As we’re coming to the end of 2012, I wanted to thank you all for your support and encouragement throughout the year.

I started drawing science/academia cartoons in June 2011 (remember the first one?) and I am still surprised at how fast the audience grew, multiplying the blog’s traffic by a factor of 100 in a matter of hours.

In the meantime, I feel that I have also grown as a cartoonist. The sketches are now – at least by my own assessment – much better than they used to, and although every time I draw a strip I feel like I’ll never have another idea again, the crazy and amazing world of academic research always has more to offer.

However, the frequency of posted cartoons has dropped noticeably in the past few months, going from three-a-week to about one-a-week. This is the result of many factors, including full-time employment, a LOT of travelling, some pretty huge life changes and a number of freelance writing/cartooning opportunities. And last but not least comes the attention demanded by my novels, the first of which, LAZARUS, was published earlier this year to a happy degree of success.

In short, my cartooning time has dwindled somewhat, and, for that, I apologise. The Upturned Microscope now has many great fans, and I really want to respond to their enthusiasm. Also, I absolutely love drawing cartoons, and being able to describe myself officially as a “cartoonist” is just something that would have never, ever, crossed my mind two years ago.

However, time and energy don’t always go hand-in-hand, and are often both absent from my life these days.

So, please bear with me, and I will continue to strive to update as often as I can. As we move into the Christmas holidays, I will try to match the theme of the season, but since I’ll be travelling and writing a fair bit, I can’t promise anything on the scale of last year’s Postdoc Carol and research Christmas songs.

But in the meantime, I thank you all for being patient, zealous, creative, contributing and downright nuts with the Upturned Microscope. You’ve made it what it is and you are the fuel that keeps it going. I’m just a guy with an old laptop and a drawing tablet.

Thank you.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year – and try to get out of the lab a little. Who knows, maybe the Shoe Elves will run your PCRs overnight.

Lots of love,

— Nik