Introduction: ‘public information comics’

ABSTRACT This symposium article brings together distinguished scholars from the field of criminology, graphic arts, creative industries and social policy, and English to reflect on a suite of ‘educational’ or ‘public information’ comics created by the Scottish Centre for Comics Studies (SCCS), based at the University of Dundee. There are now 20-plus titles available to the public for free download and distribution on a range of subject matters relating to healthcare, law and justice, science, forensic analysis, trauma and memory studies, as well as a diverse range of literary adaptations, creative responses to literary and cultural texts, and other subjects. Each of these works relies on a strong symbiotic relationship between their authors, experts, artists, editors, and other contributors to successfully convey every story at hand. Every comic is also meticulously reviewed for accuracy – both written and visual – at each stage of creation, leading up to publication. In this article, the contributors have focused on selected titles from our ‘educational’ comics series to generate incisive analyses that will be relevant to scholars working in a broad range of fields from law, psychology, the humanities and creative arts, to healthcare and the sciences, understood broadly. In order of appearance, the contributors are Paul Long, Christopher Pizzino, Angus Nurse, and Ian Horton.