Comics as a Way of Representing and Embodying Complex Ideas

• In Event: Methodologies of Comics-Based Research, or "How to Draw Comics the Scholarly Way"

Abstract

It is a burgeoning moment for scholarship in comics form. Academics are recognizing the potential of comics as an accessible way to present their research and a powerful means in which to conduct research itself. Comics are characterized as sequential (McCloud, 1993; Eisner, 1985) – a juxtaposition of images unfolding in successive order much like writing, but they also function as a networked system (Groensteen, 2007) – the disparate elements viewed all-at-once like visual art. The coexistence of sequential reading and simultaneous viewing modes in a single form, imbues comics with unique affordances that make them particularly well-suited to convey complex information from a multiplicity of perspectives (Sousanis, 2015). Narrative approaches can be untethered from strictly sequential options and instead incorporate nonlinear, tangential, and multilayered possibilities. The entire composition of a page, what Art Spiegelman (2007) calls an architectonic unit, plays a significant role in the creation of meaning – we are concerned not only with images within individual panels but their relationships with each other and the whole. In this static medium, time transpires in space, thus conflating time and space (Bernard & Carter, 2004) in such a way that multiple time frames and locations can exist in a single space. Images themselves also present meaning in ways beyond the bounds of what language can do (Langer, 1957). In discussing the power of drawing to get at the unspeakable, cartoonist Lynda Barry (2010) writes, “In motion you speak the language that language is based on” (p. 35). That is, the individual ways each of us makes marks comes forth as style. Drawings convey meaning through this style in which they are rendered – something absent when everyone works in Times New Roman. Comics offer a dense, multi-tiered, and multimodal canvas with which to portray rich narratives and communicate complex ideas.

As a practitioner of comics-based research, I contend that the strength in the form is realized when we work visually from the outset, rather than providing illustrations to research initially written in text. Through this process, words suggest pictures, pictures suggest words – and even as drawings are made in response to research findings, the directions we go with our research are driven by the demands of the drawings themselves. This true synthesis of drawing and writing at once allows us to embody ideas in the form. This goes beyond changing how research is presented. It leads to a different way of working altogether – and with that, the potential to generate new discoveries.

For this session, I will draw on visual examples of process sketches and finished pages from my own dissertation and other scholarly works in comics to offer greater insight into the workings of the form and illuminate its strength and potential for practical usage. I will also take attendees through comics-making activities focusing on the role of composition and how word-image interaction in the sketch process can be harnessed to generate ideas.

Author

• Nick Sousanis, University of Calgary