Education Resources

Class 1: Introduction to Graphic Storytelling

Introduction:

In this class students learn about the field of Graphic Medicine and explore the relevance of comics to health care. Students consider definitions and characteristics of comics, the different roles of pictures and text, ways in which images and words interact, and how comics show us things that cannot be said.

Suggested readings introduce students to visual and textual aspects of the comics format and graphic storytelling. The readings also help students begin a conversation about how comics work—what their features are; how one reads a comic; what the meaning of various symbols, lines, shapes, etc. is; how words and images function together; what can be done via comics that cannot be done with words alone; how the passage of time is communicated; how emotions are depicted, and so on.

The chapters from Scott McCloud’s classic book, Understanding Comics, outline the vocabulary of comics and explain what the comics medium is, how it works, and why it is different from other literary forms. This reading is essential for anyone seeking to understand comics. The article by Green and Myers discusses the concept of Graphic Medicine by presenting the uses and relevance of comics to medicine and medical education. The webcomic by Luke Pearson describes his fears about his own mortality and his personal relationship to health and illness.

Students begin the class by drawing a simple self-portrait in the style of comic artist Ivan Brunetti, using circles, triangles, and rectangles on a 4 x 6” notecard. Instructions for this activity are found in Lynda Barry’s “Ivan Brunetti style” from Syllabus: Notes from an accidental professor (p. 17) and in Green’s “Brunetti Style” video. Afterwards they exchange their self-portraits with the person sitting next to them, and learn about one another. Students then introduce their partner to the entire group, showing their partner’s self-portrait and telling the class about this person.

Learning how to create a daily visual diary is a second class activity. Students write and draw in a composition book aimed at self-reflection, and share some of their entries during subsequent class discussions. It’s a great way for them to become more careful observers of the world, and promotes habits of awareness, reflection, and documentation. To draw their first entry in their visual daily diaries, students watch Lynda Barry’s “Six Minute Diary” video, use the handout “Keeping a Daily Diary,” and read Barry’s “Your Daily Diary” in Syllabus: Notes from an accidental professor.