Science Goes Pop: The Zine Art Edition

Patrick Galvin and Camilo Potocnjak Oxman in conversation with Stefan Buchenberger and Torsten Weber, introduced by Crystal Leigh-Clitheroe | Section: Visual Science Storytelling, Sequential Art & Illustrated Science Communication

Abstract: Drawing inspiration from scholarly discussions on manga as a historically inflected form of educational media, as well as comic books featuring eccentric scientists, visual artists Patrick Galvin and Camilo Potocnjak Oxman explore the dynamic interplay between art and science in this article. Their artworks demonstrate how science can function as both content and an imaginative and aesthetic force deeply embedded in cultural narratives. Combining pop culture motifs with photographic realism, they reveal how scientific ideas permeate visual storytelling. They also investigate manga covers that draw on traditional Japanese aesthetics as examples of narrative accessibility, leveraging familiar stylistic codes to engage audiences in the communication of research and knowledge. Together, their artistic concepts and artworks present science and art as equal partners in the creation of meaning and the enjoyment of knowledge across diverse media.

Preface by the Series Editors

w/k’s series on “Visual Science Storytelling, Sequential Art & Illustrated Science Communication” explores the power of visual art in making complex scientific concepts more engaging and accessible to diverse audiences, as well as how popular visual art forms, such as comics, are vehicles and results of science-art collaborations. The series places particular emphasis on artistic concepts and provides insights into how different styles of visual art and creative expression excite our imagination about science. In 2025, the series inspired the “Science Goes Pop” project, which brought together six Canberra-based artists and six comics scholars to investigate science through comics and illustrations. This article is one of three exploring the art and insights that emerged from a collaboration where artwork was inspired by science-focused academic presentations, discussions and shared reflections.

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How do visual artists – in this case Canberra-based Patrick Galvin and Camilo Potocnjak Oxman – transform complex science-related ideas into (narrative-)driven imagery? Which ideas influence the selection of a medium, such as science-based comics, graphic narratives, illustrations or assemblages? How does this decision reveal an artist’s concept and demonstrate the unique ability of art to meaningfully and compellingly convey meanings of science? “Science Goes Pop” tackled this question by fusing visual art with scientific exploration. By bringing together researchers focused on science in culture and visual artists, the project set out to stir curiosity around our cultural perspectives on science and to inspire novel ways of visualising scientific ideas. At its heart, the initiative aimed to generate and contemplate new artworks that encourage thoughtful critique and new insights into science’s role in both visual art and our society.

Researching comics and comic book superheroes

The very nature of comic book superheroes necessitates a predictable and somewhat one-dimensional narrative structure where heroes constantly must overcome obstacles in the form of super-villains: an endless narrative loop where they continue fighting a truly ‘never-ending battle’ (Umberto Eco, 1974). And the more colourful villains a superhero has in his or her gallery of adversaries, the more enticing their adventures are, as in the case of Spider-Man. The theme of Comics and Cross-Culture Studies scholar Stefan Buchenberger’s presentation were early Spider-Man villains, created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko. Their origins were often the result of comic book pseudo-science and accidents resulting from it. This led to various animal-themed characters: the Chameleon, the Vulture, Dr Octopus, the Lizard and Kraven the Hunter. These early Spider-Man villains star in his movies and have become part of the pop-culture canon.

For his presentation, Stefan Buchenberger used cover and interior artwork by Steve Ditko, an artist famous for his surreal monsters and psychedelic landscapes. The presentation was part of Buchenberger’s ongoing study of superhero comics, which focuses on the antagonistic dynamics of the hero-villain dichotomy. Spider-Man himself, he showed, is a result of a scientific experiment gone wrong when he accidentally gets bitten by a radioactive spider and gains his spider-based superpowers. As supervillains are quite often the reverse image of the superhero – one only has to think of the dichotomy of Batman and the Joker – Spider-Man’s origin as a hero who got his animal-based powers through science was reflected in the origin of his early adversaries: A criminal in various disguises; a crook who invented a suit that gave him the power to fly and the image of a bird of prey; an outsider nuclear scientist who got caught in an accident that gave him telepathic control over his four robotic arms and – together with his name – gave him the image of a gigantic octopus; another well-meaning scientist who, in trying to restore a lost limb, turned himself into a giant evil lizard; and a lion-themed hunter whose powers are based on secret potions from a hidden culture. Other animal-based foes of Spider-Man would follow: The Scorpion, The Beetle, The Rhino, The Kangaroo, The Gibbon, The Man-Wolf and The Fly, to name but a few. However, it was the five villains Buchenberger introduced who became core characters in the ever-evolving storyverse of Spider-Man, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. 

Studying history through and as manga

History manga have a long tradition in Japan as popular media for young and old. They tell individual stories or the big (hi)story – in an entertaining and informative way, quite different from history lessons we know from school or the specialised articles written by professional historians. The experiences of the teenager Gen in wartime Hiroshima (Barefoot Gen by Nakazawa Keiji), first published in 1973, is still a bestseller today, as are the often up to 20-volume manga overviews of Japanese history from prehistoric times to the present day. Such series have been published by almost all major publishers for over 40 years and are a must in every Japanese household. It is hardly surprising that in the course of the new historical revisionism in Japan since the mid-1990s, history manga have also been used to convey a euphemistic and distorted historical image of Japan’s imperialism in Asia to both younger and older readers. Some mangaka began to use the popularity of their medium to deny Japan’s war crimes, reverse the question of guilt and whitewash the wars that Japan waged in Asia and the Pacific from the end of the nineteenth century to the end of the Second World War to exploit its neighbouring countries. The works of mangaka Kobayashi Yoshinori, for example, sold millions of copies and still influence the euphemistic image of Japanese history held by many Japanese today.

Torsten Weber, a historian specialising in modern East Asian history, is researching why such distorted images of history are popular in Japan. In his discourse analyses of public history debates in Japan and East Asia, he started to also include manga as sources several years ago. In his “Science Goes Pop” presentation, he focussed on a new publication in detail: the manga Iwakura Shisetsudan – Iwakura Mission, published in March 2025, which graphically presents the Iwakura Mission (1871-73) as the starting point of Japan’s modernisation. As part of the mission, more than 100 Japanese spent several weeks to several years in Europe and North America to learn law, politics, military and science ‘from the West’. The experiences of the Japanese abroad paved the way for Japan’s subsequent ‘modernisation’ and Japan’s self-image as a leading country in Asia. They also became the starting point for Japanese imperialism. 

The manga chooses a young girl, Tsuda Umeko, as one of its protagonists. Tsuda was one of only five girls who were part of the mission as foreign students and was just six years old when she left Japan. She spent 11 years in America and, in 1900, founded a foreign language school for girls only in Japan. Its successor school later became a full-blown university, still in existence today and known to every Japanese as Tsuda University. Since 2024, Tsuda’s portrait has been displayed on the 5000 yen banknote in Japan. Iwakura Shisetsudan – Iwakura Mission does not focus on a specific scientific field, but shows learning and the acquisition of scientific knowledge as a process of enjoyment and self-empowerment. The manga’s message is that it is worth taking on the effort of learning because you can achieve positive results for yourself, your group and for society.

How did Canberra-based visual artists Patrick Galvin and Camilo Potocnjak Oxman engage with these scholarly dialogues on the visual potency of research and science in comic-based media – ‘comics science’ – and in what ways did these ideas inform the evolution and results of their artistic practice?

Creative works ignited by science-inspired comic explorations

Patrick Galvin: Hollow Bones Studio on the Rhinozine’s artistic concept

One thing I love about artwork is juxtaposition. Taking two disparate mediums, two ideas and slamming them together to create something jarring but interesting. What immediately spoke to me about Stefan’s thesis is the disparity between these comic villains and their real-life counterparts. How their monikers are mostly cosmetic. These villains have taken on these alter-egos based on the animal kingdom to achieve a goal. What I’ve always loved about Rhino in particular is while Lizard is using a lizard’s regenerative capabilities, Rhino is just a simple guy looking for simple solutions. He wants to commit crimes and wants the brute force of a rhinoceros to do so. He is the most working class of them all and that always spoke to me. What I wanted to achieve with my piece was take the real-life rhinoceros and have it almost interrupting the comic book villain and ensuring the viewer doesn’t forget where he came from. Using a combined style of hand-drawn illustration and typography with photography, the real and imagined are brought together to be seen as one.

Reflection by Stefan Buchenberger on Real Life Rhino

Patrick Galvin has done a wonderful job creating a fictional comic book cover that both uses and transforms the original art. For this, he chose another animal-themed Spider-Man villain, the Rhino, who first appeared in 1966 in Amazing Spider-Man #41, written by Stan Lee with art by John Romita Sr. The Rhino is a thug who was transformed into an almost unstoppable juggernaut by two evil scientists, whose experiments endowed him with superstrength and an impenetrable hide that turned him into a human rhino. He has since become a mainstay, albeit a second-tier villain, especially in battles with equally superstrong heroes.

While on the original cover the Rhino smashes through a wall, Patrick Galvin depicts a real rhino breaking through the comic book cover featuring The Rhino, thereby visualising the cover captions: “From Man to an Animal” and “Science Made Real”. Patrick’s cover also cleverly mixes elements of the original cover and of his own design. The issue of the fictional Rhino comic is numbered 41 and features the emblem of “Science Goes Pop”, where Spider-Man’s head would be in the original. Adding to this, he uses the original Comics’ Code Authority stamp of approval – the result of the comics industry’s self-censorship in 1954 – and the caption “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine”, which actually was on the covers of the Fantastic Four. This is a cover that evokes the original of the 60s, while enhancing it with modern artwork.

Finally, my dream of becoming a comic book writer finally comes true on Patrick’s cover: I am credited with writing this imaginary issue!

Camilo Potocnjak Oxman and mangafication

Mukashi Mukashi Magazine constitutes a fictional ‘tankoubon’ dust cover that visualises Dr Weber’s research through a metatextual commentary on the historical role that manga occupies within Japanese material culture. The front cover evokes the ‘gekiga’ style of Kojima Goseki, depicting Dr Weber in Edo-era attire. Sporting a fountain pen rather than the traditional ‘daisho’ swords, the figure’s outstretched index finger mimics the teachers in the Kadokawa Rekishi no Gakushuu Series. These manga are laid out at the foot of the character, providing the content for the lesson they are delivering to the reader. The back cover includes two images. The first comments on the role that women played in the modernisation of Japan through a ‘sidestory’ of the Iwakura Mission, centred on the tale of Tsuda Umeko. The second image adopts the artistic style of Nakazawa Keiji’s ‘Barefoot Gen’, presenting the authors of the “Science Goes Pop” presentation and artwork as critics of historical revisionism. This is alluded to through the title of the image, which is an inversion of Kobayashi Yoshinori’s ‘On War’. As the above description highlights, every element of the composition provides subtle cues that are deeply rooted in Japanese culture. The piece is thus a celebration of the place that manga holds within Japanese history, the culture of the ‘shokunin’, and the influence that these objects have had on global aesthetic sensibilities. (India Inkbrush, Copic Markers, Digital Composition)

Reflection by Torsten Weber on Mukashi Mukashi Magazine

Mukashi Mukashi Magazine is an excellent visualisation of the role history manga have played in Japanese historical discourse in recent decades. The prominent portrayal of the history teacher on the cover reflects the fact that today, more than ever before, teachers themselves have taken on key roles in the knowledge dissemination process. Some even seem to be more driven by narcissistic than educational agendas. Of course, this does not apply to Dr Weber who, in reality, has never appeared on the cover of any book or magazine and never will. The raised index finger very aptly hints at another ambivalent role: through the manga – rather than a lecture or research article – the professor agrees to meet the students via their preferred medium in order to be able to convey his/her knowledge all the more effectively. Of course, he does this in a friendly manner, as a smiling teacher, not as a scary, grumpy headmaster. Yet, knowledge production remains a hierarchical process.  

In the end, of course, the content is the message. In a wonderful way, Camilo Potocnjak Oxman portrays Umeko as the protagonist of the Iwakura manga and – unlike traditional history books – solely places her in the foreground. The actual manga itself doesn’t go quite that far, but it’s only a matter of time before a manga appears called ‘Umeko Monogatari’ – just as Camilo suggests. I am similarly impressed by his wonderful inversion of Kobayashi’s ‘On War’ (Senso-Ron) as ‘On Peace’ (Heiwa-Ron). If only it were so easy to turn evil into good by simply changing two kanji in reality! But the iconic Hiroshima Peace Dome in combination with ‘On Peace’ also refers to another prominent subject in the critical discussion about Japanese historical consciousness. Do the Japanese put too much emphasis on their victimhood and on peace narratives while turning mostly a blind eye to their roles as perpetrators? For answers, we recommend reading the latest issue of the Mukashi Mukashi Magazine and, in case it should be sold out in your favourite book store, just get a copy of the ever-popular Barefoot Gen.

Juxtaposition and manga-style rendering: Cover art and global aesthetic sensibilities 

Cover art in comics has a twofold responsibility: it is there to lure the reader and give an overview of the story. It’s a graphic abstract of the pages contained within, and it is therefore crucial that it contains a summarised, single-panel narrative and symbolism from the story. Motion is a critical element for both attracting attention and creating narrative. Even though these covers are concept art based on a talk, they are beholden to some classic (and unspoken) comics cover conventions: they rely mainly on literal devices (arm and leg positions to relay movement) and relatively fewer of the metaphorical devices (action lines) that we find later in the rest of the comic (Juricevic and Horvath, 2016). The tendency to do this appears to be intuitive for successful comics creators according to Literal Additive Metaphorical One-and-Done( LA-MOAD) theory, hinting that this is some artifact of our visual systems and how our brains work. It is especially effective as the authoritative motif for a teacher in Oxman’s dustcover, capturing the viewer’s attention with a universally-recognisable focus (such as a pointed finger), before pulling back and revealing more interesting details, luring potential students in. This effect is reinforced with the title “Mukashi, mukashi…”, which is a staple introduction of Japanese childhood storytelling; it is the effective translation of “Once upon a time…” and has a similar attention-focusing effect on listeners or readers. It primes the reader for cognitive engagement and learning. The use of a photo in Galvin’s comics cover art is an unusual and unique callback to certain eighties era covers of The Amazing Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, and others (Cook, 2015). LA-MOAD theory explains the exception to the literal additive rule, that using multiple metaphorical devices can be effective, but that they are only used for depictions of extreme motion. This holds for Galvin’s “Real Life Rhino”, where Rhino becomes, as Stefan puts it, an “unstoppable juggernaut” crashing out of the cover. The doubling of this effect with the use of a photographic rhinoceros punching through the comic’s cover with photorealistic paper tears echoes the period when Marvel Comics of the 1980s used photo-covers. Analysis of these covers from the eighties highlights the indirect and imperfect nature of depiction in comics, and that our perception of the physical appearance of drawn characters is partial and inferential in general (Cook, 2015). With the increasing use of fantastical special effects in live-action science fiction and fantasy films from the eighties onwards, thoughtful juxtapositions like these may have seemed less necessary or thought-provoking, which is possibly why the use of photocovers in comics did not become more widespread. The conjunction of these two media in Galvin’s “Real Life Rhino” brings together the biological attributes of the animal that inspire the concept of the character. It is a punchy visual metaphor of the science-art creation that an animal-human hybrid comics character represents.

References

“Science Goes Pop: Science, Comics and Illustrated Science Communication”, a Popsicule project of the Australian National University (2025). 

Cook, R. (2015). Judging a Comic Book by its Cover. Marvel Comics, Photo-covers, and the Objectivity of Photography. Image & Narrative, 16(2), Article 2.

Juricevic, I. and Horvath, A.J. Analysis of Motions in Comic Book Cover Art: Using Pictorial Metaphors. (2016). Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship, 6(1), 6. https://doi.org/10.16995/cg.71

“Science Goes Pop” was supported by Inspiring Australia ACT and the ACT Government. The organisers would like to thank their sponsors and collaborators.

How to cite this article

Patrick Galvin, Camilo Potocnjak Oxman, Stefan Buchenberger, Torsten Weber and Crystal Leigh-Clitheroe (2025): Science Goes Pop: The Zine Art Edition. w/k–Between Science & Art Journal. https://doi.org/10.55597/e10327