Comics and Creativity: Reading and Making Graphic Narratives

Offering teachers and students alike a foundational understanding of the versatile medium of comics, this book guides readers through the history and principles of reading and making comics, using the creative writing discipline as its lens. Sitting at the intersection between comics studies and comics creation, Comics and Creativity explores what makes comics work, how they are read and asks readers to reflect on the narratological comparisons between storytelling in comics and storytelling in the mediums such as prose or film.

Covering the fundamentals of time, form, character and voice in graphic narratives, as well as approaching the key genres of autobiography, speculative fiction, adaptation and non-fiction, Comics and Creativity uses ideas from both a theoretical/ critical and practical/ creative approaches. With each chapter supported by practical exercises and lesson suggestions, it features step-by-step close readings of a broad range of contemporary works from comics artists including Kym Tabulo, James Kochalka, Tommi Parrish, Chris Ware, Leonie Brialey, Meg O’Shea, Lee Lai, Adrian Tomine and Taiyo Matsumoto, Mandy Ord, Marjane Satrapi, Dominique Goblet, Safdar Ahmed, Sam Wallman and Eleri Harris. Designed to assist with classroom teaching and individual learning, this book demonstrates how comics can unlock and transform approaches to storytelling and creative teaching.

Privileging narrative rhythm, timing, page layout and panel design over experience and skill with drawing, Comics and Creativity extends the writer and creative’s repertoire of ways to express themselves multi-modally.

Elizabeth MacFarlane is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her subject Graphic Narratives, initiated in 2011, was the first Australian tertiary unit devoted to the comics medium. Her ARC Linkage Project ’Contemporary Australian Comics 1980-2020: A New History’ is at foliocomics.com, and on Instagram @foliocomics. In 2021, she led ’Graphic Storytellers at Work’ a commissioned report for the Australia Council that details the cross-industry working practices of Australian comic artists. She publishes graphic novels with Twelve Panels Press, and co-directed the Comic Art Workshop from 2015-2019.