Seeing Offa’s Dyke

This June, I’ll be contributing to the 2024 Offa’s Dyke Collaboratory conference. In addition to talking about the use of comics as a way of visualising and explaining linear earthwork monuments, I’ll also be organising a small exhibition in partnership with a number of other artists. The exhibition – Seeing the Line: Art, creativity and perceptions of Offa’s Dyke – will bring together a selection of local and not-so-local artists who have all drawn inspiration of one form or another from Offa’s Dyke. The idea is to demonstrate the way in which creative engagements with ancient sites and monuments can reveal different ways in which people see and understand those monuments: as social spaces, as focuses for leisure and commemoration, as jumping-off points from which to explore cultural, environmental or historical connections, etc. This is not a new idea, but it is an opportunity to begin to explore how it manifests at Offa’s Dyke.

As usual, the ODC one-day conference is an opportunity for the wide range of those involved in the research, conservation and interpretation of the dyke to come together. It’s a great opportunity, too, for those who live and work around the dyke to not only hear what those specialists have to say – but to also talk about the things that concern them: access, business opportunities, links with education and schools, etc.

NAGPRA at Manchester Museum

Thanks very much to Alexandra Alberda at the Manchester Museum for inviting myself and Jen Shannon to give a talk about the NAGPRA comics.

The first issue of the NAGPRA comics series – Journeys to Complete the Work – is available for free download here.

Links to some of the other comics I’ve created in collaboration with indigenous communities around the world are listed below:

• Good Grasshopper/Bad Grasshopper – Traditional story from the island of Palau, Micronesia (Palauan language version)
• Footprints of the Ancestors – Comic about archaeological research on the island of Yap, Micronesia
• Preserving Palau’s Future – Climate change and cultural heritage on the islands of Palau, Micronesia
• Explorando Nuestro Pasado Indigena – Comic about archaeology in Juigalpa, Nicaragua (Spanish language version)
• Exploring our Indigenous Past – English language version of the above.
• Chiripan Markan Jakaña – Comic about the site of Chiripa, Bolivia (Aymara language version)
• Vivir en Chiripa – Spanish language version of the above.
• Living at Chiripa – English language version of the above.

For those of you interested in how comics can be applied to other aspects of archaeology, here are two comics about science in archaeology, produced in partnership with the Center for Applied Isotope Studies at the University of Georgia:

• Radiocarbon Dating
• Archaeometallurgy

And for those interested in local and community heritage in its broadest sense, here’s a link to a collection of posts about the newspaper comic strip series I ran between 2017-2018 about the market town of Oswestry, Shropshire (UK).

• The Oswestry Heritage Comics

Migration and Early Settlement in Micronesia – The Comic?

Comics is a versatile and effective medium, capable of communicating everything from information to personal experience. As such, it could be a useful tool in public outreach about archaeological research into migration and early settlement in Micronesia. But there’s a catch: to do so really requires that institutions, not just individual researchers, “buy in” to the use of comics in science communication.

Slide from “A Different Way to View the World”, SAA86

A comic – or, better yet, a series of comics – about migration and early settlement, produced with the cooperation and collaboration of researchers, institutions, governments and communities, could tell the long story of Micronesia from its deepest past through to its present and its future. Such a series would give our archaeological stories a particular kind of relevance, connecting them to work in related fields of enquiry, as well as broader contemporary concerns. Such a series could empower communities by giving them a unique voice and a unique contribution to discussions that affect their future.

But comics are more than a mere novelty: they are a complex media-form with their own ontologies and methodologies, a unique set of representational tools and frameworks, and a distinct culture of reader and creator engagements. To simply “commission a comic” is to ignore the medium’s full potential; institutions should be looking to assemble creative teams capable of not only producing comics as products, but integrating them into the workflow of academic research.

The story of migration and early settlement in Micronesia could become a flagship project for the institution that first sets up the “Marvel” or “DC” of archaeological comics.

The Grid: Out Now!

It’s here! The Grid: Issue 0 is out now, and available at the TAG Conference at UCL this week.

The Grid is an anthology of archaeological comics, edited by myself and Hannah Sackett. It features comics about all aspects of archaeology, from research to writing, from education to public outreach, and from folk-lore to aerial photography. Contributors include: Katy Whittaker, Al Wesolowsky, Tony Pickering with Nick Overton, John Piprani, Hannah Cobb and Elizabeth Healy, plus myself and Hannah Sackett.

This Issue 0 showcases what’s already been done in the field of comics and archaeology, plus suggests some ways in which the medium might be used in the future. We’re planning this anthology to be an annual publication, so are looking for submissions now for Issue 1. What we’re interested in are short, original comics – perhaps extracts from larger works – that use the medium to explore any aspect of archaeology and its related disciplines. We’re interested in seeing how people use comics for outreach and education – but also for research and peer-to-peer communication.

Check out The Grid at TAG, where Hannah will be distributing it at the archaeological comics workshop on Wednesday. She’ll also have a table in the book hall where copies will also be available.

The Grid: Issue 0 – Available now at TAG.

DOWNLOAD The Grid: Issue 0

Making Archaeological Comics workshop with Hannah Sackett:

Wednesday 18 December, 10:00am-12:30pm | Room 790, IoE, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL

 

Recovering Indigenous History Through Comics – SDCC 2019

It’s been a great honour this week to have been invited to participate in the “Recovering Indigenous History Through Comics” panel at San Diego Comic Con. A huge thank you to Comic Con International for organising the panel and supporting this kind of work – and a particular thank you to Comic Con co-founder Mike Towry for facilitating the involvement of myself, Jen Shannon and Elijah Benson. Without Mike’s personal involvement it’s hard to imagine this panel happening at all.

This panel has been significant for several reasons. Firstly, because it confirms the alignment of comics – a historically outsider, vernacular medium – with indigenous voices and marginalised perspectives. And not just “comics”, but “Comic Con International” – the largest comics convention organisation with a global presence and a community numbering in the millions. Although this was just a single, hour-long panel with 200 attendees, Comic Con’s support has given those of us who work in this area the kind of visibility that’s hard to get elsewhere. And this support and visibility in turn reinforces my own sense – and that of many of us involved more broadly with applied comics – that non-fiction, informational comics have an increasingly important role to play with regards outreach and education. And lastly, I think it points towards the growing recognition that the medium has not yet reached its full potential – that there are still subjects waiting to be explored where comics can do an excellent job of raising awareness, providing information and context, enabling new voices, etc. For me, this means history, archaeology and heritage – but there was a lot of mention both in the discussion after our panel and throughout the convention panels of comics’ connection to indigenous futurism and indigenous science, tribal and community sovereignty, raising political awareness, cultural revitalisation, climate adaptation, etc.

A final thank you to my colleagues on the panel, CU anthropologist Jen Shannon, MHA Education Department language leader Elijah Benson, Kumeyaay Community College Board Member Stan Rodriguez, comics creator Paul Guinan, SDSU anthropologist Kate Spilde, our moderator, the sculptor Johnny Bear Contreras, and Mike Towry of Comic Con. We hope to be working with many of these people again in the coming year on new community history comics.

Comics and Archaeology at San Diego Comic Con!

Next week I’ll be at San Diego Comic Con, where I’ve been invited to be a guest panellist on telling indigenous histories through comics. I’ll be joined by my fellow NAGPRA comics author, Jen Shannon, and Elijah Benson, from the MHA Education Department who’s helping us on our second NAGPRA comic. The panel will also include Stan Rodriguez, a teacher and Kumeyaay tribal member from San Diego, Paul Guinan, a comics creator working on a history of the Aztec empire and Pr. Kate Spilde.

The panel will be an opportunity for me to put the case for applied comics about not just indigenous histories and repatriations – but community archaeology, local history and anthropological research – to an audience of serious comics fans! It’s a great opportunity to talk about the unique communication potential of comics to people who understand that in terms of fiction and drama, but not perhaps in terms of information.

The session has been organised by Mike Towry, one of the co-founders of SDCC, who also invited me first to San Diego Comics Fest last year to talk about the NAGPRA comics project. The session is entitled Recovering Indigenous Histories Through Comics, and is going to be a discussion moderated by Johnny Bear Contreras about the use of comics as a tool not just in telling stories, but discovering and researching forgotten, hidden and contested stories.

The session is at 5:30 in Hall H. We’ve already had 125 people sign up for it, so there should be a big crowd. There are some serious names on that list, including well-known creators like Arigon Starr, so we should have some serious Q&A. If you’re going to be at SDCC, please join us. If not, check for us on Twitter, or catch up here – I’ll post a report on how the session went.

“Recovering Indigenous History Through Comics”:

San Diego Comic Con – Thursday July 18, 2019 5:30pm – 6:30p

 

Applied Comics Network one-day event

Next Friday, March 28th 10am – 4pm, the Applied Comics Network are holding a one-day event at Newcastle University on Comics and Research. Making, using and sharing comics can offer interesting, fun and thought-provoking potential for involving people in research, accessible ways to communicate the complexity of research, and means by which ethical issues in research can be explored.

This one-day event next week includes sessions which look at all these aspects of applied comics and research, including communication of research, comics as a method in research, graphic facilitation, sketch-noting, and comics and user experience.

As one-third of the Applied Comics Network coordinating team, I’ll be there – talking about ethics in research, with particular reference to the work I’ve been doing on the NAGPRA comics about repatriation of sacred items and ancestral remains back to Native American communities.

Speakers:

• Lydia Wysocki (School of Education Communication and Language Sciences, Newcastle University)
• Ian Horton (London College of Communication)
• John Swogger (Archaeological Comics Network)
• Florence Okoye (Natural History Museum)
• Pen Mendonça (University of the Arts London)
• Liz Todd (Newcastle University)

Although this is a free event, as lunch is provided, please use this lightbox link to register so we can keep track of numbers: https://forms.ncl.ac.uk/view.php?id=4173976

Veterans, Archaeology & Comics

This year, I’m doing something slightly different for November 11th. It’s a comics project – but not about commemoration. Rather, it’s about military veterans, and the physical and mental therapy potential of archaeology. A year or so ago I began talking with a colleague, Stephen Humphreys, who had put together a programme that offered military veterans the opportunity to learn archaeological skills. Building on similar projects that had been started in the UK, the programme was based on the idea that working in archaeology could offer therapeutic benefits to veterans as part of medical rehabilitation programmes, or who needed help re-integrating into civilian life.

This programme evolved into American Veterans Archaeological Recovery:

American Veterans Archaeological Recovery (AVAR) integrates military veterans with physical or mental disabilities into a community of archaeological researchers that supports their rehabilitation through goal-oriented, team-centered excavations. The social bonding and shared experiences of participants are an important feature of American Veterans Archaeological Recovery. Participants share their new experiences in archaeology with others from the community of veterans, and will make new connections in the community of academic and professional archaeologists working to discover and preserve the physical evidence of our common cultural heritage.

AVAR has run excavations at the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Scremby, Lincolnshire – in partnership with the University of Sheffield; at the Roman site of Beth She’arim in Israel – in partnership with the University of Haifa; and at the Darrow School Shaker Settlement, Mount Lebanon, New York – a project funded by the National Geographic Society. In May next year, AVAR will be start work on excavations in Saratoga, New York – details will be posted on the AVAR website – where there is also comprehensive information about the organisation and how to take part in their projects.

AVAR does great work not only in supporting veterans, their friends and their families through providing opportunities for them to participate in archaeological fieldwork, they also do great work in highlighting the physical and psychological benefits of archaeological fieldwork – something perhaps those of us lucky enough to work as archaeologists take for granted.

I’ve very much enjoyed putting this comic together. It’s up on their website now, and will be used as part of an awareness-raising campaign throughout the coming year. It’s been really rewarding getting to know a new kind of archaeological community, and I look forward to collaborating more with the organisation in the future.

ASOR Article .pdf

A few people have been having trouble printing the ASOR article I wrote on comics and Near Eastern archaeology. Here’s a link to a .pdf.

Hope this helps!

Chamberlain at Laydeez

The Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street – a panel-in-progress from Ben Dickson’s graphic biography of Neville Chamberlain which I’m illustrating.

This month marks the start – in earnest – of work on the graphic biography of Neville Chamberlain. The book has been written by Ben Dickson – whose latest graphic novel, A New Jerusalem, is out now. This project is only my second big graphic work  – the first being Something Different About Dad several  years ago. And with a script clocking in at about 200 pages, it’s certainly the longest work I’ve ever done on a historical or archaeological subject.

It’s a fascinating time-period and a gripping story. Ben’s script is a biography of Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister – from May 1937 to May 1940. But it’s also the story of Neville Chamberlain’s childhood, his political career, his marriage, his friends – and his rivals. Ben’s script challenges – as several other historians have done – the notion that Chamberlain was “a guilty man”, whose policy of appeasement was a thin disguise for cowardice. Instead, Ben paints a picture of a man who understood how unprepared Britain was for another war – not just economically and militarily, but psychologically.

It’s a story full of high drama, something which is overshadowed by our contemporary focus on the action of the war which we know is inevitable. When I first read Ben’s script I just couldn’t put it down: reading the story as a interplay of characters and situations, not just of dates and facts, brought home how tense and unpredictable this pre-war period actually was. It’s interesting how Ben’s Chamberlain comes across as someone who understands these complexities, and is willing to sacrifice his political reputation in order to steer the country on a safe course through them.

I’m going to be talking about the project at Laydeez do Comics in Leeds, this Monday evening – you’re all invited! (Wharf Chambers, 23-25 Wharf Street, Leeds, LS2 7EQ, 6:30pm. Entry: £1.50 – no need to book. Wharf Chambers is wheelchair accessible). I’m going to talk about the book itself, and about how I’m approaching the artwork – specifically historical locations and people. And I’m also going to talk a bit about what it means to work collaboratively with an author, and what it means to work on such a large-scale project like this one.

Hopefully see you in Leeds on Monday evening!