The Comic Book as Research Tool: Creative Visual Research for the Social Sciences

This book contributes to a growing body of work celebrating the visual methods and tools that aid knowledge transfer and welcome new audiences to social science research. Visual research methodological milestones highlight a trajectory towards the adoption of more creative and artistic media. As such, the book is dedicated to exploring the creative potential of the comic book medium, and how it can assist the production and communication of scientific knowledge. The cultural blueprint of the comic book is examined, and the unique structure and grammar of the form deconstructed and adapted for research support.

Along with two illustrated research comics, Toxic Play and 10 Business Days, the book offers readers numerous comic-based illustration activities and creative visual exercises to support data generation, foster conversational knowledge exchanges, facilitate inference, analysis, and interpretation, while nurturing the necessary skills to illustrate and create research comics. The book engages a diverse audience and is an illuminating read for visual novices, experts, and all in-betweeners.

Stephen R. O’Sullivan is a lecturer in marketing and consumer culture at Cork University Business School, University College Cork, Ireland. His research interests include play, human-animal bonds, street art, and research representation. He enjoys representing research through film, comic books, photography, short stories, and poems. Stephen is an advocate for the greater application of creative media in social science. His published works can be found in Marketing Theory, Psychology & Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, Consumption Markets & Culture, and Advances in Consumer Research.