New Comic & Cover: The Illusion of Accountability
Written by Travis B. Hill
Working with political scientists Dr. Jeffery Harden and Dr. Justin Kirkland on their comic The Illusion of Accountability was a great learning experience for me as it was my first script assignment for SP Comics. Taking their 200-page academic book and working to create a 4-page comic story that could represent the heartbeat of their work was a new and exciting challenge. But working on this story showed me the fullness of what academic comics through Sequential Potential offer.
The main focus of creating the comic for Harden and Kirkland was enhancing the work: creating a short comic that looks good, so if someone picks up the book at a conference or bookstore and thumbs through the pages, they see the comic and stop to read it. It invites them in, and gives them an insight to the material that will encourage them to read the research.
Second, the comic should work as an abstract, or promotional material for the work: something Harden and Kirkland, or the publisher, can use to engage the political science community — from academic to casual reader — to introduce them to the work.
Finally, the comic had to be an interesting story in itself. It had to have tension, a problem, and a resolution, and even character development, as well as a beginning, middle, and end. The comic needed to be a stand-alone story that could work apart from Harden and Kirkland’s research monograph, so that if it is the only thing someone reads concerning the transparency of state legislatures, there will be a completeness to what they read.
It’s a challenge! In a way, it’s similar to an elevator pitch that all academics are supposed to be able to make: How do you condense your argument into a snippet and give it real meaning? Luckily, comics are way more interesting than the average elevator pitch.
