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Anime NASA Space

Manga Explains NASA Mission 139

YetAnotherName writes "Anime fans working with NASA? Yes. Tokyopop has the scoop on planetary scientists who made manga to explain a NASA mission, complete with spandex-clad, big-eyed lead character and robotic dogs. You can also download the manga in color or black/white PDF files. (Disclaimer: my spouse is one of the authors.)" If you sit through the talk about dogs, it's actually pretty interesting.
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Manga Explains NASA Mission

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 08, 2005 @04:51AM (#13745608)
    \^_^;/
    • by Anonymous Coward
      (>^(\O_O)/
    • (:=
      Now that I've drawn a Hitler smiley, can we invoke Godwin's law and end this thread?
    • As one of the co-creators of "Cindi in Space" I want to thank slashdot for mentioning us, and to answer a few of the questions here.

      Is it "manga" or not? From a purist standpoint it's not "manga" since it's not drawn or written by anyone who is Japanese. OTOH we did deliberately ask Erik Lervold (our artist from MCAD whom I met at MCAD's Schoolgirls and Mobilesuit anime/manga workshops) to make the artwork manga-like and he came up with something that's halfway between US style and Japanese style. So y

  • by thegoogler ( 792786 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @04:53AM (#13745611)
    here [emptythought.com]

    should withstand a decent slashdotting..
  • huh? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mahou ( 873114 ) <made_up_address_.hotmail@com> on Saturday October 08, 2005 @04:58AM (#13745616) Journal
    wait. so it's an american drawn thing about an american mission, why is it called a manga and not a comic? we have the word comic in our lexicon you know. any explanation or is calling it manga like calling it X-TREME! CINDI or something?
    • Re:huh? (Score:5, Informative)

      by aussie_a ( 778472 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @05:09AM (#13745643) Journal
      It's called a Manga because typically manga (as in, comics from japan) have had a very different art style to western comics. The art style has become popular in America, but to differentiate it from "Superman XXX after death in the second earth, retconned 50x", they call it a manga. So far there has been no word for comics drawn in the japanese art style outside of japan that has gained wide-usage to replace the misuse of manga. People drawing in the style of manga want to ensure that they aren't confused with the super hero rubbish that permetes America.

      Whether you accept it or not, the word comic has become synonymous with superhero comic among the masses (and to a lesser degree, bad superhero comics ;)). Do you blame people for attempting to distance themselves from that stigma?
      • Re:huh? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by zalas ( 682627 )
        I would actually prefer that Tokyopop use "Graphic Novels" instead of "Manga." It used to be that you'd have "manhwa" for the Korean ones, and "manga" for the Japanese ones. Now Tokyopop is calling all of them manga, including American made ones. "American Manga" to me sounds like an oxymoron. In fact, most of their "American Manga" do not resemble most Japanese manga art at all. While I do appreciate Tokyopop trying to forge a new market, but there doesn't seem to be any real merit to using 'manga' in
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • any real merit to using 'manga' instead of 'graphic novels'

          I thought a "graphic novel" was distinguished by a more complex story line; with a beginning, middle and end, and of a book-length, say 100 pages or so (often published in parts). There is no implication about the drawing style. Conversely, there are manga graphic novels, and manga shorts, and interminable manga soap operas.

      • Nah, comics don't just mean "superhero comics". What are the Sunday comics then? Garfield? Calvin & Hobbes? With the exception of Spaceman Spiff (or whoever he's called - I forgot), those comics have nothing to do with superheroes.

        In any case, I find it ironic that we're panicking over the misusage of a Japanese word, when Japs have been seriously bastardizing our language for decades. Only fair :) Or you can consider it some form of flattery.

        Another way to look at it is how Japs got the term "anime

        • <nitpickmode> Actually, I think it was taken from the french "dessin animé"</nictpickmode>
        • Nah, comics don't just mean "superhero comics". What are the Sunday comics then? Garfield? Calvin & Hobbes? With the exception of Spaceman Spiff (or whoever he's called - I forgot), those comics have nothing to do with superheroes.

          Those are the funnies.

      • by nkh ( 750837 )
        Actually it should be called a "belgian comic" because it looks like the style was taken from some belgian comic (the Smurfs...) The style does not look like a manga at all: big pencils and colors? rather small eyes? the whole thing does not fit the definition of "manga."
      • It's a good thing then that Cindi sticks to regular people stuff, like flying and talking in space without a space suit.
      • Uh, I never remember Neil Gaiman's stuff being called "manga" and it got by just fine.

        Manga is from Japan. Even by the Japanese definition (anime, on the other hand can refer to any kind of animation).

      • People drawing in the style of manga want to ensure that they aren't confused with the super hero rubbish that permetes America.

        Because they wouldn't want to confuse this "manga" about a spndex-clad voluptuous female android who flies through space with her pet robot dogs with that "super hero rubbish".

      • I think I'll take the art in Hellboy over this.
    • Re:huh? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually, if you had read the NASA page, you would hava noticed that they DO call it a comic.
    • Because it's Tokyopop. Tokyopop is constantly engaged in a no-holds-barred, life-and-death struggle to change the meaning of manga to "comics drawn entirely by Americans who base their art on their perception of Japanese manga", because then they can't be sued for falsely advertising all the stuff they've already sold as "manga".
  • Japan Fad (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I wonder if the Japan fad is fading or increasing in size... Being an international studies major, I unwisely selected Japan as my focus. A country, despite being the "second largest economy" that hasn't seen growth in over a decade, but has an abnormous amount of people focusing an equal amount attention on. I don't know, I think I am suffering from trend syndrome, and seeing a large influx of people taking a bystandard's interest in something I feel I love. I wish I would have studied Korean or Chinese
    • Re:Japan Fad (Score:3, Insightful)

      by uss_valiant ( 760602 )
      I wish I would have studied Korean or Chinese culture two years ago.
      Then switch now or study Chinese culture later. It's not like those 2 years were lost completely. And it's never too late to do something different.
  • What next, is NASA going to get Woody Woodpecker to explain their concept of going to the moon?!

    Oh... wait...
  • Odd. It seems you have to read this manga from left to right (and top to bottom) .. not right to left as in most mangas.

    .. and it's in English, not Japanese :P

    -- dbg
    • Re:Wrong order (Score:2, Insightful)

      by aussie_a ( 778472 )
      Odd. It seems you have to read this manga from left to right (and top to bottom) .. not right to left as in most mangas.

      This is because most manga's are created in Japan. Not America. "English manga's" (which I'll just call manga's even though they might not deserve that name) should be left to right, as they're audience are people in English speaking countries, which have the left to right feature in their written language.

      The only time a manga created outside of Japan should read right to left is wh
  • Dreaming (Score:5, Funny)

    by eingram ( 633624 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @05:17AM (#13745655)
    This is some sort of nerd dream, and I can't seem to wake up. I love it.
    • Re:Dreaming (Score:3, Insightful)

      by typical ( 886006 )
      In the early forties, the federal government sponsored a lot of artists to produce really nice art to convince people that it was *really important* to kill lots of Germans.

      I'd say that it's at least as useful to convince people that science is fun.
  • by che.kai-jei ( 686930 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @05:18AM (#13745659)
    have we repeated slashdot cliches and mixed and matched so much that now we hallucinate nasa making space manga?

    in the style of the movie cliche wino who sees godzilla and then stares at his bottle in disbelief and then throws it, running hysterically,
    i now purge slashdot from my bookmarks and rss and close the wind#@~@!" - NO CARRIER
  • PlanetEs (Score:5, Informative)

    by SynapseLapse ( 644398 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @05:19AM (#13745662)
    If you don't find this manga to your liking, you might take a look at PlanetEs [tokyopop.com].
    A more serious and utterly fantastic manga about life in outerspace in the pre-warp universe.
    One of the best mangas, and best sci-fi for that matter, that I've read in a very long time.

    It's what Enterprise *should* have been.
    • Re:PlanetEs (Score:3, Informative)

      There's also an anime [animenewsnetwork.com] based on it, and it seems quite popular.
      • I can vouch for the anime. While it wasn't quite drawn in the standard anime style and it wasn't quite the type of anime I normally like, it was still facinating, full of plot, and containing both humor and drama.
    • Re:PlanetEs (Score:5, Interesting)

      by aussie_a ( 778472 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @05:31AM (#13745683) Journal
      It's what Enterprise *should* have been.

      That would have been exciting. "Going where no man has gone before."

      Ensign: So where are we going Captain?
      Captain: To the Klingon home world.
      Ensign: But that's 20 light years away, it'll take us 40 years just to get there!
      Captain: You're right Ensign. And we only have 7 years before we're canned. Alright. We'll go to Jupiter station.
      Ensign: Oh boy, that'll only take us several months!


      Don't think that would have worked somehow.

      For those that don't want to shill out $10 (plus shipping and handling) US for a comic they might or might not like (unfortunately the preview didn't really tell you much) here are a bunch of sci-fi comics that don't rely on a fad (and are free too) that you might enjoy:
      * Storm Corps [stormcorps.com]
      * A Miracle of Science [project-apollo.net]
      * Kismet: Hunter's Moon [webcomicsnation.com]
      * Mozhaets [gutterflycomix.com]
      * Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life [bohemiandrive.com] (WARNING: Humour)
      * Twilight Agency [twilightagency.com]
      * Freefall [purrsia.com] (WARNING: Humour! But it is hard sci-fi. Confused how humour could mix with hard sci-fi? Read it and find out).
      * Where Am I Now? [whereaminow.org]
    • I have been telling people that PlanetES is the best hard science fiction of the past decade. It doesn't understand the developing world, but other than that, it's great.

      I also share your opinion on Enterprise. I was excited when I first heard the concept. But it just turned out to be another silly and generic Star Trek.
    • It's also one of the only pieces of space sci-fi that recognizes that a loose screw [nasa.gov] flying around in orbit can totally fuck [nasa.gov] up [nasa.gov] your spaceship [space.com]. Which is why the heroes are debris collectors.
  • by lpangelrob ( 714473 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @05:29AM (#13745678)
    Maybe it's just the lack of sleep, but it seems that they could've started on page 13 and it would have the same value to kids as the full sized version. Catching "dogs" added nothing to the concept.

    Oh, and we need some quality Japanese art in here... mouths inexpecably small while closed... unbelievably HUGE when open! And she needs green hair, and robot boots. And her head needs to be shaped like a bean.

    (credit to Strong Bad here)

  • by David Rolfe ( 38 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @05:34AM (#13745690) Homepage Journal
    I like space girls as much as the next guy, but to call this manga is really a stretch. Where's the zoom-in action lines? Where's the SD vignettes? Where are the nose-bubbles and sigh-puffs and tear-drops, etc.?

    The character design is hardly different from any Dark Horse comic containing teen-chicks, so that can't be what makes this manga. (Granted that Dark Horse employs some artists with some Japanese inspirations, but skinny chicks with big-eyes hardly defines a manga.)

    Seems alsmost like buzzword compliance...
    • Believe it or not, there are mangas that don't have "nose-bubbles and sigh-puffs and tear-drops". It's like saying Dilbert's not a comic because it doesn't have a character in tights.
      • No shit. My minor is Asian studies and I speak some Japanese. My point was, this is not manga in any real sense, even by your implication -- which is correct and undisputed -- manga are comic books "in Japan" (to mock a /. meme).

        Granted that not all manga feature character design modeled after Leiji's work in the 70s or Rumiko's prolific work... but you have to admit that SD is a pretty common feature across a wide spectrum of modern Japanese illustrated work, if at-least in marketing there of. The lexicon
    • That doesn't define manga at all. It defines the mass market manga we see translated. Theres a lot of different styles where the eyes arn't huge and such, but unless a fanbase picks up they never get released.

      This on the other hand ia crappy American drawn wannabe stuff. Shrug and mock it is the usual end result.. the "cool kids" they try to appeal to will laugh and go back to the fansubs they are watching.
      • (I didn't get a chance to respond ealier)

        me: ...skinny chicks with big-eyes hardly defines a manga.

        you: That doesn't define manga at all. It defines the mass market manga we see translated. Theres a lot of different styles where the eyes arn't huge and such, but unless a fanbase picks up they never get released.

        I guess we're agreeing. Thanks for taking the time to let me know you agree. Possibly relevant, but not directed at you personally: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=164683&cid=137 47886 [slashdot.org]. Sadly
  • by mikeophile ( 647318 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @05:41AM (#13745705)
    but the tentacle scene was a bit gratuitous.

  • by Mulletproof ( 513805 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @05:56AM (#13745719) Homepage Journal
    "Manga Explains Nasa Mission"

    So in other words we've built a giant battle cruiser with an ultra powerful partical beam cannon as its primary weapon that can be used as a last resort and can also launch transformable combat mecha which can only be piloted by nubile 16 year old girls clad in tight environmental suits that leave nothing to the imagination against a vast armada of souless automatons at 20:1 odds bent on wiping out the last vestiges of humanity from the universe?

    God, why didn't we fund this sooner!?
  • liek... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Peterus7 ( 607982 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @06:00AM (#13745726) Homepage Journal
    omg nasa manga lol...:3

    But seriously. What do space dogs and NASA have in common? What scares me more is what will happen when people start doing fanfics of this.

    Well, you see, a secret pact between Nerv and the State Alchemists used a special alloy called spacedogium to help create a weapon using ancient space energy to fight off Shonen Bat. Eventually it went spacebound, and the process created Space dogs. And now Johan Leibert is the head of the android dog catching squad, and will slowly take over the multiverse. Throw in a tenticle monster from the schema world and we're set.

  • iPineapple (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by ArcSecond ( 534786 )
    Anybody else noticed Roberto's (the orange-mohawk-havin'-NASA-technician... radical!) has a pretty sweet-looking laptop?
  • by Anonymous Coward
    There used to be a -great- science newspaper comic during the 1960s and 1970s called "Frontiers of Science", authored by two Australian Scientists, that did a much better job at introducing and explaining all Science-related topics (...without any patronising or dumbed-down gimmicks like this 'manga' has). There's a few scans about the web (see http://www.meteoritearticles.com/pdfdownloadscomic s.html [meteoritearticles.com]). The republished collections of the comics were among my favourite books when I was a kid...
  • something like this is being done by TokyoTopless
  • Although it doesn't go into much detail it does give a gerneral scientific explaination behind their mission.Unfortunatly if this information was in any other form a vast majority of people would've disregarded it. Here's to more manga aided learning! anyone want to make a manga series about advanced quantum theory? ^.^
  • not a manga. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by timerider ( 14785 ) <Mathias.Homann@[ ... g ['ope' in gap]> on Saturday October 08, 2005 @06:34AM (#13745776) Homepage Journal
    reason: made in america by americans.
    manga is the japanese word for comic, so by definition its a manga when its made by japanese people, as well as manwha if its made by koreans.

    putting that aside, its not even drawn manga-style.

    putting that aside, its not even funny or entertaining.
    • Re:not a manga. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Liam Slider ( 908600 )
      reason: made in america by americans. manga is the japanese word for comic, so by definition its a manga when its made by japanese people, as well as manwha if its made by koreans.
      You don't have much experience with the English language do you? English is a slut of a language that tends to pick up words and grammar like Paris Hilton picks up STDs. Like garage, taco, patio, cajun, otaku, manga, anime, hamburger, etc...
      • by demonlapin ( 527802 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @09:22AM (#13746133) Homepage Journal
        Not the first time I've made this comment, but it's still appropriate. As James D. Nicoll [wikiquote.org] put it:

        "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."

        • What's even more appropriate about the situation is that Japanese is the same way. A ton of Japanese words are gairaigo, or 'foreign loan words'. Almost anything technical is loaded with words borrowed from foreign languages, and even a lot of day-to-day stuff (Ex. baito, or 'part time job' comes from arbeiten, which is German for 'to work') is borrowed.

          So Japanese polluting english is like two poly-STD whores having sex. :)
          • A ton of Japanese words are gairaigo, or 'foreign loan words'.

            Japanese is even more so - they have a whole second syllabary(*?) with the same sounds as the normal one, which is used to write foreign words. That's pretty hard core.

            * = not sure if this is the proper term. Japanese characters are syllables instead of individual letters.
            • Note: I've only been studying Japanese for two years and some change. This means that I can talk about a variety of things, and I've managed to get myself around Japan on my own with a minimum of difficulty, but I am by no means fluent in the language.

              That's only partially true; there are two syllabaries (hiragana and katakana), alongside the two thousand or so kanji (chinese characters) that make up modern Japanese. Almost all foreign loan words are indeed written in katakana (e.g., 'those spiky letters'
    • its not even funny or entertaining

      Of course not. It's educational.

    • You're one of those people that incessantly pointed out that the "21st Century" didn't start out until 2001, aren't you?
      • [...] incessantly pointed out that the "21st Century" didn't start out until 2001, aren't you?

        In Australian schools we were taught that our country was Federated on the first day of the 20th Century on 1 Jan 1901 -- and yet our Mint and government still cocked it up and called 2000 the beginning of the 21st Century. What on earth can ya do when innumeracy is so prevalent, eh?

    • manga is the japanese word for comic,

      And 'anime' is the FRENCH word for 'cartoon'. So why are we calling japanese cartoons 'anime', mmm?
      • Actually it's the french word for animated. The term for cartoon is dessin animé; animated rawing. Whereas comics are bandes dessinés; drawn strips.
        • I stand corrected.

          My point's still valid, though - the term in current use is of french origin. Regardless of the roots of the term 'manga', US artists are using it to mean 'japanese-influenced non-superhero comics'. Still confusing, in my opinion.... but the only US comics I read are all written by writers in the UK. So. :P
    • manga is the japanese word for comic, so by definition its a manga when its made by japanese people

      Wonderful non sequitur... If manga is the Japanese word for comic, then by defenition manga = comic. That is all. The defenition says nothing about the country of origin.

      If you're going to insist that you're right anyway, what's the word for American style comics? "Comic" is a word from the English language, so by your logic it's only a comic when it's made by English people. There could be no American ent

    • I'll bet that you get *really angry* when you read through the dictionary and see all those word usages marked "archaic".
    • So let me get this straight:

      A bunch of university physicists and rocket scientists write a comic to explain the science of the ionosphere to 11 year olds by inventing a story of electrically charged robot space-dogs (who vomit "energy biscuits") and the first thought in your head is "that's not manga - it was written by am American!".

      Man, you need to put down the comics and step outside for a break.
      • to REALLY let you get straight what happened in my head:

        - a bunch of scientists publishes a comic, which, given its scientifical nature, is not too bad, but lacking a certain entertainment value.

        - a manga publisher who (as far as i can judge from what tokyopop.de, their german branch, does) so far has really published only manga and manwha links to it and calls it a manga

        - /. makes it big news, also calling it manga

        - i have a look, and find that its a comic, a not very good one, which doesnt even resemble t
  • Nudity (Score:5, Funny)

    by ehiris ( 214677 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @06:34AM (#13745780) Homepage
    Is there nudity because there's no good Manga without nudity.
    Hentai would be even cooler. A hentai NASA project could rock the geek world.
  • the galactic layline?
  • by PsiPsiStar ( 95676 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @08:33AM (#13746004)
    When I was a young boy, I took karate lessons from a company called "Shotokan Karate [ska.org] which operated through our local YMCA. It was mostly young kids in dojos being taught by older men.

    I was doing a little research on Japanese words as they related to animation, history of anime, etc. and found this [wikipedia.org]

    Shotacon () (also Shota ) is a Japanese and anime term for a sexual complex where an adult is attracted to an underage boy.

    WTF! Couldn't they have picked a slightly better name for their organization?

    • Shoto was the nickname or psudonym of Master Gichin Funakoshi. Shoto-kan merely means 'the group of Shoto'. I don't speak Japanese, but I believe that Shotokan means 'the house or hall of Shoto'. Each it making a claim to being descendants of the original Kartate as taught by Gichin Funakoshi.
    • "Shotokan...Shotacon"

      "Lex" is only one letter different from "sex"! That's even less than the three letters that you had to change! Couldn't they have chosen a better name for their software package?
    • Although English speakers would probably say shotO-kAn and shotA-kOn in the same way, it's a big difference in Japanese.

      The "to" syllable in Japanese is pronounced like the things on the end of your feet.

      "Ka" is like the first part of "KHAAAAAAAAAAN!!!"

      "Ta" is like the first syllable in "toddler."

      "Ko" is like the first syllable in "Coke."

      Note: the "shotacon" == "shotakon" because of the way the Japanese language works.
    • This brings a whole new meaning to the relationship between Gouki/Akuma and Ryu.
  • Your spouse is one of the authors? Cronyism!
    That is the right buzzword for politics these days, isn't it?
    Are you sure the the mission's android isn't instead an acronym for
    C ronyism
    I n
    N ews of
    D ubious
    I ntegrity
    ?
    Kidding, kidding! Okay, 85% kidding. But aren't the "smart kids" they want to reach with this project the ones who will see right through an obvious plot to make learning fun? A whole lot of kids I know would rather "call B.S." than actually learn when faced with being "tricked"
  • neat. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by MegaFur ( 79453 )
    That was really kind of fun and cool, space doggies and all. I mean, I don't have any special interest in C/NOFS, but at least now I know about it.

    Why can't there be about 100 times more science education like this out there? That would make me happy.
    • I agree. It was sad to see the bitter Slashdot dork response to something cute and fun for kids.
    • Amen. I do have an interest in C/NOFS having done a good bit of work with payload testing once upon a time, but it is great to see this sort of thing. Helps make up for the fact that it still isn't flying.
  • After browsing through, I spotted some names that were familiar. Yet another fine literary work with a New Mexico Tech [nmt.edu] grad co-author. After Dan McKay's [slashdot.org] award earlier this year, it's pretty clear the school is on a roll.
    Put Dan's work into this format... now that would be cool.
  • The final page contains a notice that 'no protons or electrons were harmed in the making of this comic'. Which is UTTER BLATANT LIES!

    We must join with our Electron brethren and free them from the slavery they have been under since Edison figured out that light bulb thing! I will now free all the electrons in my hous-- (Read error: 104 (Connection reset by peer))
  • by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @10:28AM (#13746296) Journal
    The submitter has a spouse!

    The Slashdot standards aren't what they used to be. *shakes head*
  • I think some congratulations should be in order.

    Sure it's not up to par with what I expect from an "entertainment" product I've paid for, but it's definitely the type of thing that makes Science more accessible to kids.

    And of course the dogs part was important. I'm guessing half of you just skipped over most of the text about the dogs and their charges.

    while the idea of the dogs might be simplistic, once again it's accessible to kids.

    I'm just glad there are people out there who want to make teaching fun and
    • I was glad to see the comic book format, but I think
      the "space dogs" approach was exactly the "dumbing down"
      that you complained about (I read it all). I was sort
      of hoping that Cindi would be an anthropomorph of the
      satellite itself. I favor the 1940's style educational
      comic where the technology itself was animated.

      I wonder if a target audience was selected. Certainly
      this comic would be appealing for early-adolescent male.
      Roberto, back in the lab, is a hispanic male, which has
      NASA written all over it.

      Hopefull
  • You have to give this comic a little credit. If I were a kid, regardless of the dogs, I'd still find this very entertaining because of the cool art and you have to admit, it's a great way to get kids interested in science. I'm still laughing at their example of interferance where the guy is using his GPS system in his car and it says "You are 200 miles into the Atlantic Ocean, Turn Left." It's great for what it is people, so just let them take off every zig because there is no time, make your peace.
  • typo TYYyyyppPPPO! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pikine ( 771084 ) on Saturday October 08, 2005 @12:51PM (#13746825) Journal
    On page 15 of the comic, the atom pictured in the lower left corner, under the influence of magnetic and electric fields, should have been an "Ion" not "Neutral".
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"

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