Here There Be Science

Hello!

My name is Maki, and like many (but not all!) of us here at Mad Art Lab, I am an illustrator. I’ve been a drawer my whole life and a blogger for about four years now. That said, this is the first time I’ve ever written on anybody else’s blog. So if I seem overly cautious, you can blame it on me not wanting to make myself too at home. Conversely, if I seem boisterous or, Jeebus forbid, ribald, well, you can blame that on never having written on another blog before too. Guy’s gotta make some time for posturing.  My story begins last December when I decided to get off my rear, roll up my sleeves, and show the world how science, skepticism, and art are done. So I made a webcomic. You know, shoot real low.

Together with my partner-in-crime Nadir, we began drawing comics and writing articles for what became Sci-ənce! A Skeptical Comic and Blog. With Sci-ənce, I wanted to create a comic that would promote skepticism through the humorous ribbing of pseudoscience, superstition, and logical fallacy. It’s a way to tell people, “What you believe is silly. But we can all laugh about it“. The pill of truth is a bitter one to swallow, and it was my hope that through humor coupled with informative articles, we could make it go down much easier. Now we find ourselves here at MAL, and we’re bringing more than just funny names to this joint. Nadir and I will be systematically covering you with the effluvia of empirical knowledge in the context of the art world. In a way, we turn the the mirror on ourselves as artist/sci-ence-tists. It sort of looks like this:

Alright, so I got carried away after seeing some Holbein prints, the idea is that we have complimentary strengths and viewpoints that I hope you, as our readers, will find both Educational and Entertaining, or Entercational. If the concept of Yin and Yang weren’t one of the cornerstones of Traditional Chinese Medicine (See: Crap), we would be it.

Since I will be continuing to produce thrice weekly romps over at Sci-ənce! in parallel to art and articles here at Mad Art Lab, I’m going to be writing about topics more directly related to art/sci. Since this is a topic that I myself have only recently begun exploring in my own work, it’ll be a fun, magical mystery tour through the world of art about science, and science about art. On top of that, I will be throwing every relevant morsel of artsy-science goodness I can find in your direction.

If you’re still with me, tune in on Friday for the second part of this introductory article. I promise to use the word ‘feces’ only once.

It was a pleasure meeting you all. Say it with me now: SCIENCE!

If you’d like to get in touch with me, here’s how!

Comment here! I’m easily confused by e-mail coming in from all directions. Plus I love blog post comments. WIN/WIN

You can add Sci-ənce! on twitter @sciencecomic. I’ve pretty much co-opted it as my own.

Feel free to find me on Facebook as well.