On Teaching Artfully: A Graphic Interview with Meghan Parker

abstract:Considering that comics is a deeply visual medium, surprisingly little emphasis had been placed on drawing comics as a method of scholarly inquiry until Nick Sousanis's (Unflattening, 2015) and Ebony Flowers's (Drawbridge and Hot Comb, 2017 & 2019) works came into prominence. In this Graphic Interview, I talk to Meghan Parker, a Vancouver-based artist and art educator, who drew her master's thesis as a comic at Simon Fraser University, which was subsequently published as Teaching Artfully by Clover Press in 2021. These examples of existing graphic scholarship eventually inspired me to draw my own doctoral dissertation "Drawing Unbelonging" as a comic. In this interview, Meghan and I talk about the process of making scholarly comics, its challenges, rewards, and everything in between. We also talk about her influences and how her choice of medium informs her scholarship and her teaching. Considering the subject matter, we decided to draw as much of the interview as possible.