I co-authored a letter published in The Lancet responding to a wonderful paper by Brian Callender and colleagues which explored how comics have contributed to the visual culture of contagion through the COVID-19 pandemic. Our letter expands on this to explore ‘informed empathy’, ie sharing information in a way that emotionally resonates, through visual storytelling.
We present one of my favourite examples from this year with “The COVID-19 Chronicles”, a 100-comic series from the National University of Singapore which shared expert advice about the evolving pandemic situation using slice-of-life comedy.
You can read the published letter in The Lancet here: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32550-2/fulltext