SCIENCE!

 The science comic strip I was working on was published this month in Asteroid Belter, a science comic for kids published as part of the British Science Festival.
As you can see I am super excited to read the finished comic (so excited that I didn't even tidy my desk before taking a photo!):

                                      

Newspaper format is so awesome!

The idea was to get scientists, artists and writers working together on a comic. I happened to have a friend, Catherine Tétard-Jones, whose area of research was a great starting point for a story, so we came up with a pitch. 

Once the pitch was accepted we started fleshing out the story. Below is a comparison of the project at each stage:

Evolution of our Aphids: From initial idea to finished comic.

Character designs

The story is about the life cycle of aphids, and is a quick introduction to some of their enemies and the problems they face. The original idea we had was more a lot more involved and a bit crazier (I think I may have referenced Adventure Time in the pitch, so you get an idea of where we were going), but we pared it down and simplified it to fit on one page. We had a lot of fun doing this and have decided it's something we'd like to explore more in the future. It essentially ended up as bullet points for a much larger story, so there's definitely more we could do with it.

The project as a whole was a great success, and I'm sure it's inspired the other contributors as much as it's inspired us. A big thank you to Lydia and all the other editors for working so hard to put this together, a mammoth task! Also, thank you to the wonderful Rachel Deering for doing such a great job on the lettering.

You can read the finished strip HERE 
and find out more about the project here:  http://newcastlesciencecomic.blogspot.com/

**UPDATE! The full comic is now available to read online:
 http://newcastlesciencecomic.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/online-belter.html