Over the Summer, between the end of my postdoc and starting my new job (did I mention I have a new amazing job?) I have been drawing a short story for ERCcomics: The (over)Exciting Brain Zoo.
I have been following ERCcomics with fanboy excitement since its first inception (pairing ERC-funded researchers with internationally renowned cartoonists and give them complete creative freedom? Yes, please!) but because of other commitments I never found the time to draw something for them. This year, when I heard that a former colleague from my PhD days was applying as one of the scientists, I decided that the timing couldn’t be better and I applied as an artist, asking to be paired up with him.
It was really fun to work with Koen because I was already kind of familiar with his subject of study (inhibitory neurons) and this allowed me to take a bit more creative freedom. I have been wanting to experiment more with fiction, finding ways to tell stories about science that are not just educational but also entertaining.
Just as in my previous books, I have decided to turn the brain itself into the setting (imagining the brain as an ocean and neurons as mysterious sea-creature) but in this case I have tried to push it one step forward and develop more complex characters, who are not just a prop to present the science, but also a metaphor for different types of scientific knowledge. In the story a rich collector with great theoretical knowledge, but little hands-on experience, clashes with the more practical knowledge of common folks, who often have a very nuanced understanding of nature even if they lack the ‘academic’ credentials that we often associate with ‘science’.
In short, yes it’s a comic about inhibitory interneurons, but it’s also a subtle critique of scientific practice and reductionist modelling in neuroscience. If this tingles your nerdy curiosity you can now read the full comic for FREE here:
https://www.erccomics.com/comics/the-over-exciting-brain-zoo
