JOC Fail

When you publish in any decent journal article these days you are expected to submit a nice picture to go in the table of contents. These pictures can be colour and often a lot of time and effort goes into simply designing the picture of your article.

So it's good to see when someone goes above and beyond to supply the journal with a nice picture. In this case, a JOC article.

I was scanning through my newly set up RSS feed for JOC ASAP articles and saw this little gem that I had to share here. I have no idea what the article is about other than building aromaticity in a ladder-like structure.

Pyrazinacenes: Aza Analogues of Acenes

Gary J. Richards, Jonathan P. Hill, Navaneetha K. Subbaiyan, Francis D’Souza, Paul A. Karr, Mark R. J. Elsegood, Simon J. Teat, Toshiyuki Mori and Katsuhiko Ariga

J. Org. Chem., Article ASAP

Publication Date (Web): November 2, 2009

Now while it is a great picture and I am sure the guy now feels good about the height he has gained via synthesis of these molecules I am not above pointing out the funny points in this picture.

1. Why would you include a picture of yourself in a chemical synthesis?
   
   
2. Why would you send the picture in to a reputable publication like JOC?
   
   
3. Why didn't you make sure the picture was accurate before sending it in to JOC?(N.B. Final structure is almost definitely missing some nitrogens from the second from top ring system).
   
   
4. You shouldn't advertise the fact that you don't know how to safely operate a step ladder.

But regardless, I must thank the author, you brightened up an otherwise dreary day. HILARIOUS!!!