Drawing Together

Big thanks to everyone who stopped by my poster presentation yesterday, and apologies to anyone I didn’t get a chance to talk to. Thanks also to all the positive feedback as well – it was very gratifying to feel like I hit a common nerve with so many people.

I’m hoping that one of the things that will come out of this poster is the beginning of some productive dialogue between people who are interested in using, creating and publishing comics in archaeology. I feel like it’s beginning, and it will be interesting to see where it heads from here. I’ll keep posting comics and archaeology stuff here, and I’m more than happy to re-post stuff that other people are doing as well. Also, the SAA’s Public Archaeology Interest Group has asked me to keep them updated on developments via the Interest Group’s Facebook page.

Next planned archaeological comic stuff for me will be in the autumn, when my two archaeological web comics - Copernicus, Amy & Me and Jima San – start being published online. But conversations with people during the poster presentation may be leading to some more archaeological comic projects before the year’s end, too.

And yes, for everyone that’s been asking: the pdf of the poster will be available here sometime towards the end of next week.

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Off to SAA 78

I’m off to the SAAs – great location, but even better: I’m looking forward to a great five days. I thoroughly enjoyed the meeting in Memphis last year, and got a lot of great feedback on the paper I gave, both on the day and afterwards.

My poster “Drawn Together” is part of the Saturday afternoon session on The Impacts of Public Archaeology Programs: Evaluating participant responses and feedback, sponsored by the Public Archaeology Interest Group. I enjoyed the session they sponsored last year, and got a lot out of the papers. I’m really hoping that the poster will help start to bring together more people who are interested in using comics in archaeology. My approach isn’t the only one – and if the field is to grow and develop, it needs others to get involved, to bring their own ideas and approaches into the mix; its the only way to create the kind of richness the genre deserves.

So if you’re at the SAAs, and interested at all in the idea of using comics in archaeology, come down to the poster session on Saturday, Apr. 6 in the afternoon and talk!

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Back from Memphis

Slate figurine, Archaic Period – Jefferson County, Arkansas : logo for the 77th SAA Annual Meeting in Memphis

Just returned home from the SAAs in Memphis. Someone said there were over 4,000 people attending the conference – it certainly felt like it. There was almost too much going on – as ever at these things, it was hard to get to all the sessions that I wanted to go to. Fortunately, everyone seemed to be keeping to the published timetables, so it was possible to nip from one session to the next.

Re-met loads people from Catalhoyuk and beyond, drummed up some work at the CRM expo, went out on the town for some jazz and ribs – oh, and gave a paper!

The paper – in the “Public Archaeology in the 21st Century” session – went down really well. I had a lot of people come up to me afterwards and later on during the next three days wanting to talk about it – particularly about the whole subject of comics and archaeology.  At the Public Archaeology Interest Group meeting on Saturday, it was decided that the group would sponsor a poster session for next year’s SAA meeting, which will give me a chance to submit a poster based on the experience of doing my field journal comic out in Palau this year.

All in all, an excellent conference. I’m very glad I went – and looking forward to next year’s, too (well, it’s in Hawaii – who wouldn’t be?).

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