Stories by Katie McKissick

How to put together a board meeting for your personal brand.

How Mariette Marinus turned a meditation on suffering into a series of animal characters
 

It happens to everyone, supposedly. You're being productive. You're working hard. You feel like you're moving forward, but it feels laborious, like you're going upstream. And then, suddenly (or not so suddenly), you run out of steam, hit a wall, fall on your ass. Burnout. Existential crisis. General exhaustion.

I recently did a comic for a non-profit called CO-ADD. Based at the Universtiy of Queensland in Australia, this effort asks chemists to send in compounds they’ve developed and for free, CO-ADD will screen them for antibiotic properties. And if they do find an effective antibiotic, the researcher still retains ownership. It’s an interesting new way to combat the superbug crisis.

Did you know it's Pollinators Week? Find out what you can do to help our wonderful pollinators. 

Medical student Michael McCormick makes diagrams of organs, tissues, and molecules made from candies, cookies, and fruit as candyanatomy on Instagram.

I recently got a job at NASA writing content for students on websites like Space Place. Luckily for me, astronomy is one of the easiest subjects to get people excited about. I mean, who doesn't like outer space and stars and comets and asteroids and—there is so much cool stuff! There are different levels of interest, sure, and someone can simply appreciate the beauty of the universe without understanding (or perhaps wanting to understand) much of the science behind it, but someone who looks up at a starry sky and doesn't feel a true sense of wonder needs to check their pulse--or blood sugar levels, at the very least.

I love playing board games, and my favorites are ones that involve science in some way. I’m always on the lookout for crowdfunding campaigns for science board games, as it’s a great combination of science art and science communication.

On the heels of science art about how “we all eat the sun,” I was thinking about the few exceptions to that rule. As my high school biology teacher would often say, “Always and never are never true in biology!” But when the ecosystems surrounding hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean were discovered [...]

I talked about the art of Rachel Ignotofsky a while back after I found out about her amazing work featuring famous (and should-be-famous!) women in science — a series she continues to expand.

While I was digging in the garden over the weekend, I made lots of new friends. Whether they liked it or not. Was digging around in the garden today, much to the surprise of the local earthworms, rolie polies, ants, and spiders.

Here at Symbiartic, we’re exploring themes from the perspectives of a fine artist (Glendon), a scientific illustrator (Kalliopi), and a science comic (moi).

I could statistic you to death about how women are still underrepresented in science and engineering, but let me just give you this one about what dismal progress we're making: between 2000 and 2011, the proportion of science and engineering bachelor's degrees awarded to women remained flat.

Exactly three weeks ago I started feeling awful. It’s been 21 days of a viral roller coaster — getting better, feeling worse, coughing, bruising ribs (from all the coughing), getting sick of cough drops, and running out of tissues.

January is weird. We make resolutions (or at least are told we should be doing so) with the aim of bettering ourselves, and we’re marketed a slew of diets, fitness club memberships, and exercise equipment to lose our holiday weight, so it all takes on a negative tone pretty fast.

Finishing up 2014 is really exhausting me. Running holiday errands all over the place. The sun sets annoying early (for us northern hemispherians).

One of the many reasons I love tumblr is that I find amazing artists like Rachel Ignotofsky. She’s a graphic designer and illustrator currently working at Hallmark Greetings by day and as a freelance illustrator by night.

I am a big fan of the holiday known as Thanksgiving. While it has questionable historical roots, it’s now an excuse to spend the whole day cooking food, drinking good wine, and hanging out.

In the past here on Symbiartic, Glendon Mellow has discussed the importance of choosing effective images when sharing pro-vaccine messaging.

In the midst of what has been dubbed “ebolanoia,” many are flashing back to the response (or lack thereof in some cases) to the rise of AIDS in the 1980s and 90s.

I try to find humor in some unfunny places, but I was never sure how to approach cancer. I first did a comic about cancer genes for my book What’s in Your Genes?, which seems to find the happy place between facts and silliness.

I’m all about the science comics and cartoony illustrations, but just like Kalliopi said yesterday, sometimes we science artists like to mix it up.

On Symbiartic, September is a month-long celebration of science artists called the SciArt Blitz. A different science artist is featured each day, so head over and check out the latest from the science art world.

I didn’t set out to draw science comics; I wanted to be an all-around science communicator. I just happened to find my voice with comics.