[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROSEMARY MOSCO: Science can be treated very seriously.
And there's totally a time and a place for that.
But if you're looking for comedic fodder,
there is so much in animal behavior and biology.
Come on, honey.
Oh!
[LAUGHS]
Nature is really funny.
It's never not funny.
You can go into the woods and find
20 or 30 hilarious potential comic prompts anywhere you go.
You're in a weird space when you're a cartoonist.
People think your work is sort of goofy.
You sometimes have to explain, no, no, no, science and comics
can work really well together and can
be something really legitimate.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
My name is Rosemary Mosco.
I'm a science cartoonist and a science writer.
My day job is as a writer.
I write a lot of books, especially for children.
And then I have a book that's just my comics.
In 2004, I started my very first webcomic.
And it was called Bird and Moon.
Comics are a place for me to appreciate the natural world
in all of its cuteness--
[BIRD CHIRPS SUDDENLY]
--and horribleness and wonder.
And I learned really early on that if you attach a joke
and you make it funny enough to pretty much any fact
in the universe, people will share
it just because of the joke.
And then the facts kind of tag along for the ride.
And then people will learn things.
And that's kind of my scheme.
I work at home.
And these little guys keep me from getting too much
in my own head.
They'll help me by pulling keys off my keyboard.
They'll help me by pooping on the floor.
They're really helpful.
I don't pay them enough.
When you're doing science communication,
you're often balancing between accuracy and accessibility.
But I'll do way more research than is required.
So I go to a lot of lectures.
I read scientific papers.
I read a lot of field guides.
And I hike as much as I can, given my schedule.
I'm full of facts.
It's called "sensitive fern," because when the first frosts
hit, it'll just shrivel up.
Spring peeper frog.
The decibel level of their peeping in the spring
is just unreal.
It'll really hurt your ears if you get close.
This lacewing larva is amazing.
It will eat little aphids.
And then it will stick the corpses to its back.
So the part that I find really tricky is the humor.
And that just sort of has to happen organically.
I just kind of have to stumble into it.
9 times out of 10, I get ideas in the shower.
And then I will usually email myself
an almost incomprehensible note about it.
I'll spend a few days working on a script, kind
of trying to think, OK, exactly what are the precise words?
And what's the right format for this thing?
I'll sketch out the different critters.
And then I'll just kind of work on it organically from there.
If it still makes me laugh at the end of that whole process,
I feel like it's a keeper.
[CHIRPING]
SPEAKER 1: I made this for some reason.
These are my smooth, round children.
[CRACK]
[CHIRPING LOUDLY]
Oh no.
Now it's loud.
[CRACK]
[CHIRPING INTENSIFIES]
Help.
ROSEMARY MOSCO: For me, coming from a more
science-y background, it's really
about finding a joke that works and then
working the facts kind of around that.
Because people use field guides so often,
I feel like drawing on them for humor works really well.
And I love making comics about animal names and plant names.
It's so funny.
And it says so much about us and so little
about the actual plants and animals.
I try to do comics about what it's
like to have that sort of science-y brain
and, for better or for worse, kind of you're not alone
in having that mindset.
SPEAKER 2: Oh.
Hello, lunch.
SPEAKER 3: Eek!
A poisonous snake!
SPEAKER 2: Well, actually, I'm a venomous snake.
The toxin delivery method is completely different.
SPEAKER 4: Hi.
I couldn't help overhearing.
That's correct.
Venomous animals inject toxins.
I'm poisonous.
So I just secrete them.
SPEAKER 5: Hey, now.
Some of us are both poisonous and venomous.
SPEAKER 2: True.
SPEAKER 6: Birds can be poisonous, too.
SPEAKER 7: And mammals can be venomous.
SPEAKER 2: Quite right, everyone.
Anyway, back to my--
[SIGHS] oh, darn.
ROSEMARY MOSCO: So I think I was sort of gently poking fun
at those of us who spend a lot of time stressing over
terminology, myself included, when we really shouldn't
worry too much about it.
Sometimes one of the funniest things you can do
is look at a quirk of human culture
and imagine if animals were doing the same thing.
SPEAKER 8: They lived at opposite ends of the pond.
From afar, she admired his long plumes and excellent fishing
technique.
One day, he came flying toward her.
Watching him approach, she wondered, what did he want?
And was he carrying something in his beak?
Her heart skipped a beat as he landed beside her.
Fluffing his neck feathers, he said those three special words.
Here's a stick.
ROSEMARY MOSCO: I do really like surprising people
with facts that are, I think, inherently funny.
SPEAKER 9: Hi.
I'm a beetle.
Is it OK if I climb onto your waist and ride around on you?
SPEAKER 10: What?
Why?
SPEAKER 9: Well, I'd get a free ride
plus the food and protection and your ant colony.
SPEAKER 10: Hm, what's in it for me?
SPEAKER 9: Um, you'll look like you have two butts.
SPEAKER 10: [GASPS] I'm in!
[MAGICAL WHOOSH]
SPEAKER 11: Wow!
SPEAKER 12: Amazing!
SPEAKER 13: So many butts!
ROSEMARY MOSCO: It's trying to be an ant's butt.
That's its evolutionary journey.
But then when you go and look it up, it's real.
And I don't know, I think it's really important
to laugh at ourselves and not take ourselves too seriously.
And I think that animals can sometimes help us do that.
When I put a comic online and people reply saying,
hey, I was having a hard day and this made it better,
or a scientist who I admire will say,
it made me appreciate my study species more or something, that
is really, really validating.
That gives me a lot of joy, is when people say,
oh my goodness, I didn't know that.
And now the world is so much weirder and grosser
and funnier.
[MUSIC PLAYING]