1 Student: So, the case of beer in exchange for making a crop circle, huh?
2 Martian 1: {giving the student the case of beer} Yes, in the shape of a graphical proof of de Moivre's Theorem.
3 Student: Sweet. Hey, I could use some extra cash too...
4 Student: D'you need a volunteer for any weird alien medical experiments?

De Moivre's Theorem is an important theorem in mathematics connecting the properties of imaginary numbers and trigonometric functions.

If you knew this, you don't need an explanation, and if you didn't you probably don't want one. :-)

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2014-03-18 Rerun commentary: And here we have the first appearance of the college student and pizza delivery guy whose name would later be revealed to be Ishmael, in his home theme of Martians. (We saw him just a few strips ago infiltrating the Space crew's cyberspace.)

Presumably I acquired this minifigure with the baseball cap and pizza T-shirt not long before I added him to the comic cast. And with an outfit like that, how could I not use him somehow? Actually... now that I think about it, it's possible that I bought a set with this figure in it especially because I was planning to have the Martians interact with a student in strips that I'd already written but not yet produced.

I did that on several occasions throughout the run of the comic. I'd write a great script, and then realise I didn't have a particular minifigure that I needed to make it, and so did a dash to the toy shop on Saturday morning to seek out a new set of LEGO with a suitable figure in it.

Man, those were the days!