‘The Science of Rick and Morty’ Wants to Inspire You

Cartoon Network has an animated phenomenon on its hands with Rick and Morty. Created by Dan Harmon (think Community) and Justin Roiland (think Lemongrab), the irreverent adventures of a nihilistic mad scientist and his pubescent, anxiety-ridden grandson are based in a world where everything is knowable. That’s implicit in its theme at least, as it’s integral to Rick’s ennui that leads him to the “mad” part of being a mad scientist. Rick knows everything, and thus can do almost anything, and so nothing is new, interesting, or exciting (imagine playing a simple game where you knew the outcome of every move and you’d be imagining a game you wouldn’t play long without making new rules). The result is a compulsion towards adventures where he can re-experience the world through his grandson’s novelty, a grand tour of an endless knowledge of science and technology. Matt Brady wants to make use of that.

High school science teacher and pop culture savant, Brady was the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Newsarama — the first Eisner Award winning site for Best Comics-related Journalism. In his book The Science of Rick and Morty: The Unofficial Guide to Earth’s Stupidest Show, he uses the Adult Swim hit as a springboard towards a deeper dive into the intellectual and systematic study of everything known and unknown, possible and maybe-possible, earthly and galactic. In other words, y’know, high school science minus the boredom. And that’s this book’s mandate: covering high school scien…