Book Description: Two-Fisted Science is the first in a series of books in comics form telling true stories about scientists. This 128 page trade paperback features tales of famous physicists including Hans Bethe, Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Galileo, Werner Heisenberg, Gottfried Leibniz, Isaac Newton, and Robert Oppenheimer, and Wolfgang Pauli. The stories offer a human context often missing when students learn the equations that bear the scientists' names. Readers, drawn to the book by the compelling anecdotes, will discover intriguing characters that lived real lives beyond ink on paper. End notes and references will lead them to further information on the scientists they've read about.
All stories are written by Jim Ottaviani, a former researcher and nuclear engineer -- now a reference librarian at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The illustrators include award-winning comics artists such as Paul Chadwick, Donna Barr, Bernie Mireault, and Colleen Doran.
The trade paperback is self-published with the generous assistance of a grant from the Xeric foundation. Established by Peter Laird (one of the creators of the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles") each year the foundation awards a select group of comics creators money to bring their work to press. I am grateful to the foundation for their support and confident that you will consider this portion of the "Turtle" fortune well-spent!
I may be biased...but... I'm not sure if it is entirely fair for me to give a review of this book, since I was one of the illustrators who worked on it BUT my contribution is quite small and I can at least give you an honest assessment of the rest of the project. I have rarely been prouder to be a part of a graphic novel project. I have read all of Ottaviani's GN's about the lives of scientists (including the ones I did not work on) and I find them riveting. I do not agree with the earlier reviewer that there is any offensive material in this book. She makes the volume sound like an adaptaion of "Caligula". The "offensive" shot is a teeny, tiny panel that shows a lady floating through a man's imagination. She is clad in a gauzy garment. The shot is a direct and necessary shot to explain how the scientist came up with a mathematical formula. It is in no way gratuitous. Lord forbid that anyone who thinks this is offensive actually stroll through the ancient Greco-Roman art section of a museum. Their head will explode. I do not recall seeing any strong language at all. I also found the book to be quite amusing. The contributions of the other artists display solid cartooning. The clever stories, especially those about the life of the mischievous Feynmann, are de facto amusing. The guy was a born prankster. Scientists aren't carved out of marble, they make mistakes, get grouchy, think of pretty girls, and play practical jokes. This book is a great way to encourage young people to pursue science as it shows the humanity of them as well as their playful ways of viewing the world. Science isn't all dry study. It's about real people living real lives, and that is why I recommend this book, even if I drew a page of it, so I suppose there's a conflict of interest there. Oh well.
Gee, I found this book particularly appropriate and helpful In response to a previous review ("Inappropriate and unhelpful"):
1. Swear words? What swear words? There are none in my copy.
2. I've seen this book in young adult and adult sections of libraries and bookstores. It's perfectly appropriate for both sections. And I've seen the author speak to an audience of kids about his books and they gobbled it up.
3. Comics are not required to be funny. Was "Maus" by Art Spiegelman funny?
4. It's easy to find something to be offended by in just about any book, but it's hard to see where the writing and art here are in any way inappropriate to the subject matter. Let's not forget that these stories are based on scientists' real lives. You think scientists are perfect human beings? That's part of what makes these stories interesting to read. They're fallible, like you and me.
Besides, while the book may not be funny, it's certainly a lot of fun to read because of the comics format. What better way to get your kids interested in science?
Inappropriate and unhelpful Written in cartoon format, I thought this book would be a lighter approach to a straight, dry, biography of scientists. However, it is written more like a series of political cartoons than cartoons for kids. The cartoons are barely understandable if the biography of the scientist is not already known, so using it as an initial reading is impossible. Further, some content is offensive. On the second page of cartoons, a scientist is walking along a bridge, thinking, when someone mistakenly believes he is getting ready to jump, saying, "No woman is worth committing suicide over." The pictures show a scantily-clad woman (with bare bottom in one frame) that he is now picturing in his mind. Irrelevant and inappropriate! Plus, I didn't have to go far to find swear words in the captions. Yikes! My kids will never see this book! It is not even appropriate for high-school age kids. (In fact, it isn't even funny to adults!)
Listen in to some our greatest oddball minds . . . All the stories in this collection of "graphic fiction" were written by Ottaviani, but the artwork was supplied by ten artists, including Bernie Mireault and Scott Saavedra. The stories are based on real events (reportedly real, anyway) about Einstein, Russell, Bohr, Heisenberg, and others - and especially Richard Feynman, who was not only one of 20th century physics's major minds but an amateur locksmith, talented musician, social philosopher, and world-class storyteller as well. Some, like "turtles all the way down," are smile-inducing classics, while others, like Heisenberg's approach to Bohr on behalf on the German nuclear effort in World War II are somber and reflective. Feynman's own recounting of his brief, tragic marriage during the Manhattan Project is especially affecting, and the tale of his safe-cracking activities at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge are a hoot. Oh, and you'll even learn some physics theory along the way, or at least get a taste of how physicists view the world. I hope another volume like this is in the works.
Brilliant idea, uninspired execution Comics like "Two-Fisted Science" serve nothing but a good purpose. They remind us that comics - like other art forms - can be about anything, and are not captives of the humor, fantasy and adventure genres.
A science-themed comic is especially appropriate, as the art-text combination inherent to comics would seem perfect for conveying complex/cosmic ideas. This collection features some terrific artists - notably Bernie Mireault, David Lasky, Colleen Doran and Sean Bieri - but I was a bit disappointed in the writing. Ottaviani's stories so intent on being unorthodox and different that they instead become meandering and confusing. Oftentimes I was unsure of what exactly was at stake for each story and why we should care about what was being told. And I would expect to actually learn more about SCIENCE in such a book. Also, the organization of the book into seemingly random sections, and the clumsy, unimaginative publication design diminished the effect.
I give the book high marks for effort, nice artwork, and the especially interesting portraits of Richard Feynman, but overall I'd rate "Two-Fisted Science" a noble failure.
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