Austin Ulrigg
Vol. INo. 1–9Est. MMXXVI

Comics

Math, mostly graph theoryNew ones whenever I have one

Sunday Edition

Three-panel comic 'Schrödinger's Genus': an advisor asks a grad student the genus of the Balaban (3,11)-cage (15 ≤ g ≤ 17, no genus-15 embedding found); Schrödinger bursts in asking whether the cat is alive.
No. 1Sunday

The Balaban (3,11)-cage is known to have genus between 15 and 17 — but nobody has pinned down which.

Two-panel comic 'Planar Graphs Only': a bouncer at 'Plane' (genus 0) turns away K5 and K3,3; the 'Torus' (genus 1) welcomes them, saying 'Relax, I've got a handle for this.'
No. 2Sunday

Kuratowski’s theorem: K₅ and K₃,₃ keep you off the plane (genus 0). The torus (genus 1) has a handle for that.

Daily Strips

hover to colorize
Comic 'The Handle Dealer': a trench-coat figure lined with torus 'handles' says 'That's how it starts'; a graph replies 'I only need one.'
No. 3Daily

One handle is all a nonplanar graph needs to shed its crossings.

Comic 'Euler Knows Your Faces': a graph at a café says 'You could never understand my inner life'; Euler replies 'I know your faces from two numbers.'
No. 4Daily

For a connected planar graph, V − E + F = 2 — the faces fall out of the vertices and edges.

Comic 'Forbidden Minor': airport security scans a graph, K3,3 on the monitor: 'We found a forbidden minor, after deleting and contracting most of you.'
No. 5Daily

A graph is nonplanar exactly when you can find K₅ or K₃,₃ inside it by deleting and contracting.

Comic 'Finitely Many': a bouncer outside 'Minor-Closed Property' with a 'Forbidden Minors' list. Graph: 'How many names are on the list?' Bouncer: 'Finitely many.' 'Can I see it?' 'No.'
No. 6Daily

Robertson–Seymour: every minor-closed family has a finite list of forbidden minors — even when nobody can write it down.

Comic 'Everything Matches': two graphs in an interrogation room with folders 'same adjacency spectrum / Laplacian spectrum / short cycles.' Detective: 'Everything matches. Not until the rotation systems come back.'
No. 7Daily

Cospectral graphs can agree on every spectral invariant and still not be the same graph.

Comic 'One More Handle': a graph at the gym with torus weights. 'I thought genus was supposed to be minimal.' Trainer: 'Come on. One more handle.'
No. 8Daily

Genus is the minimum number of handles a surface needs — no extra reps required.

Comic 'Depends How You Turn Me': a graph on a date asks 'So, what surface do you see us on?' The rotation system answers 'Depends how you turn me.'
No. 9Daily

A rotation system — the cyclic order of edges at each vertex — decides which surface a graph embeds on.