This month marks one year since the inception of the illustrated journal club (of one) series known as The Short Answer. If you have been following these, you may have noticed that I haven't really settled on a particular style, or even a consistent format. I'm still not sure what I'm doing with these; they are my place to play. Some I am more proud of than others. But one unintended consequence is that it has brought me a few new clients, since I always share them with the authors. My science writer/communication guru friend calls this content marketing. Others might call it the old strategy of giving them something for free. I hadn't really considered any of this when I set out to make these. I suppose it's a lot of work to reach a very small audience, but it is exactly the audience I want to reach, and that's not really the reason I do it anyway.

So without further ado, here is the anniversary installment. The reason that it is the 9th issue is that with the arrival of my second son in August, I had to drop it down to every other month for a while. I hope to get back to monthly installments soon. I also hope to fit into my shorts by summertime. As the hubs says, "We all want things."