Jay Hosler is the author and illustrator of science-oriented

comics a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...

. He is best known for his graphic novels '' Clan Apis'', '' The Sandwalk Adventures'', and '' Optical Allusions''. '' Clan Apis'', a

Xeric Foundation The Xeric Foundation is a private, nonprofit corporation based in Northampton, Massachusetts, which for twenty years awarded self-publishing grants to comic book creators, as well as qualified charitable and nonprofit organizations. The Xeric Fou ...

Award winner, follows the life of a

honey bee A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosm ...

named Nyuki; the story conveys factual information about honey bees in a humorous fashion as Nyuki learns about each new stage of her life. '' The Sandwalk Adventures'', an

Eisner Award The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are List of Eisner Award winners, prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Acad ...

nominee, follows a conversation about evolution between

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...

and a follicle mite living in his left eyebrow. '' Optical Allusions'', funded in part by a

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

grant, explains the evolution of the eye and vision by following the story of Wrinkles the Wonderbrain. Hosler is also an

entomologist Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as ara ...

and associate professor of biology at Juniata College.

Biography

Hosler grew up in Huntington, Indiana and is a 1989 graduate of

DePauw University DePauw University is a private liberal arts university in Greencastle, Indiana. It has an enrollment of 1,972 students. The school has a Methodist heritage and was originally known as Indiana Asbury University. DePauw is a member of both the ...

. He received a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences at the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main c ...

in Indiana in 1995, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best pub ...

's Rothenbuhler Honey Bee Research Laboratory.Biemiller, Lawrence. "Darwin's Talking Mite." ''The Chronicle of Higher Education''. Volume 49, Issue 40, Page A48. June 13, 2003.Hosler, Jay.
Jay Hosler, Ph.D.
' urriculum vita/nowiki> Hosler was not formally trained in art, but grew up reading comics and says he "was always a doodler". He drew comic strips for the student newspaper when he was at DePauw, and was paid for a daily comic strip in the student paper when he was at Notre Dame. He first mixed his interests in science and cartooning with his 1997 publication ''Cow-Boy''. As an associate professor at Juniata College, Hosler has brought his interests in comics and teaching together in several ways. In addition to creating ''Clan Apis'' and ''The Sandwalk Adventures'', Hosler was awarded a grant from the

to create a hybrid of comics and traditional textbook covering the evolution of vision and sensory biology, ''Optical Allusions''. "Student performance ratings in science in secondary education are dropping at an alarming rate, so clearly something isn't working well in the classroom," Hosler says. "We can't be afraid to try something radical to change how students learn."Fine-tooning Science: Juniata Biologist to Create Comic Science Text
." ''Campus News''. Juniata College. June 26, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-11-19. Hosler has also team-taught (with a historian) a course on "Comics and Culture".
." ''Campus News''. Juniata College. March 5, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-11-19. He and his wife Lisa have two sons, Maxwell Scott and Jack DeMoss.

Influences

Hosler cites

Steve Ditko Stephen John Ditko Page contains two reproductions from school yearbooks. A 1943 Garfield Junior High School yearbook excerpt lists "Stephen Ditko". A 1945 Johnstown High School yearbook excerpt lists "Stephen J. Ditko" under extracurricular act ...

Stan Lee Stan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber ; December 28, 1922 – November 12, 2018) was an American comic book writer, editor, publisher, and producer. He rose through the ranks of a family-run business called Timely Publications which ...

and

Jack Kirby Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg; August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994) was an American comic book artist, writer and editor, widely regarded as one of the medium's major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. He gre ...

as early influences that drew him to comics. He also cites

Gary Larson Gary Larson (born August 14, 1950) is an American cartoonist, environmentalist, and former musician. He is the creator of ''The Far Side'', a single-panel cartoon series that was syndicated internationally to more than 1,900 newspapers for fif ...

Bill Watterson William Boyd Watterson II (born July 5, 1958) is a retired American cartoonist and the author of the comic strip ''Calvin and Hobbes'', which was syndicated from 1985 to 1995. Watterson stopped drawing ''Calvin and Hobbes'' at the end of 1995, w ...

, Jeff Smith,

Linda Medley Linda Medley (born May 17, 1964 in Stockton, California) is an American comic book author and illustrator, known for her ''Castle Waiting'' series of comic books and graphic novels. Biography and early career Born in Stockton, California, Medley ...

, and

Larry Marder Larry Marder (born May 29, 1951 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American cartoonist and writer, best known as the creator of comic book ''Tales of the Beanworld'', which began as an "essentially self-published title" in 1984. Wiater, Stanley & Bisset ...

as later influences.Interview: Cartoonist/Scientist Jay Hosler Answers
''SciScoop: Science News Forum'', posted Feb 28, 2004.

Bibliography

Graphic Novels

* ''Clan Apis'', published by Active Synapse, 2000 * ''The Sandwalk Adventures'', published by Active Synapse, 2003 * ''Optical Allusions'', published by Active Synapse, 2008 * ''Evolution''. (art by

Kevin Cannon Kevin Cannon is an American cartoonist and illustrator. Life and career Cannon first published work was ''Johnny Cavalier'', published by Grinnell College Press, which included 100 pages of weekly strips that originally ran in the ''Scarlet and ...

and

Zander Cannon Alexander Cannon (born November 1, 1972) is an American cartoonist, known for his work on books such as '' Top 10'', ''Smax'' and ''Kaijumax''. Career Cannon's first professional comics work was '' The Chainsaw Vigilante'', a spin-off from ''The ...

) Hill and Wang, , 2011 * ''Last of the Sandwalkers'' published by First Second, 2015

Comics

* ''Cow-Boy'' #1, Active Synapse, 1997 * "The Conundrum of the Killer Coronavirus" in th
Emerging Diseases
issues of

' (14.1), 2004 *
The Diabolical Dr. Nonono
in ''AWIS Magazine'', 2004 * illustrated 6 pages in ''Suspended in Language'' by

Jim Ottaviani Jim Ottaviani is an American writer who is the author of several comic books about the history of science. His best-known work, ''Two-Fisted Science: Stories About Scientists'', features biographical stories about Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, N ...

and Leland Purvis, G. T. Labs, , 2004

Scientific Publications

* Hosler, Jay S., Buxton, Kristi L. and Smith, Brian H. (2000). Impairment of Olfactory Discrimination by Blockade of GABA and Nitric Oxide Activity in the Honey Bee Antennal Lobe. ''Behavioral Neuroscience'' 114 No. 3 pg. 514–525 * Hosler, Jay S. and Smith, Brian H. (2000). Blocking and the detection of odor components in blends. ''Journal of Experimental Biology'' 203, 2797–2806 * Chandra, S., Hosler, J. S. and Smith, B. H. (2000). Heritable variation for latent inhibition and its correlation to reversal learning in the honey bee, Apis mellifera. ''Journal of Comparative Psychology'' 114, No.1, 86–97. * Hosler, J. S., Burns J. E., and Esch H. E. (2000). Flight Muscle Resting Potential and Species-Specific Differences in Insect Chill-Coma. ''Journal of Insect Physiology'' 45 No.5 pg. 621–627

Footnotes

References

Chronicle of Higher Education Profiles Prof. Jay Hosler '89, Whose Comics Teach
''DePauw University News''. June 10, 2003.
"Teaching Comic" of Prof. Jay Hosler '89 Featured in Magazine
''DePauw University News''. December 6, 2004.
The_Sandwalk_Adventures_[review
/nowiki>.html" ;"title="eview">The Sandwalk Adventures [review
/nowiki>">eview">The Sandwalk Adventures [review
/nowiki>reviewed in ''Comics Worth Reading'', Jan 22, 2006.
Holy Evolution, Darwin! Comics Take On Science
by Neda Ulaby on NPR's Morning Edition. Includes interviews with Jay Hosler and science comic writer

. Aired Feb. 14, 2005.
To Bee or Not to Bee
''Sequential Tart''. Interview of Jay Hosler by Marcia Allass. Jan 2001.

External links

Jay Hosler's web page

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hosler, Jay American comics writers American comics artists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) University of Notre Dame alumni DePauw University alumni Ohio State University fellows American entomologists