I recently wrote about serious comics, and realized there’s a form I hadn’t addressed yet has some valuable insights. The value in looking at other approaches is that it provides lateral insight (I’m currently reading Stephen Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From) that we may be able to transfer. And the source this time is editorial cartoons.
Editorial cartoons use imagery and text to convey a comment on a current topic. The best ones portray a poignant insight into an issue of the day, via a twist that emphasizes the point to be made. They’re usually combined with a distinct visual style from each artist. They reflect some of the same thoughts that accompany internet memes (the captioned photos) but require more visual talent ;).
The common approach appears to be (and I welcome insight from others) the ability to use another context to exaggerate some viewpoint. It’s a bit metaphorical, but I think the trick is to abstract the structure from the situation to be illuminated, and to map it to another situation that highlights the relationships. So you could take some recent pop star spat and map it to a political one, or highlight an economic policy as a personal one.
As context, I happened to stumble upon an exhibition of Conrad‘s work in my college art gallery, and as he was the local cartoonist for my home newspaper (The LA Times), I recognized his work. I had the chance to explore in more detail his award-winning efforts. Agree or disagree, he made powerful comments and I admired his ability.
Now, editorial cartooning is very context-sensitive, in that what is being talked about is very much ‘of the day’. What’s being commented on may not be relevant at a later time, particularly if they conjoin a popular culture event with an issue as they often do. But the insight, looking for the twist and the way to make the point, is a valuable skill that has a role in learning design too.
In learning design, we want to make the content meaningful. There’s intrinsic interest in pretty much everything, but it may be hard to find (see: working with SMEs), and also hard to convey. Yet I believe comics are one way to do this. You can, for instance, humorously exaggerate the consequences of not having the knowledge. I’ve done that with content where we introduced each section of a course with a comic (very much like an editorial cartoon) highlighting the topic and necessity.
The point being that we can not only benefit from understanding other media, but we can appropriate their approaches as well. Our learning designs needs to be eclectic to be engaging and effective. Or, to put it another way, there are lots of ways to get the design implemented, once you have the design right.
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