On Graphic Scholarship: A Conversation with Nick Sousanis

Abstract

Nick Sousanis is the author of Unflattening, one of the first doctoral dissertations to be drawn as a comic, and subsequently published by Harvard University Press in 2015. Unflattening has arguably inspired a generation of dissertations that use comics as a medium, including my own "Drawing Unbelonging." In this interview, I talked to Nick about comics as scholarship, using visual metaphors, illustrative versus generative images, and what to read when struck by the dreaded creator’s block.