Thompson art for National Geographic's Everyday Science Explained

Yesterday, we took a look at the 2003 edition of the book New Everyday Science Explained, and I had a suspicion that the earlier Everyday Science Explained by Curt Suplee (National Geographic Society, 1996, ISBN 0-7922-3410-3) might have more images, and more in color (since Richard usually worked in color watercolor and never in grey washes that I can recall. I'm sure there's exceptions, but...)

As you'd expect from that opening, I was right, and thanks to a National Geographic contact, here are his illustrations in glorious color, along with a new dozen or so. More, bigger, and better!

 

Wasn't this version much nicer? Since they were already paying for full color pages, I have no idea why the publisher dropped the color on most of the images for the 2003 book.

Thompson art for National Geographic's New Everyday Science Explained

Yesterday would have been Richard's 62nd birthday. In honor of that, we've recently been told of a book where Richard contributed over a score of drawings, and we'll share some of them with you. Richard's drawings were used in the 1996 edition called Everyday Science Explained and then reprinted in 2003. His ability to do scientific cartoons was well established by this point as he'd been illustrating Why Things Are with Joel Achenbach for the Washington Post and Curt Suplee was a former science columnist for the paper. I don't recall seeing the originals to these, and don't know if they were in his archive when we were working on The Art of Richard Thompson.

In The New Everyday Science Explained, by Curt Suplee, National Geographic, 2003, ISBN 0-7922-7357-5, Richard Thompson is given credit for the following drawings (thanks to National Geographic collector Richard Kennedy for the list):

• p. 15 (bottom) Kicking soccer and bowling balls
• p. 20 Stepping from dinghy to dock
• p. 27 (left) Elastic vs. inelastic collisions with a tennis racket
• p. 30 (bottom) Car breaking down
• p. 32 (bottom) Archimedes on a lever lifting the world
• p. 68 Couple running on beach demonstrating convection of heat
• p. 76 (bottom) Man in elevator demonstrating acceleration
• p. 80 Bullet dropped and fired hit the ground simultaneously 
• p. 87 Couple demonstrating that opposites attract
• p. 94-95 House showing multiple motors
• p. 114 Man on sidewalk being bombarded by different electromagnetic signals
• p. 130 (bottom) Periodic table of elements in classroom setting
• p. 134 Man holding hoop with animals jumping through it showing the work of catalysts
• p. 144 Man adding water to glass tub of ingredients and creating a new person illustrating that our bodies are mostly water
• p. 168  (bottom) Fashion models on runway wearing barrels marked with artificial ingredients
• p. 186 Cafeteria "Build You Own PROTEIN at the Amino Acid Bar"
• p. 190 Hamsters on stadium seating holding panels that make a picture of a hamster
• p. 193 Three dogs showing chromosome transmittal to offspring
• p. 212 Flu viruses in front of "International Panel of Scientists"
• p. 237 (top) Man on assembly line demonstrating liver functions
• p. 244 Drawing of a person with body parts sized according to the number of sensory nerves they contain
• p. 246 Interior of head showing that images on the retina are upside down
• p. 264 Man in bed dreaming

We'll return to these two books and compare the contents of the 1996 and 2003 editions when we get a copy of the earlier book.