Since starting Drawing Blood I’ve been very aware of neglecting the white half of our circulating cells. Unlike red blood cells, it’s not as simple as different shapes and expressions, white blood cells (leucocytes) are incredibly complex with new features still being discovered. Macrophages are a good example. They are commonly defined as ‘large cells […]
Every developing axon has a specific target that it wants to reach such as a motor neuron growing to a certain muscle. However, the axon does not the luxury of a video feed: when it leaves the spinal cord it cannot see its target which might be a muscle at the end of a limb. […]
Definitions of platelets often describe them as ‘fragments’ of cells and in figures they are often small blobs with little indication of what they actually do. At the turn of the 20th century they were even dismissed as ‘the dust of the blood’. This implication that platelets are passive bits of cytoplasm floating through the […]
This cartoon is a close relative of Neurons vs Glia, I’d been using Superglue as a tongue in cheek slide title in the same talk. One time when I was reviewing them a superhero glial cell flew out at me. Normally I don’t draw cells with proper hands. Partly because hands are hard to draw […]
This one stretches the limit of what counts as a science cartoon. It sneaks in because it was drawn in response to all the tick box exercises that increasingly take up valuable research time for no real purpose. Often it stems from a well-meaning and important reason but this slowly erodes over time, becoming lost […]
You have to have suffered the torment of Western blotting to appreciate this cartoon and it’s nigh on impossible to really explain the job to someone who hasn’t. Although please feel free to have a go below. Western blotting is integral to almost any experiment that involves proteins whether it’s validating an antibody, the success […]
My first venture into the flickering world of GIFs. Animation brings infinite possibilities but as many overenthusiastic Powerpoint users have found to their cost, just because you can do something doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Effective animation is a highly skilled artform in its own right, as beautifully explained in the classic Animator’s Survival […]
This is another of the ‘In a real lab‘ series. I enjoy drawing them although they are ridiculously niche and not exactly going to go viral. I’ve not even bothered putting it on any merchandise although if you would like it on a card, note book, poster or even a bedspread let me know and […]
This was the first cartoon I tweeted that seemed to strike a chord. I’ve mentioned the inequities of the grant system elsewhere and maybe one day will flesh this out into something more coherent. Regardless of how well it works, all of us in academia are trapped in it. Looking at now, a lot of […]
This is by far the bestseller in my RedBubble store it’s very popular as a sticker. I’d been toying with the idea of a steampunk brain for a while and this was the result. Despite its success I’ve tried redrawing it several times in slightly different styles – this one was done by hand and […]