Today in Comics History, July 25: Happy birthday, Rosalind Franklin!

Born on this day in 1920: Rosalind Franklin, chemist and X-ray crystallographer who's (now) known for her work detailing and comprehending DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), RNA (ribonucleic acid), viruses, coal, and graphite.

What? You think DNA/RNA was unravelled by Francis Crick and James Watson? Think again, brother (sisters prob'bly already know) that they took much of her work and which has been historically represented as their own, winning the Nobel Prize. Say it loud and say it strong: Rosalind Franklin is the unsung hero of DNA/RNA researach.


from "A Doubly Twisted String with a Million Knots" in Femme Magnifique (Hi-Fi Academy Press, September 2017), script by Mike Carey, pencils and inks by Ευγενία Κουμάκη as Eugenia Koumaki, colors by Hi-Fi, letter by Aditya Bidikar

Comics Do Shakespeare: Macbeth, Act 12: "These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us."

"Hail Thane of Cawdor" in Hark! A Vagrant (Drawn + Quarterly, September 2011), by Kate Beaton

Today in Comics History, February 23: Hallelujah! It's George Frideric Handel's birthday!

Born on this day in 1685, so maybe only your grand-parents might remember him: George Frideric Handel, musical composer of classics like The Messiah, Water Music, Music for the Royal Fireworks, and Zadok the Priest. A lot of others, too, but that's as far as I read into the Wikipedia article. Because I have comic books to fill me in about all I need to know for him. Or, as I like to put it: "all I can Handel." (giggle snort)

Here's Handel, his famous The Messiah, his big meanie dad, his similarity to Batman when he's deep in work, and his nightshirt, which was obviously washed in Tide, because it's whiter than white!


from "The Songs of Christmas" in Four Color #1062 [Walt Scott's Christmas Stories] (Dell, December 1959); script, pencils, and inks by Walt Scott

Today in Comics History, January 17: Happy birthday, Anne Brontë!

Born on this day in 1820: Anne Brontë, the Brontë sister who wrote Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, novels which are not Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights and therefore she doesn't get as much attention as her two spotlight-hoarding sisters. Poor Anne never even got a Classics Illustrated! Let's rectify that with some appearances of Anne in comic books, shall we? Except...they're all with her sisters. Oh well!




from "The Child of Time" in Doctor Who Magazine #439 (Panini, October 2011), script by Jonathan Morris, pencils by Martin Geraghty, inks by David A. Roach, colors by James Offredi, letters by Roger Langridge
So happy birthday, Anne, and tell those sisters of yours to back off, bees! It's your day for once!



"Dude Watchin' with the Brontës" and "Actor, Currer, and Ellis Bell" in Hark! A Vagrant (Drawn + Quarterly, September 2011), by Kate Beaton