Viswanathan K's Thoughts

I'd bought this science kit for my 6 year old, using which she could make a periscope and a pin hole camera (Sorry, kiddo, this is what you get when both parents are engineers!). She likes to build such things – sometimes as something to play with, and always as something to brag to her friends. Of course, not satisfied with this, I insisted on teaching her how a periscope works. By drawing a pic of how light reflects off the angled mirrors of the periscope: Unfortunately, the lesson was lost in what followed: She : “What is that thing you’ve drawn at the bottom? ” Me : “An eye. Of the person who is viewing through the periscope. ” She : “Humph… you don’t even know how to draw an eye. ” Me : “Oh yeah? Like you can draw any better. ” She : “Of course I can.” To prove her point, Ms.Michelangelo drew some eyes for me: Were her drawings good? Sure, but I was not going to be distracted by art in a science lesson. But also, I also got why she thought my d...

I am reading this book titled “What If?” by Randall Munroe. It’s a book on “serious, scientific answers” to “weird, hypothetical questions”. Munroe also writes a webcomic called xkcd that’s very popular among the kind of people who usually read the above mentioned book: geeks, science fans and engineers! (Personally, I believe anyone can learn from such informative yet entertaining books, but that’s a different topic…) Talking of his webcomic made me think of how comics require you to be able to write as well as to draw. Or does it? Let’s look at some popular comics over the ages to check the validity of that hypothesis (I know, I know: I am in that “What If?” frame of mind when I use words like “validity” and “hypothesis”!) Let’s evaluate in chronological order. The Asterix comics were done by a team: one guy wrote; the other drew. Awesome outcome, wasn’t it? Then there is the Tintin series: the same guy did everything. The drawings are good, the stories even better: ...