Comics in Science and Health Communication: Insights From Mutual Collaboration and Framing a Research Practice

Comics have been used as a tool for learning, teaching, understanding, raising awareness and changing behaviours. Researchers are taking more advantage of this medium as comics in research has become a growing field. Notwithstanding, comics as research practice/method has received less attention, particularly the research framework involved in making comics. Here, we detail the research process through the drawing to create a comic about non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. We argue that deciding on visual choices intersecting the perspectives of both artist and researchers whilst promoting reflexivity can be best understood through mutual collaboration. We depict examples of how the active inter/trans/disciplinary research environment, incorporating perceptions, experiences, tensions, from the artist and researchers, and respective disciplines, also informed by patient testimonies, resulted in (new) meanings and ways of thinking in terms of visual content and structure. Particularly when creating the characters and when using multimodality and resources afforded by comics -visual metaphor, anthropomorphism, and scientific sketchnote-, to portray the human body and bring familiarity and simplicity to complex cellular and metabolic events. We end with a comic strip framing comics as research practice, outlining the active engagement during the drawing processes and the research framework that combined a mixed method research approach for creating a tool useful towards understanding science and health promotion.

Automated summary

Comics have been widely used as a tool for learning, teaching, understanding, and behavior change. This article introduces the research process of creating a comic about non-alcoholic fatty liver disease through drawing, emphasizing the importance of mutual collaboration and reflexivity in making visual choices.