jarodrosello:

I just finished turning in my comprehensive exam papers to my doctoral committee. In two weeks I’ll have an oral defense/exam meeting to discuss these papers. Hopefully I’ll pass the exam and move on to my dissertation. I’ve been creating a space for me in my department to do arts-based educational research, specifically, making comics as my research. These three papers offer different possibilities for comics-as-research.

The first is a zine about mini-comics, parenting, toddlerhood, and self-publishing, called These Things We Have Made. It’s part-writing, part-comics. A little academic, a little memoir. Overall, I make the argument for mini-comics as a culturally and historically attuned medium for political, cultural, and personal subversion, and argue against the more recent comics-as-literature trend. All of this is written from the perspective of a father trying to learn how to understand and respect his toddler. 

The second one is a mini-comic, Are You Dangerous? and an accompanying essay, “Let the Monsters In: Pedagogy and Cartooning.” The comic is about a boy, Marcos, who comes across a dangerous-looking and possibly-injured monster in the alleyway and tries to help. Two birds perched above them attempt to interpret the situation, while a worm on the ground sings to a growing worm-crowd. This comic and the accompanying essay explore the possibilities of disjuncture and fracturing, of overlapping narratives, and discontinuity, and the implications this has for teaching and learning. 

The last, is a case study of a ten year-old boy, Milo. For six months (on and off), Milo and I met weekly to draw comics. This comic explores five moments/ideas/concepts that emerged during those meanings and my reflections and analyses of them. What does it mean for Milo to make comics? What does Milo’s process look like? What is he doing? 

So, hopefully I will pass my comps exam in two weeks. And if I do, I’ll start work on my dissertation which will revisit many of these ideas, expand on them, all the while dwelling in the space between artist, researcher, and teacher (and parent). 

If there are any educational researchers out there who would like copies of any of these, just drop me an email at jarod.rosello@gmail.com. I’m happy to share! At the moment, I don’t have plans to make them publicly available. 

Jarod and I have been following one another’s work for a while, and he’s a very nice and interesting chap with a lovely drawn line. I find the work he’s been doing very interesting, and lately he’s even introduced Not My Small Diary 17 to his curriculum.

In July 2011, I started a blog called Better, Drawn:

Better, drawn is a place for people to share stories about long-term mental and physical illnesses, told in the form of short comics. The site is a way for people to write and draw about their experiences that might otherwise be difficult to talk about openly. In fact, we think that sometimes things can be said better when they’re drawn.

Submissions are open to anyone with experience of long-term mental or physical illness to share - whether or not you see yourself as a comic artist. So, if you have experience with these kinds of health issues, or if you are close to someone who does, then you might like to consider submitting a comic for the site.

The site has slowed down of late, and that’s entirely down to me being preoccupied with other projects. I’d like to remedy that. Recent events have reminded me that it can be really important to have a variety of avenues for people to talk about what they’re going through, or what they’ve been through. I hope Better, Drawn might one day be one of those avenues.

What do we need?

To work, the site needs more submissions: more comics, more drawings, more stories. For that to happen I need to tell more people.

What can you do?

If you think this is a venture that is worthwhile, please consider helping spread the word. You could reblog this post, tweet about the site, talk about us on Facebook, or tell your friends in the real world.

If you feel you may have a story you’d like to share, please do submit a comic, a drawing or a story. Full information can be found on out submissions page.

You can visit the site here

You can follow us on Twitter

You can find us on Facebook

Thanks all,

Simon

Over on Graphixia, Peter Wilkins writes about my comics. He does so in a thoughtful way that seems to capture what I’m trying to do with them, and is more than a little humbling. Peter writes:

“Moreton’s drawings are about getting as much information and affect into as few lines as possible. It would not only be a cliche but incorrect to say that we “fill in the rest” with our imaginations. Rather, I think Moreton makes us cling to to the partial images he gives us of a place or a memory and look at them really intensely, because the parts we can’t see have a sublime quality that plays off of the beauty and elegance of the drawings.”

Read the full post here.

Wow. Smoo #6 gets a write-up on The Comics Journal, thanks to Rob Clough. First time ever on TCJ!

Read it here.

If you like what you read, why not take a look at some of my comics, and consider browsing my online shop. You might like to buy something, or, alternatively, explore some of the distros and shops that carry SMOO and the rest of their amazing stock.

You can now pick up SMOOs #4 and #5 from Pioneers Press. The newly-named distro was formed when long-running zine distro Microcosm split into two separate entities. There’s some back story to that process, but I’m terribly pleased to have ended up on Pioneers’ roster. Check out my zines here.