The graphic history – serious comic books that combine art and text to interpret the past – is quickly becoming a tool for interpreting and communicating the past. Increasingly, the discipline and universities take it seriously, and it has enormous reach in developing wide audiences for scholarship and teaching. The best graphic histories utilize the multimodality of the comic book to bring new tools and perspectives on important historical themes and topics. But creating an effective graphic history is difficult. It usually requires a partnership between artist and historian, both of whom are committed to bringing their unique expertise to bear. This workshop brings together top artists from New York and the northeast with interested historians to discuss practices for creating effective, critical, and creative graphic histories and potentially to form partnerships with each other to produce future spectacular works!

Trevor Getz (SFSU) has proposed this session, and is working with his collaborator, Joe Schmidt (NYC Public Schools) including to get the necessary people involved. It will be facilitated by Amie Wright (Concordia University and president-elect of the ALA Graphic Novels and Comics Round Table), and possibly Charles Cavaliere (Oxford University Press).