[1][2] Ottaviani's interest in writing science-related comics was inspired by Richard Rhodes's book The Making of the Atomic Bomb.

[3] Since the publication of Two-Fisted Science, Ottaviani has gone on to write several other comic books about scientists, including Dignifying Science (about women scientists), Fallout (about the creation of the atomic bomb), Suspended in Language (about physicist Niels Bohr) and Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards (about nineteenth century paleontologists).

[1] Two of Ottaviani's most recent works Levitation and Wire Mothers (published July 2007) are the beginning of a planned series on "the science of the unscientific."

Wire Mothers is tells the story of psychologist Harry Harlow's work in the 1950s on importance of love and affection among primates, in contravention of then-prevailing theories put forward by the Behaviorist school of thought.

He also has two forthcoming comics in the works to be published by First Second Books, one on physicist Richard Feynman and another on three primatologists: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas.

[8] In June 2014, Tor.com released Ottaviani and Leland Purvis' Alan Turing biography, The Imitation Game, for free online.