comics
Comic storytelling
In 2013, I became a designer at The Washington Post and in 2016, and became a founding member of the Gender & Identity section of The Washington Post (formerly known as The Lily).
I have loved comics since I was a child and in the fall of 2017, I had the ✨ idea ✨ to experiment with combining comic storytelling and journalism. The experiment began with two comic artists – Eleonore Bem and Kate Wheeler and two months worth of comics.
A comic panel by Eleonore (left) and Kate (right).
With the support of my boss and editor, as well as the entire team and was able to complete my experiment. Long story short, it was a success. Here are a few accomplishments from the past five years, since that experiment began:
Weekly perspective comics
The Gender & Identity section publishes a weekly Sunday comic (an homage to the Sunday comics section from when I was a kid) on our website and Instagram.
Comic experiments
We are always experimenting with comic storytelling, from reactions to news events like the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsberg or the war in Ukraine or recirculating comics from our archive in roundups about identity
or body image.
Examples of three newsletters from our five-part special newsletter series rounding up comics from our archive on a range of topics: body image, mental health, social media, friendship and identity.
Creating an archive
The Gender & Identity section now has an archive of almost 600 comics and has worked with over 100 comic artists to give them a platform to tell their stories.
Establishing workflows
Through trial and error, I developed and evolved a pitch process and workflow that we use on a daily basis. Recently, I have started to implement this on other sections at The Post.