You need to think deep if you want to be a scientist. Neuroscientist Bruno van Swinderen definitely is a deep thinker - see his latest paper in the journal Science on memory genes and attention. But Bruno is a deep thinker with talent far beyond neuroscience. He has published, on his website at the Neurosciences Institute, a captivating memoir of his adolescent years in Benin, Africa and a full-size, 88-page graphic novel about the adventures of Indian Computer Science major Ranjan in Mexico (among other places).

I haven't finished reading the Benin-memoir, yet, but what I've read from it was very moving and I felt some of the diremption and out-of-touch-ness which is a major component in the characterization of his graphic novel protagonist Ranjan. Ranjan is an aspiring Computer Science student from India studying in the US, who happens to end up in the wrong bus on a spring break trip to Acapulco, which eventually strands him (twice!) on an old, derelict freighter where he meets Napoléon, from Benin. The hair-raising adventures that Ranjan gets thrown into remind me alot of Amores Perros or Babel by acclaimed director Alejandro González Iñárritu. In one of them Ranjan gets surprised by a few scienists in the jungle studying Howler monkeys and follows them to their base camp. In a scene which as is weird and as out-of-place as most other threads in this entertainingly cluttered episodic narrative (also like the two movies I mentioned), the scientists are shown lecturing autistically to the newcomer about some scientific detail and how its discovery will bring them Science or Nature papers. Of course, Ranjan couldn't care less. What for scientists means excitement, plight, anguish or hope rarely means anything to normal people.
There is another streak to the novel which can be seen in the movies: Sometimes life just happens to you and what you do has either very little or very disastrous consequences. The movie analogy ends, however, at the complexity of the story. The Ranjan novel features only the story of the protagonist, offering only glimpses into the lives of the other characters, whereas the movies develop the intertwined stories of several main, at first unrelated characters.
As an avid reader of graphic novels, I thoroughly enjoyed this one and I'm sure you will, too. It's as postmodern as it gets and leaves out only few social stereotypes, which is probably why I find it so amusing. At the same time, it never ceases to be intellectually stimulating and enthralling.
I'd have lost more good to say about it, but that is much better said over a glass of wine in a nice café or over a beer in a bar. Now you go ahead, read it and let me know what you think. I, for one, can't wait for part 2 to be finished!