Accessible Creativity with a Comic Spin

Creativity and humour allow people to be expressive and to address topics which they might otherwise avoid or find deeply uncomfortable. One such way to express these sentiments is via comics. Comics have a highly-visual format with relatively little language. They therefore offer a promising opportunity for people who experience challenges with language to express creativity and humour. Most comic tools, however, are not accessible to people with language impairments. In this paper we describe Comic Spin, a comic app designed for people with aphasia. Comic Spin builds upon the literature on supporting creativity by constraining the creative space. We report both the design process and the results of a creative workshop where people with aphasia used Comic Spin. Participants were not only successful in using the app, but were able to create a range of narrative, humorous and subversive comics.