Sadly, for most of recorded history, Mad Science has been a solitary art. Such valuable professional tools as networking and society brunches were unheard of, and the closest thing one of our kind ever got to Peer Review was when the mob of peasants came crashing through the castle gate.

But no longer! Now we are out in the open, public and proud, with colleges and magazines to our name! And with this delightful higher profile has come a new industry of products designed to satisfy our very particular needs.

Here are some of the more noteworthy of those products, all of which will doubtless assist your in your quest to Show Them, Show Them All.

How often has this happened to you? You are visiting the lab of a colleague and inspecting the creature he has just created. You reach out with a finger to stroke its shiny, moist carapace, when its creator shouts "No! Don't touch it!"

But the cry comes too late.

Well, now you can leave these embarrassing incidents in the past. Apply one of these biologically active buds to your stump, and, within days, that cruel nickname "Stubby" will be gone forever. Your new finger will be fully functional, albeit a bit pale. Available in a variety of colors, lengths, and species.

In the past, mad scientists have attempted to deal with the inevitable mobs of angry, torch-wielding villagers with kind words, careful explanations, and the soothing balm of reason and rationality. Big mistake.

True, kind words have a small chance of turning aside a screaming, scythe-wielding babushka, but the modern mad scientist places his faith in the rational reliability of tear gas and rubber bullets. Sure, your mountaintop fortress will still end up razed to the ground, but more proactive crowd-dispersal techniques will give you the extra few minutes you need to get your new creation safely into the sky/astral plane/water supply.

Perfect for when you need to, on short notice, afflict someone with a swarm of evil, radioactive bees.

In the end, there really is no point bringing a zombie back from the dead if it ends up with the savage brain of "Pirate Captain Stan, the Spine Eater." It's a messy situation all around.

Fortunately, Experimente Aids International has entered into exclusive arrangements with a number of monasteries, nunneries, and day care centers and has thus procured a steady supply of reliable, predictable brains for your experiments. Of course, for the mad scientist of the old school, brains of shut-ins, malcontents and psychotics are still available at a considerable discount.

Nothing hinders one’s safe interaction with an angry new creation more than the recalcitrant fear of ones assistant. When I tell my servant to "Go kick it in the pincer and see if it's alive", I'm just as likely to get a terrified whimper as instant obedience.

Before, I was able to reduce fear with liberal application of rum. Alas, this negatively impacted my assistant's ability to dodge. That is why Fear Removal Spray is so marvelously useful. One use, applied to the general mouth and nose area, and your experiments are back on track towards their terrifying conclusions.

Sure, we all want a giant squid in the watery tunnels under our dark fortress. There is no better way to dissuade a hero attempting to sneak into your lair and derail your mad plans. However, giant squid are difficult pets. They're tough to get, expensive to feed, and can be host to a wide variety of unpleasant squid-based diseases and infections.

That is why the mad scientist on a budget will invest in Squid-Pro, the most realistic giant squid modern technology can provide. Squid-Pro comes with its own motor, which provides a constant, threatening, jiggling motion.

It is well known that the greatest danger to the working mad scientist is not mauling or explosion but the perils of ironic comeuppance. Decide that you are more powerful than God and are destined to rule the world, and, sure as Wednesday follows Tuesday, your doom is assured.

Thus, this series of posters, designed to maintain a constant and life-saving level of humility.

The presence of such slogans as "Remember thou art mortal," and "If you love your giant mutant cockroach, set it free. If it doesn't come back, it was never really yours." will help keep you from digging too far into Secrets Man Was Not Meant to Know.

Now available in a convenient monthly digest.

Subscribe now and receive, absolutely free and with no obligation, the helpful 300 page book "Surviving the Secrets Man Was Not Meant to Know."

It happens too often. Your dimensional portal collapses, leaving nothing but smoke and a pile of unidentified goo. You walk forward and, naturally, prod the goo with your finger. The goo then enters through your skin, travels through your lymphatic system to your head, and starts issuing evil orders directly to your forebrain.

This all-too-frequent occurrence can be prevented with the simple use of an inexpensive pair of silver tongs. One zlotny spent on tongs can save ten zlotnies in finger regrowth buds.

Our Motto:

Once again, our guest funnier-than-us guy is Jeff Vogel of Spiderweb Software, Inc. He makes shareware games for a living. If that’s not Mad Mad Mad, we don’t know what is.

This article originally appeared in Issue 4 of the Girl Genius (pre-Web) comic book. It, and the artwork, is ©2002 Studio Foglio, LLC