Comics as a research method: An ongoing journey

by Lydia Wysocki

Lydia Wysocki

Research Associate (School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, Newcastle University, UK). Lydia is a Mentor in Residence for our December focus on Communicating Research. She is particularly interested in using comics as a research methodology (multimodal and sequential methods of: planning; data elicitation, collection, transcription and analysis; dissemination and engagement). She founded and leads Applied Comics Etc, working with subject specialists and comics artist-writers to make comics that communicate specific information. Visit her websites to learn more: personal https://lydw.co.uk (on Twitter: @lyd_w) and comics website: https://appliedcomicsetc.com (on Twitter: @appliedcomics).

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Researchers are only beginning to explore the vast potential of using comics in research, including multimodal and sequential methods of data elicitation, collection, analysis and dissemination. My own academic research has developed in parallel to my work and practice as a comics creator, and crossing these streams has largely been a benefit to both my own research and to opportunities to collaborate with or to advise colleagues interested in the emergent field of comics as a research method. In this first of three blog posts about comics as a research method I will stick close to ‘traditional’ methods, before sharing more of my methods journey in two later blog posts.

I am an interdisciplinary social science researcher: my main field is education, combining this with further interests in cultural studies, and creative arts practice. My interest in comics as a research method started with collaborative projects making comics as a way to disseminate research, particularly to non-specialist audiences. I then became interested in how else comics can be used in research processes, as a method and methodology at multiple stages of a research project.

I locate my use of comics as a method within the field of visual research methods in education, and more broadly across social science. Using comics as part of an interdisciplinary approach to visual methods, rather than as artist’s research or as arts-based methods, is for me a constantly useful reminder to consider what it is that is being elicited, collected, transformed, and/or communicated, and how this method is advancing towards that goal.

Although there is no shortage of how-to books for budding comics creators, the boundary of what is or is not a comic is a very fuzzy line. Comics is an umbrella term that includes cartooning, graphic novels, webcomics, manga, the funnies that fill awkward corners of newspaper and magazine pages, and that weird picture book for adults you read that one time. The comics medium uses words and pictures, in some sort of sequence, to convey some sort of narrative and/or content. It is a medium that is far broader than any one particular style or genre of artwork, narrative, or writing. Comics don’t have to be funny. All of which is very conducive to opening up multiple possible uses of comics in social science research.

As an example, let’s consider the process of making a comics-form questionnaire as a research instrument used in data collection. My conference poster [image embedded below] features my comics-form questionnaire, and contextualises it as part of a methodology that used comics in planning, recruitment, as a data collection instrument, and as a debrief sheet in one ongoing research project.

Wysocki, L. 2018 Comics as a method throughout an empirical research process. Poster presented at National Centre for Research Methods - Research Methods Festival 2018 (University of Bath, UK), second prize winner.

Even with experience as a researcher and as a comics creator, making this comics-form questionnaire took a lot of doodling in order to get to a full first draft research instrument, and then multiple revisions and piloting to get to a usable instrument. Although at times it was useful to consider how each question could be asked in a more traditional text-based print or digital questionnaire, this questionnaire was developed as a comics-format instrument throughout (not a re-design of a text-based questionnaire). Drafting enabled me to work out what contextual information, instructions, and questions can be communicated in words and pictures: it was good to remember that not all questionnaire questions need to directly gather data, as some questions may be important to prompt the thinking that the respondent will need in order to answer a later question. Drafting also helped me consider what data could be gathered from asking participants to draw rather than write a response, and how this was useful to my study’s overall exploration of the role of comics in constructions of identity.

Crucially, drafting and re-drafting helped me find a balance between a lightness of touch and enough seriousness to ensure that would-be respondents were informed about the research they are being invited to take part in, and indeed recognised that this is indeed a form of research data collection – not solely a very droll novelty format comic. I am a person who would absolutely want a blank copy of a comics-form questionnaire to add to my teaching collection of weird, wonderful, and often awful applied comics (comics with a specific job to do). But if every potential respondent had taken a questionnaire away for their own collection, it would have been useless as a data collection instrument. Thankfully, response rates were high and my data collection was successful.

The question I am most often asked about comics-form research instruments is ‘how did you do it?’. Having already presented reflections on my working process of questionnaire development, an equally important piece of advice to offer is about ethical review processes, as scholarly permission to use what you have prepared. Working through ongoing Covid disruption to research, particularly to the fieldwork phase of my study, has made me very familiar with my current institution’s ethical review processes in ensuring that all updates to my study were approved by the relevant ethical review panels. My fieldwork plans and materials were approved before Covid, then also passed two subsequent ethical reviews: review 2 was for Covid changes to my fieldwork, and review 3 was because the ethical review policy and board had been updated. My point is that my comics-form materials passed ethical review not only once but three times, and the comics format of the materials did not receive any objections from any personnel of two rounds of department-level and one round of faculty-level ethical review panels: once could have been a sympathetic reviewer, but three times is a solid record. Cross-checking my questionnaire and participant information materials with my academic department’s ethical review checklist meant I was confident that my comics-form materials did everything text-based materials could do. Moreover, my materials did so in a format that appealed to my target population of respondents: this opened the possibility that my comics-form information materials might be more likely to be read thoroughly by participants, rather than yet another standard form that risks being given only a cursory glance.

Having begun by saying I am sharing a research methods journey in three parts, part 1 of that journey is this blog post. Parts 2 and 3 follow in due course and, I hope, offer hooks from which to explore the emergent field of comics as a research method.

Full references for hyperlinks in text:

McNicol S, Wysocki L. (2019) Using comics as a research method. In: Paul A. Atkinson, Sara Delamont, Alexandru Cernat, and Richard Williams, ed. SAGE Research Methods Foundations. SAGE. DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.4135/9781526421036832018

Wysocki L. (2018) Farting Jellyfish and Synergistic Opportunities: The Story and Evaluation of Newcastle Science Comic. The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship, 8(1), 6. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/cg.119