Nonfiction Comics

The Advanced Encryption Standard is one of those things that is almost omnipresent on the Internet, but most people don’t know it exists—much less how it works. Jeff Moser seeks to rectify that in creating A Stick Figure Guide to the Advanced Encryption Standard, which is exactly what it says it is: a comic using stick figure art to explain AES as simply as possible.

Of course, “simply” is a relative term, which is why Moser has separated his guide into four parts, so that a reader can bail out whenever it gets too intense for them. I have to admit that this was me:

The math can get a bit thick at the end, which might not be a problem for someone currently engaged in studying mathematics or programming, but flies over the head of people like me, who haven’t had cause to use algebra, calculus, or anything more complicated than basic math past college. That’s not a problem with the comic, as the primary audience is people interested in programming or cryptography. For them it will probably be just fine, presented in a format easier on the eyes than lines of dry text documentation.