Teaching Data Visualization and Storytelling with Data Comic Workshops

TLDR

Data comics combine data visualization and comic storytelling, offering a promising format for data‑driven narratives, but creating them demands diverse creative and analytical skills. The study aims to develop a blueprint for future data‑comic workshops, reflecting on challenges and lessons learned to guide improvements. The workshop consisted of three 3‑hour sessions over a 3‑week illustration class, designed based on prior data‑comic workshop experiences. The workshop demonstrated the creative potential of data comics and identified key challenges in introducing visualizations, crafting narratives, structuring stories, and iterating comic drafts.

Abstract

This paper presents a method for hands-on creation of data comics in a workshop context and includes a description of the results, lessons learned and future improvements. Data comics is a promising format for data-driven storytelling, leveraging the power of data visualization and visual storytelling with comics. However, authoring data comics requires a diverse range of skills that are both creative and analytical. Our workshop is aimed at developing a blue-print for future workshops and reflecting on challenges and potential improvements. Within a 3-week assignment for an illustration class, we ran three 3-hour sessions. Our design was informed by the experiences of previous data-comics workshops. Results show the creative potential of data comics. Challenges to learn from the workshop include the stages to introduce data visualizations and journalistic narratives, the structuring of stories and the method of developing iterations of comic drafts. We close by reflecting on these challenges and how they can inform future improvements and adaptations.