Some solutions to common problems are worse than the problem. This conversation with my wife did, in fact, literally happen. I made the comic as part of my experimentation with MidJourney for an upcoming video essay. I started doing these comics out of a desire to communicate science. I can’t say that this particular example is very science-rich. Still, I think the idea of using jokes and comics to communicate science is useful.

One of the reasons that astronomy captures peoples’ imagination is the constant stream of artists’ renderings of new astronomical discoveries. Chemistry has more day-to-day impact on our lives than astronomy, but astronomy captures the imagination. Chemistry does not inspire epic visions like an astronaut in a space suit looking out over an alien vista. And, on the matter of the practical applications of astronomy: astronauts in null gravity do not have the arm-fell-asleep-while-cuddling problem.

If anything can help chemistry catch up in science-communication “branding,” I think it’s more imaginative play. Hence, comics.

The comic was written and created by Peter Allen with MidJourney and shared under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/