Beanworld: Hither and Thither!

I've been so busy lately I've been neglecting my usual outlets to communicate with the world that exists outside of the four walls of the inner sanctum of my studio. Had some 'puter troubles too. Those are never fun.

My mail box has had stuff piling up for a while now and it's time to break the log jam and share some things with you over the coming days and weeks. Let's start with this:

This is graphic is from an essay on energycollective's blog titled "The Big Big Picture" written by Michael Tobis.

As he wrote:

"This is my crude attempt at the Big Big Picture (thanks to Larry Marder for the name) of our actual circumstances, focusing on climate. (There are other slices through it that are equally daunting, and they have similar shapes.)

The point is to think of the world as a feedback control system, with nature as the plant, humans as the feedback loop, and economic behavior as the actuator."

I'm a cartoonist not a scientist.
Everything I do seems to be grounded more in sense of touch rather than logical thought but my work often seems to strike a resonant chord amongst members of the scientific community.
(This would stun and amaze my high school science teachers I assure you!)

Anyway...the piece has some truly interesting ideas and is well worth a read!

Brian McDonald at Hellsquid International posted an insightful piece about various aspects of the history of Beanworld that are often overlooked:

"It sounds a bit silly on the surface, but again, if you look at the details, how every little piece fits together, and nothing is wasted, you see the hidden depths that Marder has put into this work. Not only into the ecosystem, though. Marder has put pieces of his own life into the book. "

And one last thing.
This will get its own secret origin blog post but the word is out on this.

Beanworld in Science!

Beanworld has the best fans!

Not so long ago, I received a an email that included the following:

My name is Leigh Boerner, and I'm a freelance science writer and longtime Beanworld fan. I'm VERY excited about the re-releasing of the Beanworld series, and about the new material you're coming out with. I think it's a great series (obviously), and I find it really sad that a lot of people I know, even people who are into comics, have no idea what Beanworld is.

Leigh asked me if she and I could have a chat about Beanworld in advance of her pitch and I agreed. She and her husband, Nels, clearly have given Beanworld a lot of thought over time and the conversation Leigh and I had was lengthy and different than many of my previous interviews.

Science's book editor, Sherman Suter commissioned a review and Between Leigh, Sherman, Jacq Cohen at Dark Horse, everyone had copies of Beanworld stuff and the article came together very, very fast.

It's a terrific article directed a highly select scientific readership. I think Leigh did a tremendous job hitting all of the essential Beanworld notes.

I just got a note from her that everyone can now s
neak under the edge of the Science tent through her website.

So, if you are curious, use this link.

It will take you to Leigh's blog and from there if you hit the link titled "A Story of Symbiosis" you will get to read the review without having to pay at the door.

I don't believe that I ever really did much better in any science course in high school than a C- (and often did worse). In art school we were required to take art OR philosophy and I bet you can guess what courses I took.

What I learned in school, and it was later constantly re-enforced by studying Duchamp, is that an artist can take whatever he likes from of the disciplines of science, pick and chose the bits and pieces, and stir it into the recipe of the art piece he or she is baking.

So, not too shabby for me, of all people, to end up getting a good review in Science.