Monday, December 29, 2008

Weather Wizards of Ancient Times



This is my latest comic for Fun for Kids magazine. The assignment was to make a comic about the study of weather. It didn't sound entertaining at first, but I learned that some of the greats who studied weather were some real characters.

I would have loved to draw even more pages of Wang Chong. He was scathing in his confrontations of the misconceptions of his time. It was common to believe in ghosts in his day, to which he replied,
People say that spirtis are the souls of dead men. That being the case, spirits should always appear naked, for surely it is not contended that clothes have souls as well as men. Besides, so many people have died that their gohosts would vastly outnumber living people; the world would be swamped by them.

5 comments:

Paul Bozzo said...

You make "weather" seem to be filled with facinating facts! Your comics are even more fun now that you've shown us how you make them. Thanks.

The Annotated Barbarian said...

Thanks, Paul! You're not just a fair weather friend!

Ben Villarreal said...

We have one of those of those Galileo thermometers! They're so awesome. So is your comic, as usual :-)

Marek Bennett said...

A - -
Yes, I think the WANG CHONG page is the most lively, as you've given your character the chance to speak in his own words. This brings him to life for the reader, and gives us an experience of witnessing WC's thoughts and words AND actions. That extra ghost quote sounds like a good extension ~ I insist you MUST draw it up! (How about a WC biography comic, if he's so richly interesting?)

Incidentally, did Wang Chong's name ever appear in a popular 1980's dance song?

-- M

The Annotated Barbarian said...

In the 80s, there was a one-hit wonder group that had a song called "Everybody Wang Chung tonight". If I recall correctly, they claimed there name was from the sound a guitar makes, "Wang chung".