August 17, 2025

The OctoPost: Feet, Comic-Con, and a Software Life Cycle

Cephalopod News

By recording detailed 3D video of the “Octopus Garden” where thousands of octopuses gather at deep-sea hot springs, scientists can now describe exactly how these animals use their arms to move. In the words of lead scientist Kakani Katija, “We learned that octopus crawl by creating a modified foot that persists throughout the behavior, a simplification that could aid roboticists.”

Octopuses are mollusks, the same group that includes snails and clams. A core feature of all mollusks is a large muscular foot—snails ooze on it, clams dig with it, and octopus ancestors developed it into a plethora of sucker-lined arms. Learning that these complex appendanges are (sometimes) used as ordinary feet . . . well, I had to tease.

Seriously, it’s very cool research with a very cool tool. Many thanks to my friend Sam for being the first to send it my way! Using a sophisticated 3D camera to record octopuses in situ has a double benefit over studying animals in the lab: the data more accurately represent real-world behavior, and the octopuses don’t experience the stress of captivity.

Speaking of captivity, this is a fascinating article: A marine biologist and an octopus walk into a prison, leading incarcerated students in a discussion of intelligence, confinement, and connection.

Many wanted to know about the animals’ quality of life. Asking “Is she bored in there all day?” or more to the point “Is she ok?”

It’s a poignant example of the empathy toward octopuses that I’m seeing more and more.

My News

Last month, I attended San Diego Comic-Con as a professional panelist! This enormous gathering of geeks (summary and photos) offers more activities than you can shake a lightsaber at. In our one day at the con, my family caught a talk by famous cartoonists, a paint-your-own miniatures session, a live Dungeons & Dragons cooking competition, and a screening of student animated films.

And, of course:

We were scheduled for the last slot on the last day, and hoped to attract maybe 50 attendees, but, well, I’ll just quote Sam’s lovely reflections:

30 minutes before our panel began, we saw a line forming outside the room. You may not have guessed this, but the people of comic-con love to draw. And it turns out, they love octopuses, too! That line stretched all the way around the corner of the entrance, and when the last panel wrapped up, that room was filled to the brim. There were, by my estimate, over 300 people at the panel. People had to be turned away!

With the enthusiasm of the audience and the expertise of fellow panelists, it became easily one of the best hours I’ve spent on a stage. We chatted about the sea change in pop culture’s perception of octopus characters, from villains like Doc Ock to heroes like Marcellus. Then we dove into octopus anatomy, and thence to the hands-on part of the workshop.

Josue (an AV whiz as well as an incredible cartoonist) had arranged our setup so the audience could watch all three of us draw at once, and attendees were given paper and pencils to follow along. We learned so much from each other and from the audience’s fantastic questions!

We’ll be able to share a full video soon, and in the meantime, here’s a delightful trailer. I’m grateful to Sam and Josue for the panel experience, to Kathryn and Sarah for documenting, and to my family for endless support.

I brought 17 copies of my OctoPunch comic (shared last October) turned into a zine, which obviously wasn’t enough. I asked my lovely husband to hand them out to only the children in the audience; we still ran out.

I will definitely make more for future events!

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Funny Pages

The aforementioned lovely husband does many kinds of engineering, and our work often cross-pollinates in whimsical ways. Hence today’s comic, which I’ll explain in more detail below.

In the Silicon Valley mythos, brilliant ideas begin as scribbles on paper napkins. A first attempt at writing the software is called the “alpha version.” After it’s revised into a “beta version,” it gets tested and further revised. In theory, revision continues until the software functions exactly as intended without any bugs, at which point it is released into the wild. In practice, software gets shipped when deadlines become unignorable, and continues to be patched and updated indefinitely.