Fantastic Acoustics (Fantastique Acoustique) Comics

Date published:

By Professor Olivier Robin, Université de Sherbrooke

Acoustics is an essential field of scientific study and a multidisciplinary science. It helps us to understand how sound is generated, propagates, interacts with different structures or materials, and ultimately affects our environment.

Yet acoustics is a little-known science. It is often perceived as primarily related to music or architecture (my friend plays the acoustic guitar – a concert hall has excellent acoustics). Yet noise and sound signals are omnipresent and significantly impact our daily lives. Many areas of acoustics play an essential role in our lives and society, from electroacoustics and biomedical acoustics to underwater acoustics. We wanted to introduce you to them using comics, an art form that remains underestimated despite being a formidable tool for science communication.

‘Fantastic Acoustics’ is the result of a collaborative effort between artists and research students from four Québec universities – Université de Sherbrooke, École de Technologie Supérieure, McGill and Université du Québec à Rimouski. This unique blend of comics and science has given birth to eight research-based comic stories. The book also features elements from a collaboration with a French university – Le Mans Université. Between each story, you’ll thus find a lesson from Kylfa, a bat specialized in acoustics, and Salomon, a funny elephant. In the middle of all these elements, a map of the acoustics world describes the entire field with pictures.

For more information and downloadable PDFs in French and English visit:  https://en.fantastiqueacoustique.net/home

For any request or question, please contact us at the following email address: Olivier.Robin@usherbrooke.ca

Fantastic Acoustics results from the work of many people and organizations listed below

Involved artists – cartoonists :

  • Drawn research stories: Catherine Bard, Simon Bergeron (ESBÉ), Sandra Breault, Ariane Cloutier, Madeleine Guastavino, Marina Leon, Jordanne Maynard, Juliette Pierre.
  • Kylfa and Salomon’s lesson: Pierre Frampas – With the assistance of Heimana Alberola for colors
  • The drawn acoustics world: Marsi.

Involved Students : Cécile Perrier de la Bathie, Coralie BernierBreton (ISMER-UQAR) Michel Demuynck, Lucie Gallerand (ÉTS), Alexis Carrion, François Proulx (UdeS), Christopher Trudeau, Valérian Fraisse, Cynthia Tarlao (McGill)

Coordination: Tamara Krpic

Editing & graphic design: Nadia Zouaoui

Cover illustration: Pascal Lemieux

Management – editing – script (Kylfa et Salomon): Olivier Robin

To learn more about how the series was created, read this https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0002008

This project received funding from the Fonds de Recherche du Québec (Dialogue funding, Grant no. 337 363). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0).