna’s backup plan is working as a dominatrix named Madame Ligature. |
 Laurent is an editor and freelance children’s illustrator who lives in London, UK, with her husband, two cats and a rabbit. The topics you’ll most likely find accompanying Laurent are children’s education, the media and occassionally her love of dinosaurs. When not editing or drawing Laurent likes to roller skate marathons, sing alto in the British Humanist Association choir and learn the cello. If she wasn’t an editor she’d be a paleontologist, and if she wasn’t a human she’d be a dinosaur. Her favourite dinosaur is Triceratops, because they look like they’d be perfect for a good cuddle. Follow her on Twitter: @mrs_laurent |
 Raven is a science nerd, artist, and writer who endeavors to share her wonder of nature in creative ways. She has a Ph.D. in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University, worked as a postdoc at UC Berkeley, and completed graduate training in science communication at UC Santa Cruz. Recently she moved from San Francisco to the side of the most active volcano in the world in rural Hawai’i, where she lives in a solar-powered old sugar shack and ferments kimchee and fruit wines. She plays ukulele, swims with sea turtles, grows exotic fruits, and hikes to see flowing lava whenever possible. She also makes pretty, shiny silver molecules, which can be found at madewithmolecules.com. She is a bit stubborn and is easily distracted. |
 Seelix, aka Emily, is a Science Communicator, Forensic Anthropologist, Costumer and QA Analyst, sometimes, but not usually, all at once. She is not actually in the business of world domination herself, but she will be designing the uniforms and hiding the bodies for our future overlords. Strengths: textile manipulation, cultural theory, mad cocktail skills, and explaining big concepts in little words. Weaknesses: Every time she hears someone misuse poisonous or venomous, she must make a 4d10 willpower check for at least 35 or she has to stop everything she’s doing and correct the offender. Weapons of choice: pedantry, sarcasm, the eye-searing purple of her Batgirl costume, too many degrees, and her top-secret Mai Tai recipe. Emily can usually be found lurking in dark corners of the internet as Seelix on Twitter, on Google+ and even occasionally at her blog This View of Life. She has been drafted into being an organizer for the Skeptical Society of Cincinnati, but she hasn’t quite figured out exactly what that means yet. |
 Sparklecorn started life as a regular unicorn, but when he fell on hard times he began participating in test studies for extra income. The mix of rx drugs and shock therapy twisted his mind and physical appearance and made it all but impossible for Sparklecorn to function in the real world. Thus Sparklecorn became the first of many Mad Art creations to become permanently housed in the Mad Art Lab. |
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