Life in Cartoon Motion

No, I'm not going to review Mika's debut album (although I will have to admit that I love many of his songs). I am going to talk about a book.

Recently, while browsing my University library, I saw a book out of the corner of my eye (now I'm simultaneously thinking of that Pink Floyd song). I promptly grabbed the book and ran to issue it. It was titled The Cartoon Guide to Genetics.

It took me all of two days to read the 209-page book because it was that interesting (this was while working on my dissertation). Never have I enjoyed reading a "textbook" before! The book described the origin and history of genetics in such wonderful detail that I could actually see how events unfolded and how the field of genetics came to be the way it is today.

After reading this book, I have been thinking a lot. Its funny how a comic book should excite me more than an extensive textbook with more details and information! (it's odd because I'm a postgraduate student and I should be excited with more information)
Is it all because this book had cartoon characters and little silly jokes? In fact, one of the reviewers of this book who happens to be a Harvard professor, actually stated that this book puts textbooks to shame!
Is it possible that soon, in a bid to interest students, people are going to start writing informative comic books? While that does sound pretty tempting, I don't think it would help much.

I know it seems like I'm contradicting myself but its true! If we move on to comic books to teach us the concepts of a complex subject, eventually we will lose the very essence of the subject. Unfortunately, life is not simple and thinking that it is won't help us get anywhere. If we start joking about genetics, we'll soon be joking about genetic diseases and then about cloning. Before we know it, we'll be cloning human beings just to get a kick out of it.

Maybe I'm just exaggerating the effects a comic book can have. And maybe comic textbooks will not replace regular old textbooks ever. I really don't know...what I do know is, like anyone else, I'd enjoy a comic book any day but I wouldn't want them to replace what we have now: huge tomes that seem boring but if you look close enough and just use your imagination to picture the concepts, you'll see that they do help.

Before I finish, I'd like to apologise for not updating this blog as often as I would've liked to and that the topic on God will come someday...not now though :)

I've also decided to stop the 'Question' thing at the end of every post. Instead I'll just continue with the polls. So, vote away!

N.B.: The Cartoon Guide to Genetics is written by Larry Gonick and Mark Wheelis and is an updated edition published by HarperCollins in 2005.

Till next time,
Jo