SAA Poster – available for download

Click above for a link to the pdf of “Drawn Together” – my SAA Poster on comics and archaeology.

Here’s a link for anyone who wants to download a copy of my SAA Poster: Drawn Together.

The copy here is only half the size of the one I displayed in Honolulu – 4′ x 2′ – but I think you’ll be able to see everything quite clearly, and it’ll still be readable if you want to print it out.

And yes, please do print it out – I’m perfectly happy for people to stick copies of this up in their lab, office, etc., particularly if it encourages people to get in touch and/or to start using comics in archaeology themselves.

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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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SAA Poster

Picked up my SAA poster “Drawn Together” from the printers this week. Thanks to Nick and Ollie at NOW Signs in Oswestry for doing an excellent job. The print quality is excellent, the colours look fantastic – I’m really very pleased. I’ve had a number of pieces printed up by them now – prints on art paper, posters, signs; they’ve all looked great.

So thanks again, Nick and Ollie. The sign’s all packed up – now it just has to survive the trip to the conference!

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Comics and Process

I’ve been finishing up my “Drawn Together” poster for the upcoming SAAs next month. The poster looks at the work I’ve done on my field journal comic from Palau, and it’s thrown up some questions about sequence and process in fieldwork.

Recording the process of fieldwork is always difficult – it’s hard to spend too much time recording the process if you’re spending all your time and effort doing the actual process. This is why context sheets have evolved in the way that they have, and why any field processes that are introduced need to be streamlined and integrated into other elements of practice. While out at the Llanymynech limekilns, and in talks with Steve, I began thinking more about the nature of sequence and process in this context.

If comics are to be a useful addition to the process of recording archaeological fieldwork practice, then they need to also be integrated into current practice in much as surveying, site illustration, photography, environmental sampling or any other technique. Importantly, this integration needs to be not just a matter of achieving seamlessness, but in making the additional steps resonate and speak to existing practice.

It’s a question of time, a question of speed, of course – but more importantly, it’s a question of layering more into a field-based comic work than simply a record of events. The “sequence” of knowledge creation in archaeology is partly about how information builds up, layer upon layer, evolving out of field process. Rather than be simply documentary accounts of events, comics in archaeology need to embrace this broader concept of “sequence”. I’ve tried in Palau: An Archaeological Field Journal to do just this, but I think we can go further.

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SAA 78: Drawn Together

The journey to Hawaii starts here…

Just had my abstract for my poster presentation accepted for the 78th SAAs in Honolulu. It’s titled “Drawn Together” and will be about the field journal comic I’m doing of my season on Palau this summer. I’m really looking forward to getting started – here’s a first glimpse of the back-of-the-envelope rough sketch (well, back of a drinks tab from The Hand, actually).

And here’s the abstract and poster description in full:

Drawn Together: An illustrated archaeological field journal of a season’s excavations on Palau, Micronesia.

Abstract:

As an archeological illustrator, my work often becomes part of the public face of an excavation or survey project. But the context of that work – the creative and technical mechanics as well as the influences and decisions that shape the final images – is often entirely hidden.

Clarity about the process of knowledge-creation is an important component in shaping wider understanding of what archaeology is and how it works as a field practice. For funders, government bodies and the general public, this wider understanding can create a better appreciation of the challenges and needs of archaeological projects. For archaeology students – both undergraduate and postgraduate; those coming to fieldwork for the first time – this understanding can better prepare them as to the roles and expectations they can face.

In the summer of 2012, I spent six weeks as the site illustrator on an excavation project and field school on the islands of Palau in Micronesia. I kept a field journal in comic-book format which outlines the knowledge-creation process involved in my work. The format was chosen to be both highly accessible and specifically suited to record the visual nature of my work.

This illustrated journal will be used as part of the projects’ outreach package to funders, local government officials on Palau, and university administration. It will also be available to undergraduates interested in the project’s field school and postgraduates interested in pursuing research work on the islands.

The aim is to stimulate a different kind of feedback through use of a different kind of media, and encourage a different kind of relationship between the project and those whose participation ultimately helps to shape it.

Poster description:

The entire poster will be drawn in full-colour, comic format, echoing the style of the illustrated journal.

The poster will explain (as above) the methodological background to the journal, document the creation process both during the season and in post-excavation, and outline how this approach might well be suited to other projects. Finally, the poster will address some current questions on the use of narrative in archaeological illustration.

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