Bad Convention Monday, November 19, 2007 : 9:30 PM PDT By: Chris

Edit: Comic will be up tomorrow evening. Still getting back into the groove after the holiday.

This comic actually highlights a legitimate controversy. The sonic hedgehog protein is involved with embryonic brain development. It’s a significant gene with implications for treating certain diseases like Alzheimer’s…and it’s named after Sonic the Hedgehog. Even if Sonic hadn’t fallen from grace several years ago it still doesn’t seem like a great idea for a name. Now get this, an oncogene, a gene related to cancer, was named Pokemon. Nintendo sued over that one and got the name changed. I don’t often make bold declarations, but I can state with conviction that potentially lethal things shouldn’t be named after cartoony videogame characters.

I’d like to point you towards Dueling Analogs by Steve Napierski. DA is celebrating its second birthday and a guest strip of mine is running at the moment. Steve is a very keen artist, writer and web designer…basically he’s good at everything you need to create a quality webcomic. The momentum that DA has built over a mere 2 years is astounding. I can’t wait to see where DA goes in the next year and I wish Steve much continued success.