Autoclave

Wordpress Links for RAH and DC

Sat, 29 Sep 2012 12:30:02 -0400

Apparently we have impeccably bad timing. I just graduated from my MFA prgram in Manhattan, and RAH recently started a graduate MSTP program in the Bronx. Which may explain our update schedule. While neither of us updates particularly regularly here, if you are interested in what we make outside of comics, both of us have wordpress accounts. RAH has a blog that that you can visit here:

RAH’s Blog

It is also linked to the RAH’s blog tag on the left. There are oft good tales of science, adventuring, literature and mariachi.

I just started a wordpress art blog, which is mostly being used to show sketches, fast work, and what goes on “under the hood” when I paint. You can visit me here:

DC’s blog

The first couple of posts are up, and show a Half-Life 2 painting process, identity design and a few sketches for Foreigner.

Ode To A Cake

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 21:57:33 -0400

Yo, peops,

So, if you follow my blog, you may already have seen this, but it’s really too much fun to pass up. I know DC’s all busy with thesis stuff, and I’m running like a husky halfway to Nome between all my different apps, a full-time job at the hospital, and a second position with an international medical collaboration. Still, there is always time for cake. Especially if it is flourless chocolate and sung to the tune of the Moose Song.

ODE TO A CAKE

When I was a young lad, I used to like tarts.
I’d munch all the crunchies and pick them apart,
but the sugar, it burned til my glaze went opaque.
You’d never taste failure like that with a cake.

Chorus:
Cake, cake, I likes a cake
I’ve never had anything tasted so great.
I’ve had lots of sugar in all that I make
but I’ve never had anything quite like a cake.

I tried many recipes, baked every bun
with cinnamon, filbert, or coconut rum,
but nothing I buy and nothing I make
compares to a flour-less chocolate cake!

Chorus

Meringues are a treat for a Saturday night,
and even cannoli or mousse is alright,
but cake is so simple, delicious and moist
It’s something on me that you won’t have to foist.

Chorus

There’s artery clogging sweet treats on each shelf
in my pantry I just say, “to heck with good health!”
I cook so gourmet that my oven might break,
but I’ve never baked anything quite like a cake.

Chorus

So in my old age I am quite satisfied,
though my waistline now measures a hundred feet wide.
I’ve never once tasted a sugar that’s fake.
Die before diet! Let’s have some more cake!

Filler Comic!

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 00:12:00 -0400

Alright, dudes and dudettes, Rhan here and geared to apologize. The lame excuses are, to whit:

I am still unpacking from a move.
The MCATs are sucking the ichor of my soul (…and converting it to ichor, so there)
DC and I got to hang out last weekend and spent it executing the dire schemes of our grand camarilla. Many of these involved rootbeer, at least in the plotting stages.
I am trying to finish absolutely everything before my brother ships off to Afghanistan and I start working full-time at the hospital.

That’s right, folks, I have a job, the GREs, and the MCATs all planned for the next month. If you shoot me, please wait until my official start date; until then I am blissfully uninsured. Anyway, in lieu of a real comic update for awhile, here are two drawings:

Quite an old one, but pertinent.

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 00:11:39 -0400

Quite an old one, but pertinent.

Felix Lucien LeBraz from an Easter card to DC. For those...

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 00:08:00 -0400

Felix Lucien LeBraz from an Easter card to DC. For those interested, the sign reads “FABRICATI DIEM PVNC.” This expression is, of course, coined by the inimitable Terry Pratchett.

For those of you who have seen my sketchbook (and the relevent draft image was, in fact, posted to my blog), the policeman’s poster appears in one other drawing, from a storyline that was never intended to accommodate Felix. Perhaps, then, this gives you some insight into Sr. LeBraz’s character.

Next Generation sequencing: First, you need to know that the...

Sun, 01 May 2011 23:51:50 -0400

Next Generation sequencing:

First, you need to know that the cutting (but no longer bleeding) edge of genomics is the whole genome shotgun method, which fragments a genome and proceeds to use next generation sequencing technologies like Solexa 454 pyrosequencing to perform massively parallel sequencing of the fragments, which can then be reassembled into the full genomic sequence by overlap analysis.

Am I speaking Klingon yet?

Good. That’s where this excerpt comes in. It was 2am and I was grading exams and…well, some things just pop out.

Inside Jokes

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 09:49:00 -0400

Howdy Howdy. Rhan here.

How many times a day are you surfing the net, reading blogs/comics/facebook, and come across an impenetrable run of comments all based on some inside joke that you couldn’t possibly have heard? You poke around for a bit (if you’re really dedicated) and perhaps ask someone to explain, but they’re usually too busy tittering to tell you what the hell is going on. Sooner or later you get pissed off and leave the site. Familiar, yes?

Well, this is one of those.

Just kidding. This is actually just one panel from a comic I was going to do about infuriating inside jokes, but since crazy science has been keeping me at work until the grand hours of the evening, it’s just isn’t going to get done. Here’s the gist of the comic, however:

For my first several weeks at the lab, all one had to do to make the other techs crack up was keep a straight face and growl “Tarrrrrrrr.” I had no idea what was going on. After another few days of people laughing at my blank stares, Dana took pity and had Chris explain what was going on.

Believe me, you don’t want to know, either.

Chris’ Tarr. Yeah, I drew this before I knew what it...

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 09:39:09 -0400

Chris’ Tarr.

Yeah, I drew this before I knew what it meant, so I misspelled it. Fail, me.

More Space Cowboys...

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 22:48:00 -0400

Hey, DC here. Once again, it’s illustration time. This is one of the concept sketches for the space-opera, Foreigner, I’m working on for my dystopic literature class. This would be Steve, the engineer.

When things slow down, I promise some epic comics. Because strange and amusing things happen here with certain regularity. Until then, enjoy!

More space cowboys. Above is Steve McCae. And some...

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 22:43:00 -0400

More space cowboys. Above is Steve McCae. And some spaceships. These things are necessary in space-operas, so I hear.

Props to Dr. Who for thinking up the TARDIS as a means of transport. The thing is a rectangular prism. Brilliant.

Grading

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 21:36:22 -0500

Howdy, howdy. Rhan here.

So while DC was midtermming it, I was grading it. I kid you not; there were 666 exams in my last stack (one of the other TAs counted). We started measuring the grading in pounds, and our progress in inches.

Lucky, lucky I got the chemical structure page.

On the plus side, I can now dream about the conversion of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate into 2X G3P via PGA and G1,3BP w/ cofactors CO2, NADPH, and ATP. How sexy is that?

Charlie Brown Says It All.

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 09:39:59 -0500

Charlie Brown Says It All.

The Final Frontier

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 02:00:00 -0500

Well, it’s midterms again, so this week you all get an illustration. This is a cover design for a potential mini comics series called “Foreigner” that I came up with for a dystopic literature class project. If Mass Effect, Dr. Who, and any movie with John Wayne made a marginally disturbing film franchise, that is perhaps the closest approximation for this idea I can come up with. There may be a little NOVA in there too.

I will say this much for art school: if you ever want to be considered a valid authority on science without actually knowing a whole lot about it yourself, I highly recommend it. That being said, “Foreigner” may or may not have something to do with the FOXO gene.

In other comics news, got a copy of Charles Burn’s “X’ed Out” today. This purchase was based firmly on two facts:

1) It is by Charles Burns, whose lack of carpal tunnel problems is a perpetual mystery.

2) It was described as “Tintin in Hell”

I cannot see how this book could possibly be anything short of incredible

For the full jacket mock-up, I have the version with text up...

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 01:39:50 -0500

For the full jacket mock-up, I have the version with text up here: http://frodobaggins455.deviantart.com/#/d39r70o . With any luck, I’ll have at least one finished mini done before next year’s MoCCA.

Malaria Mommy

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 00:55:00 -0500

Hey hey, people! Rhan here.

Yes, I am now settled in my role as an official malaria mommy. We all get the title (guys and girls), and we have an unofficial ranking system of who’s a good mommy (Dana, Audrey) and who is not (Chris). Actually, Chris is our TC specialist, and really quite good, but we like to give him a hard time. Poor guy. But he deserves it, and snarks back, and there is much sassing all around. I wish I could do a daily comic just about the crazy tangents we go off on - Age of Pisces, temporally challenged measures, Southern Fried Blots - but there is such a surfeit of material that it’ll never get done.

Everything I know, I learned from Chris. Of course, for all the...

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 00:44:00 -0500

Everything I know, I learned from Chris. Of course, for all the joshing that he’s a bad malaria mommy, my cultures seem to be chuffed at the diligent media changes and wide array of cds I’ve acquired from the public library. Apparently they like Avatar, Dralion, and Kalinnikov, but not Florence + The Machines (which makes me sad).

Coffee snob

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 18:05:43 -0500

Hey all, I am back. My printer/scanner was broken, and the new one just arrived two days ago. So, comics can now happen again, which is an exciting thought. The following is from a recent adventure I had to the local coffee shop. If you’re wondering if the trip to Stumptown is worth it, I would say you haven’t gone there.

It should be noted that my second thought after witnessing this...

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 18:03:00 -0500

It should be noted that my second thought after witnessing this was “I wonder why that guy didn’t go for the Lexus two cars down.” Yes, I am that jaded.

In hindsight, he may have been from AAA and helping out someone who had locked their keys in the car. The forest green windbreaker seems to be preferred by roadside assistants and joyriders alike.

Mark Your Territory

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:21:29 -0500

Yo! Rhan here.

For the first time in my lifetime, Washington University canceled classes. It just about floored me, but we do have about 2 inches of solid ice outside, and I was more than happy not to slide the mile to campus for a measly 3 hours of TAing. Instead, I finished up a few buffer strips, read, fantasized about saving the universe, and did laundry.

Here’s the first of the strips, concerning my lab’s love of the label-maker. I’ll tell you about the American Syphilis Belt, crawfishes, and Lisa of Shark Bay later. It’s been a good couple weeks for stories :)

Happy Lunar New Year to all you bunnies out there!

Mesopotamia and Heorot get comfy with...

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:15:07 -0500

Mesopotamia and Heorot get comfy with parasitology.

Realistically, I suppose Gilgamesh may have had some run-ins with Plasmodium vivax - even P. falciparum (and certainly with things like Ascaris), but I doubt whether any of these dudes would have known what to make of what I’m working on.