Dresden codak – detailed visual narration lessons from comics

There is a scathing review coming out on the topic of academia (particularly the US one). While the general tone of the dissertation is negative, they do indicate a strong need, or rather duty, of scientists to communicate our findings as clear and understandibly as possible. Personally, I completely agree with this. Clear communication sometimes hinges on explaining everything in cool graphics, be it in posters or in presentations. So how do we learn how to create cool graphics? Well, one avenue is comics! They have supplied us with concise stories, be it comical or educational, applying graphics to provide a visual narrative.

One of my favourite online comics is Dresden Codak. Witty, beautifully drawn and often requiring quite some thought to understand the story, it is everything I seek in a comic. The author/artist also provides us with excellent tools to learn about visualisations, as he keeps a superb weblog analysing various forms of visual narration. This post is my favourite, as it indicates very clearly how we can use space intelligently in our graphics to tell a story, and what pitfalls to avoid. I hope it will provide us all with good inspiration for our next talks! Good luck!