Educational Annotations

Some of the comics have (more or less) informative annotations on a variety of topics. This is a list of the more educational ones, by subject. Manually updated up to strip #3319 (I'm a bit behind).

Art and Creativity

• 1144 - Game design; comic design.
• 1272 - A Theory of Fun for Game Design; art and creativity.
• 1402 - Minimalist art; abstract art; what is art?
• 1455 - Comic panel layout; Understanding Comics; panel transitions.
• 1467 - Photoshop image blending tutorial.
• 1752 - Betraying the fans; finding enjoyment.
• 1754 - Ideas; creativity; daring to be stupid.
• 2000 - Webcomics with 2000 or more strips.
• 2125 - Edgar Degas; Jackson Pollock.
• 2133 - Steadicam.
• 2203 - Movie soundtracks.
• 2311 - Ray Harryhausen.
• 2388 - Focus pullers.
• 2397 - Digital art.
• 2513 - Renaissance music.
• 2538 - Continuity.
• 2769 - Fan resistance to new interpretations.
• 2925 - Comic panel composition.
• 3006 - 'O Sole Mio; contribution to modern music.
• 3047 - Wagner; leitmotif.
• 3062 - Flammarion engraving.
• 3179 - Supporting creativity.
• 3197 - Being creative.
• 3198 - Reconfiguring Irregular Webcomic!
• 3201 - Making webcomics.
• 3205 - Designing games.
• 3212 - Photographic exposure.
• 3215 - Being creative; sharing your art.
• 3218 - Writing in a group.
• 3240 - Photography stuff to try.
• 3244 - Making puzzles.
• 3264 - Making music.
• 3315 - Film photography.
• 3316 - Making movies.

Astronomy

• 530 - Titius-Bode Law; planetary orbital spacing.
• 1424 - Yeti; H.P. Lovecraft; Pluto; definition of a planet; Kuiper belt.
• 1524 - Mars; canals; Giovanni Schiaparelli; Percival Lowell.
• 2175 - Black holes; gravity; Newton's Laws; general relativity; black body radiation; measuring stars.
• 2201 - Black holes; Schwarzchild radius.
• 2281 - Edmond Halley; Halley's comet; transits of Venus.
• 2421 - The Galilean Satellites; heliocentric cosmology.
• 2693 - Orbital trajectories.
• 2720 - Nicolaus Copernicus.
• 2743 - De revolutionibus orbium coelestium.
• 2743 - Kepler's Laws.
• 2823 - Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity.
• 2875 - Halley's comet.
• 2921 - Twilight.
• 2946 - Venus; Venera and Mariner probes.
• 3209 - Overview of astronomical objects.
• 3220 - Radio astronomy; quasars.
• 3224 - Pulsars; supernova remnants.
• 3233 - Formation of the solar system; asteroids and comets.
• 3239 - Mercury.
• 3243 - Venus.
• 3252 - Earth.
• 3263 - Mars.
• 3269 - Jupiter.
• 3275 - Saturn.
• 3278 - Seasons; lunar cycle.
• 3280 - Stellar nucleosynthesis.
• 3283 - Uranus.
• 3290 - Neptune.
• 3298 - Night sky; inspiring children with science.

Biology

• 433 - Square-cube law; giant animals.
• 662 - DNA structure; molecular bases.
• 949 - Creationism; evolution; scientific theories.
• 1000 - Four humours; bile.
• 1086 - DNA; environmental influence on DNA expression.
• 1180 - Trepanation.
• 1278 - Monkeys versus apes; paraphyletic classification; the nature of humour.
• 1334 - Reptiles; paraphyletic groups; birds as reptiles.
• 1469 - The Human Genome Project.
• 1621 - Vitamin D; rickets.
• 1677 - Grass; biogeography; simulating prehistory.
• 2023 - Tea.
• 2134 - Bacteria on the Moon.
• 2249 - Tree hydration.
• 2448 - Charles Darwin.
• 2486 - Anton van Leeuwenhoek.
• 2497 - Flesh-eating bacteria.
• 2593 - Thagomizer.
• 2601 - Dinosaurs and geological time.
• 2610 - Staphylococcus aureus.
• 2699 - Paradox frog.
• 2740 - Cuttlefish.
• 2794 - Life on Mars.
• 2799 - Allosaurus size.
• 2807 - Endothermism in dinosaurs.
• 2814 - Capybaras; extinct giant rodents.
• 3007 - Sealpoint colouring; tyrosinase enzyme heat sensitivity.
• 3100 - Galapagos tortoises; Lonesome George.
• 3203 - Circulatory system; series of tubes; analogies.
• 3237 - Cells.
• 3249 - Fruit.
• 3254 - Flowers.
• 3258 - Human visual system; colour vision.
• 3302 - Birds.
• 3314 - Retinal defects.

Chemistry

• 520 - Hydrogen combustion; German language; zeppelin safety.
• 983 - Pineapple; gelatin; the enzyme bromelain.
• 1136 - Monosodium glutamate; umami; flavour.
• 1821 - Dynamite; nitroglycerin; Alfred Nobel; Nobel prizes.
• 1842 - Gunpowder; sulphur; charcoal; saltpetre.
• 2108 - Chlorine; oxygen; oxidation; chlorine breathing.
• 2247 - Lead into gold; Antoine Lavoisier; Henri Becquerel; J. J. Thomson.
• 2466 - Peroxide.
• 2810 - Antoine Lavoisier; conservation of mass.
• 2854 - Opium; heroin.
• 2861 - Deliquescence.
• 3121 - Salinity of blood and sea water.
• 3204 - Molecules; other compounds of elements.
• 3208 - The periodic table.
• 3232 - Acids and bases.
• 3276 - Carbon; organic chemistry.
• 3303 - Metals; metallic bonding; alloys.
• 3311 - Ice.
• 3319 - Fireworks; chemical colours.

Computing and Technology

• 692 - Image processing; edge enhancement; edge detection.
• 1152 - ISO 9001.
• 2049 - Edge detection algorithms.
• 2571 - Lossy compression; lossless compression.
• 2727 - The Internet Oracle.
• 3065 - Predicting future technology.
• 3288 - Trains.
• 3309 - Computer vision.
• 3310 - Bridges.

Culture and Society

• 485 - Meta-humour.
• 793 - 1962 Baseball World Series; Peanuts.
• 1130 - Lent; lentils; lenses.
• 1246 - Cockney.
• 1339 - Justices of the Peace.
• 1428 - It Came Upon a Midnight Clear; Arthur Sullivan; Richard Storrs Willis.
• 1438 - Knitting; casting on; casting off.
• 1718 - Lampshade hanging.
• 2093 - Mulligans.
• 2148 - Burlesque.
• 2169 - "I don't know".
• 2210 - Ubiquitous robots.
• 2357 - Economics of interstellar trade.
• 2360 - Metagaming.
• 2393 - Coin shaving.
• 2512 - Limpet mines.
• 2633 - Hagia Sophia.
• 2667 - The Red Castle of Tripoli.
• 2731 - Clove hitch.
• 2868 - The British Crown Jewels.
• 2876 - Dungeons & Dragons spell types.
• 2884 - Dungeons & Dragons random harlot table.
• 2909 - The International Red Cross symbol.
• 2922 - Unbeatable sports teams.
• 2986 - The value of sport.
• 3015 - The Hokey Pokey; wedding traditions.
• 3018 - Dungeons & Dragons dragons.
• 3114 - Harry Houdini.
• 3199 - The wonder of science.
• 3207 - Classifying things; musical genres.
• 3213 - Star Wars.
• 3235 - Old-school roleplaying games.
• 3250 - Cricket and baseball.
• 3257 - Death.
• 3265 - Being Australian.
• 3285 - Cultural absolutes.
• 3291 - Memory; ubiquitous photography.
• 3296 - Roleplaying games.
• 3312 - Wanderlust; wandering.

Food and Drink

• 1539 - Chocolate brownies; chocolate crackles.
• 1973 - Pressed duck.
• 1982 - Whiskey and whiskey.
• 1992 - Mountain Dew.
• 2035 - Pain au chocolat.
• 2336 - Daiquiri.
• 2384 - Fairy floss.
• 2879 - Frankfurts; hot dogs.
• 3268 - Chocolate.
• 3305 - Beer; brewing.
• 3318 - Bread around the world.

Geology and Geography

• 643 - Alfred Wegener; continental drift; plate tectonics.
• 1946 - Geology; plate tectonics; paleontology.
• 2052 - Palladium; William Wollaston; Wollaston prisms; Wollastonite.
• 2058 - Geohashing.
• 2127 - Sargasso Sea.
• 2256 - "The Blue Marble"; Earth from space.
• 2257 - Allosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, and geological time.
• 2372 - Friedrichshafen.
• 2430 - Conformal maps; Mercator projection.
• 2618 - Messina ferry.
• 2679 - Global Positioning System.
• 2830 - The Channel Islands.
• 2835 - The non-glamour of geology.
• 2847 - James Hutton; uniformitarianism.
• 3210 - Caves; subterranean geology.
• 3248 - Rain; the water cycle.
• 3273 - Deep time; fossils; uncomformities.
• 3274 - Road trips.
• 3286 - Wind.
• 3287 - Storms; cyclones.
• 3301 - Maps; cartography.
• 3307 - Bushfire.
• 3317 - San Francisco.

History

• 466 - American history; Maine.
• 636 - US President; Oval Office; Allosaurus.
• 805 - Viaducts; aqueducts.
• 826 - Howard Carter; Tutankhamun.
• 869 - Ancient Rome; Vespasian; Colosseum.
• 916 - Saint Sophia Cathedral; Mariyinsky Palace.
• 1083 - 1930s European history; Stalin; communism; Animal Farm.
• 1155 - The Reichstag Fire.
• 1240 - Mercury poisoning; mad hatters.
• 1264 - Mercury poisoning; Minamata disease; learning history.
• 1397 - King George III of England; alleged madness thereof.
• 1441 - Coup d'état; political history of Nepal.
• 1475 - The Lateran Treaty; Via della Conciliazione; Vatican history.
• 1515 - Sir Edmund Hillary.
• 1534 - Roman architecture; Nazi architecture; theory of ruin value.
• 1559 - Snow leopards; troy weight; Trojan War.
• 1566 - The Sistine Chapel.
• 1652 - The Rubicon; alea iacta est; Rubik's cube.
• 2020 - The Elgin Marbles.
• 2085 - The 1980s; the Cold War.
• 2122 - Dehumanising hate speech.
• 2298 - Numbers stations.
• 2326 - Luftschiffbau Zeppelin.
• 2487 - The Munich Agreement.
• 2509 - The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; Operation Barbarossa.
• 2520 - The Basilica Cistern.
• 2580 - Human occupation of Easter Island.
• 2698 - US Patent number 1.
• 2763 - U-boat boarding actions.
• 2779 - British airship programme.
• 2887 - Burials in Westminster Abbey.
• 2923 - Viking helmets.
• 3173 - Development of jet engines.
• 3222 - Historical turning points; Cuban Missile Crisis.
• 3293 - History as a strange place.
• 3299 - Succession of Edward III of England.

Language

• 559 - Flammable versus inflammable; English etymology.
• 618 - English as a living language; good new English; bad new English; Shakespeare.
• 820 - Etymology of "xenomorph".
• 989 - Latin conjugation and place names.
• 1094 - Latin translation.
• 1349 - Irony; English usage; descriptivism versus prescriptivism; organic food.
• 1351 - Accented characters in English; loan words.
• 1391 - Etymology of "poppet".
• 1470 - Spanish language; pieces of eight; computer bits; parity.
• 1494 - Naval jargon; how to sail a square-rigged vessel out of port.
• 1537 - Spanish language; translation difficulties.
• 1731 - Etymology of "titbit"; bowdlerisation of language.
• 1740 - English semantics; women's prerogative; physiological sex differences and influence on social custom.
• 1767 - Biscuits; British English; American English; Latin; Italian; German; interconnectedness of languages.
• 1769 - Gender-neutral pronouns; prescriptive grammar; singular "they".
• 1902 - Shovels versus spades; English usage.
• 1964 - "Man" versus "elf" and other fantasy races.
• 2022 - Assonance.
• 2031 - "Bupkis"; words we understand but never use.
• 2039 - Pronouns; declining pronouns.
• 2055 - "Fortnight".
• 2107 - "Computer".
• 2116 - "Software".
• 2137 - Comparative and superlative.
• 2244 - "Wharf", "pier", and "jetty".
• 2301 - "Literally"; language drift.
• 2343 - "Fuschia"; "orange".
• 2370 - "Tinker's cuss"; "tinker's damn".
• 2382 - "Wolf" in German.
• 2392 - "Atom".
• 2411 - "Zeitgeist" in English and German.
• 2442 - Metaphors involving words nobody uses outside the metaphor.
• 2475 - Gerunds.
• 2519 - "Suffer".
• 2641 - Rhoticity.
• 2657 - "Scientist".
• 2690 - "Right whale".
• 2694 - "E pur si muove"; "punk"; Measure for Measure.
• 2736 - "Petroleum".
• 2784 - "Magazine".
• 3026 - Figurative use of "literally".
• 3138 - Words coined by Shakespeare.
• 3282 - Learning Italian.
• 3304 - Imagery; simile; metaphor; figures of speech.

Literature

• 537 - Pericles, Prince of Tyre; The Merchant of Venice.
• 734 - Twelfth Night.
• 1192 - Lorem ipsum.
• 1481 - Petards; being hoist thereon; Hamlet.
• 1490 - The Last Supper; conspiracy theories; The Da Vinci Code.
• 1497 - Balrogs; the physical appearance thereof.
• 1503 - Technobabble.
• 1659 - Moby-Dick; self-destructive vengeance; Khan Noonien Singh; Cetus.
• 1787 - Macbeth.
• 1817 - Narrative causality.
• 2042 - Time travel in literature; fixed time; stable time loops.
• 2081 - Time travel in literature; parallel universes.
• 2088 - Time travellers in literature; H. G. Wells.
• 2104 - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
• 2191 - Chekhov's gun.
• 2218 - As You Like It.
• 2315 - Ben Jonson.
• 2526 - Fonts and typefaces.
• 2567 - Time travel in literature; time and space travel.
• 2665 - Time machines in literature.
• 2676 - Snarks and boojums.
• 3031 - Baba Yaga.
• 3050 - Kennings.
• 3101 - Scottish dwarves.

Mathematics

• 470 - Group theory; binary operators; abelian groups; rings.
• 552 - René Descartes; "Congito ergo sum"; Cartesian coordinates.
• 691 - Parsnips; turnips; imaginary numbers.
• 746 - De Moivre's theorem.
• 781 - Mazes; solving algorithms.
• 882 - Euclid; kebabs.
• 974 - Fugu; Poisson distribution; histograms versus bar graphs.
• 1068 - Gödel's incompleteness theorem.
• 1210 - Q.E.D.
• 1276 - Vector fields; curl; gradient; potential.
• 1280 - Manifolds; non-Euclidean geometry; geometry of the Universe.
• 1363 - Rock, Paper, Scissors; game theory.
• 1476 - Erdős numbers; Bacon numbers; Erdős-Bacon numbers; Natalie Portman.
• 1615 - Sextants; navigation.
• 1629 - Ciphers; codes.
• 1640 - Mathematical functions; Fourier transforms.
• 1656 - Pirate puzzle; applying "perfect" logic to reality.
• 1735 - Greatest common divisors; Euclid's algorithm; Vichy France; 1930s European politics.
• 1807 - Fermat's last theorem.
• 1845 - Gödel's incompleteness theorem; formal mathematical logic.
• 1878 - Sectors; geometry; science fictional administrational units.
• 1960 - Complex numbers; applications to wave theory; Riemann hypothesis.
• 1962 - Orders of magnitude.
• 2011 - Eigenvectors, eigenvalues, and eigenspaces.
• 2292 - Integers; rational number; real numbers; countable infinity; uncountable infinity; Cantor's diagonalisation argument.
• 2317 - Ackermann function; Graham's number.
• 2327 - Median filter.
• 2339 - Banach-Tarski theorem.
• 2351 - Vehicle maintenance cost calculation.
• 2653 - Bootstrap resampling.
• 3189 - Matroids; Transylvanian lottery problem.
• 3289 - Trigonometry; surveying.

Mythology and Archaeology

• 598 - Atlantis; orichalcum.
• 673 - The Minotaur; Greek mythology; Knossos; Crete.
• 703 - The Minotaur, continued; Greek mythology.
• 1409 - Palladium of Troy; Heinrich Schliemann.
• 1955 - Cryptids.
• 2086 - Ley lines.
• 2219 - World trees; Yggdrasil.
• 2235 - Mana.
• 2254 - Charon.
• 2312 - Mystery airships.
• 2335 - Rains of fish.
• 2387 - The Rosetta Stone.
• 2420 - Kenneth Arnold and flying saucers.
• 2582 - The Aegis of Athena.
• 2608 - The Gorgons.
• 2650 - Elementals.
• 2712 - Hephaestus.
• 2741 - Perseus.
• 2782 - The Symplegades.
• 3229 - Romulus and Remus; Roman statues; Ninja Turtles.
• 3261 - Ghosts.
• 3271 - Machu Picchu.
• 3281 - Magic: fiction versus reality.
• 3308 - Dragons.

Philosophy and Philosophy of Science

• 3216 - Pseudoscience and gullibility.
• 3236 - Scientific method; the process of science.
• 3251 - Cosmology and theism.
• 3270 - Scientific method.

Physics

• 341 - Baryons; fermions; spin quantum number; antisymmetric rotation.
• 389 - Mössbauer spectroscopy.
• 417 - Carnot's theorem; thermodynamic efficiency.
• 431 - The laws of thermodynamics.
• 434 - Heat conduction; heat radiation.
• 617 - Special relativity; time dilation; length contraction; mass increase; Lorentz factor.
• 762 - Time travel; paradox-free time travel; fixed history.
• 958 - Causality.
• 1186 - Razors; nanotechnology; fractals.
• 1213 - Zero-point energy; quantum harmonic oscillators; mass-energy equivalence; cosmological constant.
• 1420 - Maxwell's equations; electromagnetism; speed of light.
• 1525 - Quantum mechanics; quantum numbers; fermions; bosons; Pauli exclusion principle.
• 1554 - Quantum; quantisation of matter; quantisation of energy; quantum leap.
• 1636 - Nuclear reactors; supersonic speed; Cherenkov radiation.
• 1871 - Time travel; causality; paradoxes.
• 1944 - Quantum mechanics; double slit experiment; wave-particle duality; Schrödinger's cat.
• 2038 - Carbonated drinks in space.
• 2056 - Hammer optimisation.
• 2092 - Large Hadron Collider.
• 2213 - Isaac Newton.
• 2257 - Inverse square law; Robert Hooke; dipoles.
• 2295 - Newton's First Law of Motion.
• 2324 - Newton's First Law of Motion, part 2.
• 2348 - Friction.
• 2354 - Alessandro Volta; batteries.
• 2404 - Robert Hooke; Isaac Newton; the inverse square law.
• 2459 - Newton's Third Law of Motion.
• 2729 - Measuring altitude.
• 2759 - Christiaan Huygens.
• 2809 - Archimedes' Principle; zeppelin lift.
• 2839 - Quantum immortality.
• 2846 - The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.
• 2859 - Antimatter.
• 2874 - Feynman diagrams.
• 3032 - Bubble-free ice.
• 3200 - Atoms.
• 3202 - Motion and heat.
• 3206 - Refraction and lenses.
• 3211 - Static electricity; electric charge.
• 3214 - Models of the atom; atomic structure.
• 3217 - The atomic nucleus; neutrons.
• 3219 - Electromagnetic waves.
• 3221 - Golden hour; sunrise and sunset colours.
• 3223 - Black body radiation.
• 3230 - Convex, concave, and fresnel lenses; lens aberrations.
• 3234 - The black body problem.
• 3241 - Luminiferous aether; the Michelson-Morley experiment.
• 3242 - Clouds, cloud chambers.
• 3247 - Special relativity; time dilation.
• 3253 - Mass-energy equivalence.
• 3255 - Wave-particle duality; relativistic momentum; photons.
• 3256 - Osmosis; second law of thermodynamics; honey.
• 3259 - Electron shells; energy levels; spectroscopy.
• 3262 - Radioactive decay; radiocarbon dating.
• 3267 - Nuclear fusion.
• 3272 - Collisions; particle collisions.
• 3294 - Electric potential.
• 3295 - Electric power.
• 3300 - Antimatter and antiparticles.
• 3313 - Particle physics; quark model.

Psychology

• 2065 - Hindsight bias.
• 2391 - Buridan's ass.
• 3292 - Analogies; puzzles.

Religion

• 1609 - Atheism; morals.
• 1639 - Papal infallibility; Catholic doctrine.
• 2202 - Do animals go to Heaven?
• 2349 - Prayer wheels.
• 2377 - Anglican Archbishops.
• 2684 - Religious views of Edmond Halley and Isaac Newton.