By Eric Francis

WHITE RIVER JUNCTION - What if comic books could change how we learn about complex topics?

That’s the premise behind a series of intricately thought-out sequential art “explainers” put together by cartoonists affiliated with the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction—with collaborators running the gamut from the Vermont Humanities Council to Harvard public health students.

Biting off some of the most user-unfriendly of topics, the cartoonists at CCS have released titles that include How We Read, This is What Democracy Looks Like, and Let’s Talk About It: A Graphic Guide to Mental Health, all seeking to make otherwise intractable issues relatable with the aid of everything from Richard Scarry characters to board-game-like flow charts.

Cartoonist Dan Nott drew the latest comic book, called Freedom and Unity, which is now being handed out to school groups that visit the Vermont Statehouse.

The comic premiered just a month ago and Vermont Humanities is in the process of distributing 20,000 copies to students and libraries beyond the capitol in Montpelier in an effort to show residents across the Green Mountains how their traditional town meetings and other local civics efforts all add up to the modern system of statewide governance.

Nott says using the familiar format of a comic book “allows me to bring imagination and playfulness to complicated topics, and allows a reader to visually explore concepts at their own pace.”

“One of my goals with this comic is to highlight aspects of democracy in Vermont aside from just voting for representatives,” Nott explains. “With the midterm cycle over, I'm hoping readers can find themselves inspired to get involved in their communities in other ways.”

“We've gotten a really great response so far from a variety of readers, including some of our local legislators,” he adds. “I like this format of a short comic book because it's inexpensive to print, accessible to read, and can easily be passed around and shared.”

Educators’ bundles of the “Freedom and Unity” comic are available for purchase at the Norwich Bookstore; individuals can download it for free at https://www.cartoonstudies.org/css-studio/cartooningprojects/freedomandunity/

While CCS has taken to calling this emerging genre “applied cartooning,” the school’s co-founder, cartoonist James Sturm, says it’s not as new an idea as it might seem.

Sitting in his studio in downtown White River Junction, Sturm describes the concept of using comics as a public service “to explain, to teach,” as “actually pretty old.”

“Its been happening for a while and the practitioners are many,” Sturm points out.  “A good example is Will Eisner (creator of The Spirit, among several other early 20th century comics) who helped popularize the term ‘graphic novel.’ He was doing explainer comics for the US Army…how to clean your guns…things like that.”

For CCS, the newfound emphasis on applied cartooning began with a pivotal moment in fairly recent political history.

“We started in 2016 with the democracy comic,” Sturm recalls, “There was a certain person who was elected and people were wondering if democracy was going to survive and yet most people couldn’t even name the three branches of the US government. I felt a civic obligation to do something in the wake of this very sad lurch by the country in an authoritarian direction.”

This is What Democracy Looks Like generated critical enthusiasm and a national tour that made multiple stops across the country at colleges and other civic-minded forums.  “The timing on that one was really good and somebody saw it and said ‘Hey, could you do something about mental health?!’” Sturm remembers.

Cartoonist James Sturm, co-founder of the Center for Cartoon Studies, in his downtown White River Junction studio. Photo by Eric Francis.