*Thinks to himself, ‘which way am I going to go with this? …I could drone on about the state of humanity, the representation of science in the media or perhaps animal traits in humans’… then realises that this being The Flowfield Unity it has probably been said before and that there’s little use in preaching to the choir*

I fancy a different type of hybrid… like the ones we made before, do you remember? When you came up with an idea, either a notion or fully formed, and I would try to make a comic out of it?

I think it went pretty well, and I know we have a few new readers that might fancy a chance, so, as of next Monday, I’ll be posting some interactive art and we’ll be having a look at some of you for a change.

As was the case last time, feel free to leave your ideas in the comments or you can email me at the usual address.

We’ll be starting with a strip idea from Fes of the popular podcast, The Webcomic Beacon… it contains a high percentage of pun with traces of geek.

So, sing on choir.

To use an appropriated Americanism that I would never normally use, today is all about the cow.

First, may I draw your attention to Cow & Buffalo. I made a suggestion that there should be a strip about ‘smilk’ and I think you’d agree that the creator Mike Maihack did an excellent job.

The next bit of cow-related fun is the news that apparently we’ve created a human-animal hybrid embryo… and which species did we choose to share this amazing milestone? The cow.

It sounds really impressive – human-animal hybrid embryo – and I believe that saying it out loud repeatedly is a cure for hiccups, but really it’s not as impressive as a lot of people are going to make it out to be. For once I think scientists are going to play down their work, and it’s probably best that they do just that.

What they’ve created is a cell composed of the workings of a human, surrounded by a cow-cell membrane. There’s no real mixing of genes of any of that sort of thing, it’s closer to a human having a pigs heart but not nearly as high in meat content.

But you just know that the media could go all ‘Frankenstein’ on it… and yes I know that Frankenstein was the doctor not the monster*, but try telling the media that.

It’s a shame really. This sort of thing could, ultimately, really help people, like those with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Yet it seems that there’s a real fear of these advances in cellular manipulation, especially within the organisations that subscribe to the idea of ending human suffering.

And so you can understand why scientists might want to keep this quiet – so that they can get on with their job as the law defines it, rather than having to spend their time trying to convince people that will never be swayed by an argument, let alone a fairly cohesive and logical one.

Besides, I quiet like the idea of a human-cow hybrid, I think they’d bring a lot to the table. I could use an extra stomach and the ability to eat grass has been sorely missing from my life.

…

Go on then, if how the church perceives genetics is true, what animal do you think should be combined with the human genome?