Comics on the day’s news

Drew's Comic Newsroom

Culture and Curiosity

Culture and Curiosity

Comics

Four-panel comic. An uncle finds shards in a dumpster; Pilver tells him to get them out; a high school lab catalogs 1,000 sherds; boxes unload at the Mexican consulate.

Original comic, Culture desk. News: NPR Illinois / All Things Considered, Aug. 21, 2026.

Culture and Curiosity

How more than 1,000 artifacts were found in a dumpster, then returned to Mexico

Connecticut archaeologist and high school teacher Jeremy Pilver told NPR that more than 1,000 pre-Hispanic Mexican objects are being returned to Mexico. His wife’s uncle, Matthew Pioggia, spotted pieces in a western Massachusetts dumpster about two and a half years earlier, spent about four hours pulling them out, and later delivered roughly 50 boxes. Students spent nearly two years cleaning and cataloging. Paperwork showed a loan from Mexico’s National Museum of Archaeology about 55 years earlier. Pilver delivered the boxes to a Mexican consulate.

August 22, 2026 at 4:10 PM PDT

Four-panel comic. A tourist squints at red cliff paintings; a lab IDs hematite, lime, and blood; an ancient painter mixes binder; a skeptic holds three sample chips.

Original comic, Culture desk. News: The Art Newspaper, Aug. 18, 2026.

Culture and Curiosity

How has a famous group of 2,000 year-old Chinese rock paintings remained so vibrant? Because it was made with blood, new research says

Shandong University researchers led by Meng Wu say the bright red Huashan rock paintings in Guangxi’s Zuojiang River Valley stayed vivid for about two millennia because the paint included blood. Unesco-listed cliff murals (roughly fifth century BC to second century AD) sit on limestone in a hot, humid monsoon climate. The team sampled fragments from three of more than 80 sites. Red clay rich in nano-hematite was the pigment, with a lime-and-blood mortar as binder. Slated for the Journal of Archaeological Science. An outside specialist said the childbirth-blood claim is the weakest part.

August 22, 2026 at 4:00 PM PDT