Mr. Chemist's Neighborhood

Chemistry Comic Strips and Humor

"Greetings fellow chemists (and non-chemists)! Welcome to the “Mr. Chemist’s Neighborhood” webpag.eI created this comic strip while I was in college as a one-panel strip I would submit at the end of my organic chemistry lab reports. Eventually, the strip expanded to six panels.

The principle character, Al Chemist (get it?), is a caricature of myself and the comic strip itself is a parody of Fred Rogers’ “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood”. Since Al needed a friend or two, I included Lewis Base (he wears a beanie) and Mr. Unknown Man. The idea for Mr. Unknown Man came to me when I went into the basement of a college where the chemical stockroom was located and saw white crap (scientific term) coming out of the bottle’s cap. Mr. Unknown Man gets around by hopping around in a beaker and lives in one of the organic chemistry fume hoods. Other characters appearing over the years have been Radium Rat, Guido the Construction Worker and Fido Remediation.

When I arrived at Cedar Crest College, I posted a comic strip on my office door each month. In 2003, a student who worked for the student newspaper, asked me if I wanted to submit one of my comic strips to the newspaper. I agreed to do so on a monthly basis. As time went by, I began to submit the strips twice a month. I continue to create these comics with great joy to this day.

Most of the chemistry faculty at Cedar Crest College has been included in the strip over the years. Below is a list of the faculty members and the names I gave them for their characters in the comic strip. I hope you enjoy my work. Thanks for looking!"

David Raker

Read Mr. Chemist's Neighborhood By Year