By Madelyn Stone, News Staff
Sporting a Red Sox hat and a white lab coat over a T-shirt, “Surviving the World” photographic webcomic creator Dante Shepherd gave the camera a thoughtfully wide-eyed expression as he presented the 1,318th lesson in his comedic series. Written on the blackboard to his left is a classic example of his deadpan humor: “If people ask you where you got an idea and you don’t want to tell them, just say it burst from your mental loins. They’ll stop asking.”
Shepherd will share some of his comedic insight at 7 p.m. tonight in 106 West Village G, where he plans to discuss the variety of comics available on the web and the role of the Internet in the creative processes of humorists.
Steven Munnelly, a senior health sciences major, reached out to invite Shepherd to campus when the comic announced a couple of weeks ago on his website he would be in Boston.
“I was coming to Boston so I just sent out the word that if any college wanted me to come, just let me know,” Shepherd said. “Northeastern responded first, which made me pretty happy, and MIT responded a little later on but I was actually happy to turn them down for once.”
Now working as a Maryland-based research scientist in a government lab, Shepherd said he founded “Surviving the World” as a research professor in May 2008 because he wanted an imaginative distraction from the technical details of his day job.
“I really needed a creative outlet that wasn’t tied up in math and engineering and science,” said Shepherd, who holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Cornell University. “Because I am already pretty strongly bound to education I created this kind of photo comic that I thought would be able to mesh both education and humor and be something a lot of people could enjoy and learn from.”
The webcomic is set in a college classroom, featuring Shepherd as a professor who presents new lessons each day. With the tagline “Daily Lessons in Science, Literature, Love and Life,” the comic addresses topics as overarching as religion and mundane as cat litter.
“I try to make sure that the comic stays as balanced as possible, and do as many areas as possible,” Shepherd said.
Some of the lessons respond directly to questions from readers, like the philosophical “Recitation Number 20: Who would win in a fight – Pavlov’s dog or Schrödinger’s cat?”
“Some people have said that they learn more reading it than they do in their actual classes, which I find hard to believe,” Shepherd said. “But then I realized that some of these college students are reading it on their computer in class which explains why they’re actually not doing so well.”
Shepherd said he thinks his comic can appeal to anyone, but his readership includes many students who appreciate a lighter take on classroom learning.
“A lot of college students and high school students give me the biggest audience right now because I think they need that break as well, that idea that there can be something that they’ll appreciate on the board besides just hardcore knowledge,” he said.
Munnelly said he is one of “Surviving the World’s” regular readers.
“There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of comics on there, and I’ve been reading it since about 100 comics in, and I read it every single day,” he said. “I read the first few and it was just extremely relevant to both me as a college student and me as like a human being. I mean, he wears a Red Sox hat in every comic. I haven’t really missed any days since I started reading it and now I just can’t. I’m just really excited to finally be able to meet him and talk to him about what’s behind it.”
