Zines as a Mean to Expression

Every late winter/early spring I get into doodling. It never fails. I don't know if it's the culmination of gloomy weather giving me cabin fever with a resultant desire to make maps or what.

Does this happen to you? This year, I got some decorated bee hives out of it, so there's definitely a perk to it all. But there's also a restlessness.

In the back of my head, I'm thinking: but what else? Is this a step to something bigger? Because tendrils of ideas have been sprouting, inspired over the past few years by various things.

Take this post by Linda Codega over at Luna Station Quarterly.

Take this article about the end of Subversive, the underground zine of downtown Frederick.

Take Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling and 50 Ways to Draw Your Beautiful Ordinary Life.

Take the monthly subscription called Zine-o-matic where you receive a collection of international zines, take Zine Fests, take the local donut shop stating they will only carry zines now as reading material . . . Take the concept of creative freedom as expressed by making something start to finish that can look and feel however you want, tell a story or not, make sense or not, be whatever media you want, and be so analog (or not) that you can freaking choose to hand stitch the binding.

Long story short: I want to make a zine. That's where this has been going all along and I recently put a name to it. 

I'm going full millennial here and searching YouTube on how to make a zine, looking for local classes, and then coming to the realization I just have to jump into the deep end, have fun, and figure some things out for myself.

Who cares right now if my T-Rex is a little mis-proportioned? Let's do it! 

Big Projects and Baby Steps

This past winter and early spring have been filled with a slow and (mostly) steady chipping away at big projects. As a planning sort of person, I love to sink my teeth into a long-term project, breaking it into smaller goals, checking boxes (oh, my love of to-do lists is fathomless), and measuring progress. But there's also that middle-of-the-project malaise when you're knee deep in something but on a day-to-day scale, feel like you're just treading water. Those days can be rough; they drain creative energy and make me crabby. However, when a major milestone has been met or -- gasp -- the entire damn thing is complete, I refuse to dampen the swell of unbridled joy that accompanies finishing something.

One major project that has recently checked the FINISHED box is something that sprouted in my mind about a year ago and I'd like to share it with you today. It starts with some exposition, so bear with me.

I have a friend I met freshman year of college. She was my biology lab partner (we sign letters "Bio 4eva") and we quickly found shared interests in jokes, Margaret Atwood, space exploration, physiology, and microscopes. Even after going our separate ways and over the years, finding ourselves on different coasts, we keep in touch. When she announced she was pregnant with her first child last spring, I knew something epic was required.

So I wrote her newborn daughter a book. A science book. Teaching the ABCs, to be exact.

Fair warning: I am not an artist by any stretch of the imagination. But, by that same argument, I can pretend to be and have a hell of a lot of fun along the way. This turned out really to be half gift and half challenge to myself: can you, Anna, think of, then actually finish, this thing you dreamed up?

This children's book takes the reader through the alphabet in sing-song rhyming fashion, matching each letter with a scientific term, accompanied by hand-drawn watercolor illustrations.

I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed sitting down on rainy, blustery autumn Saturdays last fall with Crayola watercolors in front of me, re-learning wet-on-wet technique and practicing some very sketchy calligraphy with some pens I bought at Barnes&Noble.

Perhaps as a self-fulfilling prophecy, the part that took the longest was the part I dreaded most: figuring out how the hell to get these images (done on watercolor paper) into book format. Some high resolution scans and a large amount of internet searching later, I found UBuildABook. This company was exactly what I needed in terms of easy formatting and high-quality printing. My intention was never to have this be a "book" book - no ISBN number, not looking to sell online (my only hope is the amateur-ness of the entire production is viewed as "charming" -- I'll even take the slightly more patronizing "endearing"). This was intended as a single issue dedication to someone I hope will grow to love reading and science as much as her mother (and her mother's friend) does.

Just last week, the finished project (referred to as The Super Secret Project and Sorry This is Taking So Long in letters, given that the child this is in celebration for was born in November) finally made it into the hands of the intended and I received a few texts confirming what I expected: a thank you and the knowledge that the mother was going to get more enjoyment out of it for a while before her daughter learns her ABCs. But, you're never too young to start enjoying books. And I think the glossy print pages are probably drool-proof. So I wish you many adventures in both reading and science, little one. The world is your Crassostrea gigas (oyster).

Until next time, happy reading, happy writing, happy vetting.

A Parasite a Day Helps Creativity Stay

Hello and happy 2019, folks! Among marathon training and starting a new beekeeping hobby -- oh, and a bit of fiction writing as well -- I had the recent opportunity to snag an interview with Dr. Tommy Leung, one of the primary scientists behind the blog Parasite of the Day. Capturing the vast array of biodiversity in parasites across the globe, this blog is a must for anyone even remotely interested in biology. . . or monsters, for that matter. If you ever need inspiration for a sci-fi antagonist (or maybe sympathetic anti-hero? It's not their fault they feed off others. . . ), look no further than the world of parasitology. . . but that's for another post.

Tommy not only runs the blog but is also an artist, creating graphic narratives outlining parasite life cycles as well as creating his own creatures based on knowledge of evolutionary biology.

Whoa.

You see now why I had to have this chat.

So let's get started.

Admittedly, I forget about evolutionary biology. I love bio but become consumed with the here and now: why is that dog barfing, why is that horse lame, why is that amphibian species doing extinct, and so on. But I think a big part of understanding why things are now comes from knowing how they used to be and where they came from (insert all historians ever: "I told you so. . . "). I asked Tommy why and how he became interested in this niche subject. "What I am really interested in is biology -- in living things," he said. "And since evolutionary biology is the modern foundation to all aspects of biology -- it is like what the periodic table is for chemistry -- becoming interested in evolutionary biology became part of the ideal, so to speak.

"I am always interested in things that are quirky or unusual and for free-living organisms like ourselves, the lives of parasites are certainly that, even though it has been estimated that parasitism is probably the most common lifestyle on this planet which makes us the unusual ones. I want to know how parasites live their lives and how they came to be the way that they are, so naturally I became interested in their evolutionary biology as well."

Tommy then explained that he writes and draws things based on topics that he finds interesting, so it's natural then that parasites are the creature feature of the Parasite of the Day blog and his artwork.

Tommy's artwork is heavily influenced by comics and cartoons. "I guess anime and the graphic novel, in particular Japanese comics, i.e., manga, are particularly suited to exploring unusual stories or narratives because their styles and topics are less constrained compared to some other media," he explained. "I have adopted this style because it allows what I create to be more expressive. Art and science was a natural fit simply because I like both activities."

Artistically, Tommy did not have any formal training but has drawn since he was a child. Interestingly, his brightly colored creations are a result of scanning his work into TIF files and colorizing with good ol' MS Paint.

If you delve into Tommy's artwork, you'll soon see creatures not quite of this world, but make sure to get your terminology straight when it comes to fantastic beings. "Cryptozoology is the search for animals that allegedly exist but no solid evidence has been recovered, so this includes things like Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and Mokele-mbembe," he explained. "Speculative biology is a particular sub-set of speculative fiction that focuses on the made-up biology of fictional organisms. It is a common background component in many stories, especially those that take place in a fantasy or science fiction setting." Tommy gave some examples of novels, however, that make the speculative biology aspect the main focus of the narrative -- After Man: A Zoology of the Future by Dougal Dixon and Evolution by Stephen Baxter.

"If you've ever thought about questions like: if fire-breathing dragons are real, how would they work or what is the internal anatomy of a Tauntaun from Star Wars or what would have evolved if the end-Cretaceous Mass Extinction Event didn't happen then you have engaged in speculative biology thinking," he said.

For someone (me) who loves anatomy and monsters, well, speculative biology is right up my alley.

Until next time, dear readers -- happy reading, happy writing, happy vetting.