Allergies

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(C)Copyright 2024, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

Based on a true story.

I've actually worked on a few comic for use in my classroom over the past few months, and I'll rework them for use on this page. I've been teaching a Graphic Novel course that is an Art credit even though I'm neither Art nor English teacher. We're learning about them and their history, and trying to create some of our own, without worrying to much about the actual artwork. It's more about the effort and design we're putting into them. For anyone really interested, developing art skills (some already have them) will come later. Or they can tell their story by partnering with an artist, and they'll be able to explain exactly what they envision.

Much of what follows appears on the page from the last comic I published -- except that I published it quite a while after the date on the comic.

The slightly longer story: every time I looked at the blog after that, the old "imposter syndrome" reared its ugly head. And then there's the joke asking if you could still be paranoid if people really are out to get you, and I wondered if that applied to with this syndrome as well. It's not like I ever achieved major success with this blog, and for the time that I did, I really didn't know how to capitalize on that to take it to another level (like, for example, Math with Bad Drawings).

And now blogs are past their heyday. Even now, my Regents pages, which always got more hits than my comics, are down in views, as search engine AI spit out answers before they even point to my pages. Fewer of today's high schoolers would even know I exist.

So that's what's been going on. I've been in a decline pretty much since I knew I was closing in on my 2,000th strip and I would need to do something for it. I think I'm past the point of doing something BIG, not because no one is expecting much, but because few seem to be out there at all. And I did MS Paint myself into a corner with a breakup story that was supposed to be resolved fairly quickly -- but I had to write it and then edit down what I was thinking, and then draw it. I hope I will get to that because I don't want to leave those characters hanging. (They could eventually reconcile off-screen.)

If you are out there, I will remind you of the many times that I've said, "I thrive on feedback." And then I might point out that I get so little of it.

MY NEWEST BOOK IS OUT Burke's Lore Briefs: Yesterday's Villains, the following to Tomorrow's Heroes is now available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. If Heroes who don't die live long enough to become the villain, what happens to Villains who live long enough? When do schemes of global conquest become dreams of a quiet place away from all those annoying people you once wanted to subjugate? And does anyone really want to rule over the world's ashes if it means we can't have nice things?
My older books include three more books in my Burke's Lore Briefs series, and the anthologies A Bucket Full of Moonlight and In A Flash 2020. Vampires, werewolves, angels, demons, used-car salesmen, fairies, superheroes, space and time travel, and little gray aliens talking to rock creatures and living plants. Plus pirates, spies, horror, and kindergarten noir! If you enjoy my books, please consider leaving a rating or review on Amazon or on Good Reads. Thank you!

Math Horror Movie: 4Bidden Planet

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(C)Copyright 2024, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

Monsters from the i.

So what was with all that "placeholder" nonsense? A report from June 2026:

The shorter answer is that I had intended on this comic to appear before Halloween, and I had another idea (long since forgotten) that would appear on the 31st.

Obviously, none of that happened.

I had delays as I was trying to get this done, mostly because I have an actual day job teaching, and October is still very much the beginning of the year when you're trying to get things up and running. So this comic was pushed back from 28th, to 29th, to 30th ...

It was just about ready to be posted on the afternoon of the 30th after I overhauled the entire thing. The plan, at that point, was the finish and post when I got home. And then I realized that I'd left my flash drive at school, and there was too many changes for me to attempt to do from what was on the hard drive at hard. So I put in the "placeholder" specifically because I still planned on creating a quick comic for Halloween day itself.

And once again, none of that happened. I can't tell you that I remember much about that school day last October, but I couldn't get to do what I wanted to do.

The slightly longer story: every time I looked at the blog after that, the old "imposter syndrome" reared its ugly head. And then there's the joke asking if you could still be paranoid if people really are out to get you, and I wondered if that applied to with this syndrome as well. It's not like I ever achieved major success with this blog, and for the time that I did, I really didn't know how to capitalize on that to take it to another level (like, for example, Math with Bad Drawings).

And now blogs are past their heyday. Even now, my Regents pages, which always got more hits than my comics, are down in views, as search engine AI spit out answers before they even point to my pages. Fewer of today's high schoolers would even know I exist.

So that's what's been going on. I've been in a decline pretty much since I knew I was closing in on my 2,000th strip and I would need to do something for it. I think I'm past the point of doing something BIG, not because no one is expecting much, but because few seem to be out there at all.

If you are out there, I will remind you of the many times that I've said, "I thrive on feedback." And then I might point out that I get so little of it.

I'll probably reprint a lot of this in the next post that bears the "Comic" tag, which will be in June of 2026.

Happy Halloween! BOO!

MY NEWEST BOOK IS OUT Burke's Lore Briefs: Yesterday's Villains, the following to Tomorrow's Heroes is now available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. If Heroes who don't die live long enough to become the villain, what happens to Villains who live long enough? When do schemes of global conquest become dreams of a quiet place away from all those annoying people you once wanted to subjugate? And does anyone really want to rule over the world's ashes if it means we can't have nice things?
My older books include three more books in my Burke's Lore Briefs series, and the anthologies A Bucket Full of Moonlight and In A Flash 2020. Vampires, werewolves, angels, demons, used-car salesmen, fairies, superheroes, space and time travel, and little gray aliens talking to rock creatures and living plants. Plus pirates, spies, horror, and kindergarten noir! If you enjoy my books, please consider leaving a rating or review on Amazon or on Good Reads. Thank you!

18 Years!

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(C)Copyright 2024, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

Some things never change. Some things change drastically. And some things change out of necessity or just basic improvement.

Moira's grown from a child. Michele was pregnant for two years. Everyone was masked for more than a year.

And Ken, for once, knew enough to keep his thoughts to himself!

HAPPY 18 Years of (x, why?)!

Yes, I'm the first one to admit that there has not been a lot of updates in the past two years. I didn't mean to bail. I didn't mean to panic.

There even came a time recently where I had to say "I used to have a webcomic..." Thankfully, I haven't gone a full year without an update. Yes, that's a low bar to set.

Why the hiatus?

There wasn't one particular reason, but a bunch of factors. There are always factors. After all, it's a Math comic, first and foremost!

Demands on my time

There are two parts to this. This comic really flourished during the years I was substituting rather than teaching full-time. And then came the lockdown, which had me home a lot more. There was no travel time. Plus, when this started, I was teaching 15 minutes from my house. Now it's more like an hour and fifteen minutes.

Also, I'm doing more with the time that I do have. I have tried to get my writing career going again, which started in 2016 and kicked up a notch in 2020. I haven't found the success I'd like, but it's amusing to think that I'd start being a writer and started by a webcomic writer. And for a while, I was okay with that. But the bug bit me again.

And before the shutdown, I really got into walking around Brooklyn. During the shutdown and immediately after, it kicked into high gear, and I was walking everywhere. I walked enough places that I started another blog dedicated to that, Walkin' in Brooklyn. (No "g" in Walkin'.)

This left little time for me to spend on creating the comics. Even with better tools, it takes longer because I've tried to raise the bar on what's acceptable. So unless I just want to publish "Minis" and "School Life" comics (and maybe not those), I couldn't churn them out as quickly.

Story Lines and Other Things

While I didn't exactly write myself into a corner, I did leave a bit of a cliffhanger with that Total Eclipse of the Sun and the Heart in 2024. I did intend to resolve that, even if it had to wait until the summer was over. But it was going to take time to write that because it was going to be too wordy. It needed edits and then I had to figure who was going to be in the intervention comic, as it were.

Slightly sillier is that the above comic is number 1989. I'm closing in on 2000. I've been thinking about 2000 comics for years now. I wanted to do them right.

I didn't want that to happen during October Math Horror Movies or December Christmas Math Carols. The comics would fit the seasons. I still want to do them, and there's only a few more left, so I need to plan them.

Personal Life

We all have things going on. But I spent too many days in the past few years visiting hospitals and cleaning up someone else's place. Mike's family is modeled somewhat after my own. To differentiate, I only gave him one sister and didn't plan on making One-to-One relationships between the families. No one was to be anyone's avatar ... even if they did occasionally take on some personality traits.

But Art imitates Life no matter how you slice it. There's only one sister but I know which one she is because the older of the two passed away many years ago. Longtime readers might remember Mike's mother, particularly on Mothers Day. However, I stopped including her when my mother passed away. (It could be the Dad in me, or maybe it's just that I appreciate the Dad and Uncle characters enough to keep them around for a while.) And then in the past few years, I lost two of my brothers. Both had had their share of health issues, and I did a lot of visiting.

By the way, ever since I was child, I've hated hospitals, and that feeling hasn't changed. But I will go to them.

Moving Forward

Okay, now that I've brought the room down, let me look to the future. Yes, I would like to get back into the habit of creating comics. Yes, I want to make it to 2000 comics and beyond. However, as you can tell from the ads below, I'd like to keep writing as well.

We'll see how this all plays out.

MY NEWEST BOOK IS OUT Burke's Lore Briefs: Yesterday's Villains, the following to Tomorrow's Heroes is now available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. If Heroes who don't die live long enough to become the villain, what happens to Villains who live long enough? When do schemes of global conquest become dreams of a quiet place away from all those annoying people you once wanted to subjugate? And does anyone really want to rule over the world's ashes if it means we can't have nice things?
My older books include three more books in my Burke's Lore Briefs series, and the anthologies A Bucket Full of Moonlight and In A Flash 2020. Vampires, werewolves, angels, demons, used-car salesmen, fairies, superheroes, space and time travel, and little gray aliens talking to rock creatures and living plants. Plus pirates, spies, horror, and kindergarten noir! If you enjoy my books, please consider leaving a rating or review on Amazon or on Good Reads. Thank you!

Happy New Year 2025!

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(C)Copyright 2024, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2025!

There was a lot to put into one comic and I couldn't compress the graphs anymore without some of the lines disappearing on me or unless I was willing to dealing with a lot of pixelation. Since I had a lot of shading to do, I did not want the pixelation.

Besides, I wanted you to see all 2,025 of those wonderful little colored boxes!

The funny part is that I had an illustration in a math journal I kept more than a dozen years ago that I wanted to use. The problem was that the page, which was more than 45 boxes tall was not 45 boxes wide. It was a little more than 36, so I had an 36 by 36 square and everything in the comic about was there, but based on the smaller number.

So I recreated it from scratch.

Now, since 2025 is a a perfect square, and the only one that I'll see in my lifetime, until I live until 2116, another 91 years from now, there are a lot of fun facts because it is a perfect square. For one thing, squares are always the sum of two consecutive triangular numbers. Think about splitting a square along the diagonal, but instead, make steps. One triangular number will be one less than the other. Moreover, if you eliminate the center square, you can split the rest of the square into four congruent rectangles, each of which can be divided into two equal triangular numbers. So you'll have 8N + 1, where N is a triangular number.

Finally, N to the second power can always be represented by the sum of the first N consecutive odd numbers.

The bonus to all this is that 45 is itself a triangular number, being the sum of 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9, so that just allows even more number play to occur. And though it seems like the oddest coincidence that (1 + 2 + 3 + ... + n)² will always equal 1³ + 2³ + 3³ + ... + n³

Enjoy the New Year! It should be wonderfully mathematical!

I also write Fiction! The NEW COLLECTION IS AVIALABLE! A Bucket Full of Moonlight, written by Christopher J. Burke, contains 30+ pieces of short stories and flash fiction. It's available from eSpec Books! Order the softcover or ebook at Amazon. Vampires, werewolves, angels, demons, used-car salesmen, fairies, superheroes, space and time travel, and little gray aliens talking to rock creatures and living plants.
My older books include my Burke's Lore Briefs series and In A Flash 2020.
If you enjoy my books, please consider leaving a rating or review on Amazon or on Good Reads. Thank you!

Come back often for more funny math and geeky comics.

Cosine of the Bells

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(C)Copyright 2024, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

cos(bells) = ring⁴

I'm glad I was able to get in one holiday comic this year. I love Christmas. It's a favorite time of year. However, the past couple of years ... life has a way of helping you reflect on quiet moments and enjoy family, which keeps me away from making comics, which take time.

If there isn't another update before Wednesday, have a Merry Christmas Day and enjoy your holidays!

I also write Fiction! The NEW COLLECTION IS AVIALABLE! A Bucket Full of Moonlight, written by Christopher J. Burke, contains 30+ pieces of short stories and flash fiction. It's available from eSpec Books! Order the softcover or ebook at Amazon. Vampires, werewolves, angels, demons, used-car salesmen, fairies, superheroes, space and time travel, and little gray aliens talking to rock creatures and living plants.
My older books include my Burke's Lore Briefs series and In A Flash 2020.
If you enjoy my books, please consider leaving a rating or review on Amazon or on Good Reads. Thank you!

Come back often for more funny math and geeky comics.

School Life #44: The Three-Body Problem

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(C)Copyright 2024, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

You know that we've all been there.

The third wheel on a bicycle doesn't make it a tricycle unless you're the big wheel and the other two are following behind you. That's not this guy. Wasn't me, either. Just a case of mistaken greetings.

On a side note, Happy 12 + 12 = 24!

Writing Update Philcon was fun! I went to a few panels, and I even got to read for a couple of minutes at the launch party.

I also write Fiction! The NEW COLLECTION IS AVIALABLE! A Bucket Full of Moonlight, written by Christopher J. Burke, contains 30+ pieces of short stories and flash fiction. It's available from eSpec Books! Order the softcover or ebook at Amazon. Vampires, werewolves, angels, demons, used-car salesmen, fairies, superheroes, space and time travel, and little gray aliens talking to rock creatures and living plants.
My older books include my Burke's Lore Briefs series and In A Flash 2020.
If you enjoy my books, please consider leaving a rating or review on Amazon or on Good Reads. Thank you!

Come back often for more funny math and geeky comics.

School Life #43: Two Wrong

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(C)Copyright 2024, C. Burke. "AnthroNumerics" is a trademark of Christopher J. Burke and (x, why?).

Did he say he got two wrong ... or that he was just too wrong.

Proprtionality is important. Percentages are important.

Only getting 2 wrong out of 25 isn't a big dead (except to the highly competitive, and I totally respect that). Getting 2 wrong out of 3 or 4 means you need to do more reviewing.

Yes, a regular schedule of updates to this site would be nice. I'm not sure when that will happen. Working on it.

Writing Update I will be at Philcon this weekend, November 23-34, 2024, in Cherry Hill, NJ, at the DoubleTree by Hilton. I'll be at TWO book launch parties: one that will include my book (see the table below), and another for an anthology that I have a story in. If you're in the area, come on by!

I also write Fiction! The NEW COLLECTION IS AVIALABLE! A Bucket Full of Moonlight, written by Christopher J. Burke, contains 30+ pieces of short stories and flash fiction. It's available from eSpec Books! Order the softcover or ebook at Amazon. Vampires, werewolves, angels, demons, used-car salesmen, fairies, superheroes, space and time travel, and little gray aliens talking to rock creatures and living plants.
My older books include my Burke's Lore Briefs series and In A Flash 2020.
If you enjoy my books, please consider leaving a rating or review on Amazon or on Good Reads. Thank you!

Come back often for more funny math and geeky comics.