SCIENCE: Ruining Everything Since 1543

SMBC: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

by Zach Weinersmith

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal is at heart a geek comic, but it nevertheless addresses a broad range of topics, such as love, relationships, economics, politics, religion, science, and philosophy. It is one of the fastest growing comics online, having sextupled in readership since 2008.
This is a compendium of the finest science-related strips from SMBC, featuring science stories from Phil Plait, Elizabeth Iorns Henry Reich, Ed Yong, Emily Lakdawalla, Sean Carroll, Christina Agapakis, and Adam Savage.

Genres: Comics, Humor, Science, Graphic Novels, Nonfiction, Physics, History

266 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Zachary Weinersmith (born Zachary Alexander Weiner) is an American cartoonist, who is best known for his webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (SMBC). He is the author of two other webcomics, the completed Captain Stupendous with artist Chris Jones, and Snowflakes, co-written by James Ashby and also illustrated by Chris Jones. He also founded the sketch comedy group SMBC Theater with James Ashby and Marty Weiner in 2009.

Weinersmith has been involved in writing and drawing comics since his high school years, but he first published on the internet in the late 1990s. His early comics usually had three or more panels, but after 2002, he switched to drawing predominantly one panel comics. He stated in a 2009 interview that he was glad to have decided to draw one panel comics because he felt three panel webcomics had become a webcomic cliche by that time, and that there were almost no decent one panel comics on the internet. More recently, he has drawn a mixture of single and multi panel comics for SMBC.

Weinersmith's webcomic was recognized in 2006, and 2007 with the Web Cartoonists' Choice Award for Outstanding Single Panel Comic,[3] and received nominations in 2003,[4] and 2008.[5]

SMBC is at heart a geek comic, which nevertheless addresses a broad range of topics, such as love, relationships, economics, politics, religion, science, and philosophy. As shown by the diverse range of blogs listed above, it appeals to many different groups.

SMBC has around 250,000 daily readers, served over 300,000,000 comics in 2010, and is one of the fastest growing comics online (has sextupled in readership since 2008). The comics have been featured on many important blogs, including The Economist, Glamour, BoingBoing, Bad Astronomy, Blastr, Blues News, Joystiq, Washington Post, Freakonomics, and more.

Zach has a degree in Literature and 3/8ths of a degree in physics. He enjoys reading about math, logic, science, history, fiction, and philosophy. His hobbies are space travel, dinosaur riding, and wishful thinking. He currently lives in southern California with his beautiful and brilliant wife.

Note: Zach publishes SMBC and SMBC material under both "Zach Weiner" and "Zach Weinersmith".

Reviews

[NAT.orious reads ☾ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved some of them, but am definitely not smart enough for most xD

[Esraa Gibreen · Rating 4 out of 5]

- You have 3 wishes! you may wish for anything but more wishes.
= I wish that wishes were measured in absolute value. And, I wish for 1,000,002 fewer wishes.

Clever:)

[Niko · Rating 4 out of 5]

All of SMBC's books are free during the lockdown and I really recommend them if you need to distract yourselves for a bit https://www.smbc-comics.com/covid/

[Maggie Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal is a very nerdy comic that makes jokes about science, math, and other academic-y things. If that sounds fun to you, this collection will provide you with a lot of laughs! If you don't love philosophical word play, then you probably won't love this one all that much. But damn, I adore the comic online and am happy to have a selection in dead tree format now :D

[Jessica Harmon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been a SMBC reader for several years, but this is the first time I've read more than a few comics at a time. They don't fade when read all at once. Of course, some will be funnier to you than others, but I chuckled on more pages than I didn't. And I maybe even learned a few science facts along the way. The comics/stories in the second half by other artists were also entertaining. And I did learn more than a few things from them.

[Remo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colección de algunas (muchas) de las entradas sobre ciencia de SMBC, el comic de Zach Weinersmith (Clic para ampliar todas las imágenes). Desde los clásicos "Ciencia en la antigüedad":





A otros, más tópicos, no por comunes menos ciertos:



Tras su aparente humor grueso hay muchas veces bastante chicha. El autor hace chistes sobre conceptos que no son lo primero que te encuentras:



Y muchas veces usa la mala baba, por supuesto:



He marcado como favoritos más o menos uno de cada cinco del libro. Muy entretenido. Es un humor cerebral, más ingenioso que gracioso, lo cual por supuesto suscribo.

[Eddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good selection of science-themed comic strips. A lot of different fields are represented which means you're bound to miss the joke in some of them, but the quality is mostly consistent throughout the two sections. Tales of Science is an awesome concept and hopefully it'll be used again in the future.

[Kam Yung Soh · Rating 3 out of 5]

A highly entertaining set of comic strips by Zachary Weiner. Some of the strips are incomprehensible to me, but others are outright hilarious. But all the strips are about science and scientist and that makes it worthwhile reading; for making science light-hearted and entertaining is a way for people to know more about science.

I had read "Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal" (SMBC) on and off and I heard about this book on kickstarter but what made me decide to support it and get this book were recommendations by various science people I follow like Emily Lakdawalla (Planetary Society) and Phil Plait (The Bad Astronomer).

I'm glad I did. While most of the strips are available for free on-line, getting them picked by the writer and compiled is a good way to ensure they are of high quality and most of them are. You definitely need to know how science works in order to get the jokes, but even then, some of the strips may have you scratching your heads.

The bonus strips at the end, telling stories by various scientist like Ed Yong, Sean Carroll, Emily Lakdawalla, Phil Plait, etc. are very good and are the highlight of the book. I found Sean Carroll's story about turning down Stephen Hawking twice the most hilarious, Ed Yong's story about interviewing Sir David Attenborough and Phil Plait story's about getting kids to look through his telescopes the most moving.

All-in-all, I have no regrets about backing this book and may do so again for a future collection by Weiner.

[Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the webcomics I regularly enjoy is none other than "Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal" (or SMBC for short). SCIENCE: Ruining Everything Since 1543 is a collection of some of the best science-related comics from SMBC that Zach Weinersmith has created over the years. Of course, much like his "Abridged" series—especially Science Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness —there are concepts presented in this book that go way over my head. Even as a mechanical engineer, there are still lots of scientific jokes that I didn't understand in this book.

I do find it interesting how certain webcomic artists adapt to the printed page. Weinersmith's comics vary in length so much that it can be challenging to contain these comics in such a limited space. Still, even the little secrets and jokes that hide on a webpage format find their way into this book in a way that works. Of course, another benefit of this collection is the inclusion of some comics that never made an appearance on the web. Sure, these comics were even more intellectually esoteric than the standard SMBC fare, but the ones I understood were certainly funny.

For those looking to start reading SMBC, this is a good primer for what to expect. No topic is off-limits here, and its irreverent take on science is definitely humorous for those who understand the joke. Since I had already read most of these comics before, I had already spoiled the jokes for myself. However, someone new to these comics will definitely find something to laugh about. If anything, even at 266 pages, it's a quick read if you want to have a chuckle when there's nothing else to do.

A good SMBC collection with some great jokes mixed in with some new comics, I give SCIENCE: Ruining Everything Since 1543 3.5 stars out of 5.
   1/2

[Víctor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal es uno de mis webcómics favoritos. Tiene un sentido del humor que demuestra que el autor es alguien que entiende a la gente, con sus dudas, miedos y miserias (Una pequeña muestra aquí http://smbc-comics.com/comic/life). Este cómic está dedicado a la ciencia y por ello recopila sus mejores tiras sobre el tema con algunos extras. El más interesante es que dedica una parte a dar voz a varios científicos que cuentan momentos que fueron importantes para ellos. Algunas experiencias resultan cercanas para cualquiera sepa cómo va el mundillo de la investigación, pero otras son verdaderamente íntimas, de las que te remueven por dentro. Os recomiendo que le deis una oportunidad al webcómic. Tiene un archivo inmenso y, con excepción de las primeras tiras, la calidad es muy buena en general, así que dándole al botón de aleatorio lo más seguro es que os saque alguna carcajada.

[Natasha]

This was fine. I searched for books with "science" in the title and then put a few on hold at the library for my girls, in a (lazy) attempt to get them excited about the subject. This was one of those books. So I kinda read it accidentally. Like it was just around and I'd pick it up and read a few pages. And it was okay! I don't get the high rating this has, to be honest, but it was okay. It's like if xkcd had better drawings but was also slightly less clever. People seem to really like it though, so what do I know?

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyable collection of science-themed comics from the website and some that have not been seen before. I especially enjoyed the vignettes of various science personalities at the end (and especially enjoyed that I already knew of a few and had even met one). Great book, made me laugh even though I'm more on the engineering and social science side of things now!

[Eric Mesa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a huge fan of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, a nerdy web comic (like XKCD, but not stick figures). What elevates this book beyond a simple collection of science-themed SMBC strips is the ending where Weinersmith creates strips from personal anecdotes of various scientists (and a Mythbusters host).

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always like SMBC, and the science-related comics are particularly good. So a collection of them is a good thing. There's an extra section at the back, featuring anecdotes from real scientists, in comic form. Some of those are really good too.

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was blind, now I can see

Not only interesting and funny, but contained some apparently common knowledge I didn't know that let me read the rest of the book comfortably despite glaucoma in one eye

[Anthony Faber · Rating 4 out of 5]

200 pages of cartoons from the SMBC website, plus 60 pages of (then) new stuff. Funny stuff.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ran the numbers. The science checks out.

[Shrey Goyal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful :‘)

[Timothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun collection of science-themed comics.

[Jessica O · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good, even without the bonus stuff from the Kickstarter. That addition made it worthy of 6 stars, but GoodReads doesn't go that high, so I settled for giving it 5.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun and based on science, it required thought and understanding to get the humour.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

'The scientific community has not welcomed my "quantum threesome" concept.'

[Pablo Fontanilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not all strips hit the same, but it is consistent and the highs are very high. Definitely worth the read if you like SMBC’s jokes

[David Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

graphic novel? uncluttered art

[***Dave Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have something of a love-hate relationship with "Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal," the webcomic, and it shows up in this collection of new and old strips Weinersmith has put together. Some of the gags just fall flat -- or, worse, come across as mean-spirited. But a huge number of them have me laughing out loud and wanting to immediately share. In short, there's both hit and miss here, but the hits by far make up for the misses. That keeps me coming back to SMBC online, and what makes me glad I backed the Kickstarter for this book.

Weinersmith has changed the format of the book from his previous volume, which means more strips span multiple pages. That generally works okay, but the arrows indicating the strip continues should probably be more prominent (and mid-page).

Good stuff. I'll be rereading it (when I get it back from the people I loan it to).

[anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zach Weinersmith's ability to make science funny is awesome. If you know anything about science, you'll enjoy this book - regardless of which branch of the sciences you're best at.

If you own the other Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal books, you're going to see a lot of repeat content. (Then again, hey, you can read all the SMBC comics online, so there's a good chance you're not reading this book because you've never seen the content before. It's online for free.)

But the content that's unique to the book, especially the comic-rendered stories by scientists at the end, really make this volume shine. If all he was selling here was the back section it's worth the money just to hear scientists talking about being scientists. I hope he does more of those kinds of stories at the back of future volumes of his comics.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read SMBC every day so backing the Kickstarter for this book was a no-brainer. Generally the comics are 60% great, 20% good and 20% meh - not bad for a daily comic. The quality in this collection was perhaps a little higher.

I was a little disappointed by the Tales of Science section. I naively expected the stories to be as funny and whacky and weird as regular SMBC strips. Of course they are real true stories so they're funny and whacky and weird, but in a real life kind of way.

I'm definitely glad I supported, bought and read this book. SMBC remains a vital part of my day.

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weinersmith’s Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic continues to be a highlight of the webcomic world, so when he KS’d this collection of cartoons about science, I leaped on it right away. The book collects a variety of comics, from single-panel jokes to strips to four or six-page minicomics. All are linked through thematic use of science and scientists. It’s been a long time since I read a collection of “funnies,” but this one works out well. I particularly like the “life of a scientist” section that was added to the end of the book as one of the KS stretch goals.

[Annise · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a reasonably avid SMBC reader, I had seen much of the material in this book before... but it was so brilliant and delightfully nerdy that it was enjoyable reminding myself of them. It's also a good medium for pointing at my brother and getting him to read them and giggle with me, so that was fun. The new original material was amusing rather than laugh-out-loud funny, but it was fun and an excellent choice of reading material for a Christmas Day evening when everyone's run out of steam for being sociable and you're digesting your way through the last of the cupcakes.

[Doug Cornelius · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of some of the best SMBC comics. Why pay for a book of comics that are free on the internet? Curation. This sifts the best of the best. And in this case, the comics are all science based.

The book was published through the author's Kickstarter promotion, which was wildly successful. This book includes brand new comics. It also includes origin stories of some internet-popular scientists.