Graphic Storytellers at Work is a report commissioned by the Australia Council for the Arts about the working lives of Australia's comics makers, cartoonists and graphic storytellers. Our research sought to understand how self-taught creative skills within the creative community are applied beyond the creative industries.
The team surveyed a total of 260 cartoonists, illustrators, and comics-makers in Australia. We found that their skillsets were applied throughout professional industries to inform, communicate and educate target audiences on various topics through visual means. However, this particular creative industry remains severely underfunded and is often overlooked in the arts and creative commercial practice communities.
The print outcome of the report, a large-format comic poster, tests what the research team calls the graphic storytellers’ skillset, enacts the knowledge produced in comics-making & explores how comics-making is used.
The findings were delivered in a written report with full-colour illustrations and data visualisations. The team also produced a substantive non-traditional research outcome using the comics medium.
The findings of the report show how the creative ecology of graphic storytellers in Australia cultivates a robust skill set of national importance; it provides evidence of the need for government and industry support of this community and illuminates a pathway for contemporary and future practitioners.
The report was authored and led by Dr Patrick Grant (UTS FASS) with Gabriel Clark (UTS DAB), Dr Elizabeth McFarlane (University of Melbourne) and Dr Ronnie Scott (RMIT). This work is the precursor to an ARC linkage project titled Folio, which looks at the history of Australian Comics.
