Graphic Narratives Lab
Graphic narratives—ranging from cave paintings to wood cuts to comic books—are integral to how individuals and societies express and share views of their places in this world. Sequential graphic narratives, e.g. comic books, may be dominated by superheroes in American popular culture, but have long explored a much richer vein of the human experience, exploring themes of race, racism, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, misogyny, patriarchy, class, inequality, environmental racism, the climate crisis, and much more. Graphic narratives broaden the reach of the humanities to audiences in an accessible fashion and are research subjects in their own rights. VCU is uniquely positioned to examine graphic narratives within the humanities, with faculty and students from African American Studies, Anthropology, Business, English, and the School of the Arts actively creating comic books that push the boundaries of storytelling. The HRC's Graphics Narratives Lab is a central hub where faculty and students will meet to study the importance of graphic narratives within the humanities, and consider why and how faculty can implement graphic narratives into their pedagogy. The creative process underlying graphic narratives is explored through the lab.
Meet the Team
Bernard K. Means, PhD
Co-Director
Bernard Means is an Associate Professor in Anthropology within the VCU School of World Studies and is Director of the Virtual Curation Laboratory, where he leads a team of undergraduate students from across VCU in three-dimensional (3-D) documentation of artifacts, fossils, and historic items from around the world. He is also co-creator of four comic books with artist and writer Maggie Colangelo (VCU 2022 School of the Arts/Environmental Studies) entitled Founding Monsters, Founding Monster Tales, Mystery of the Missing Megafauna, Tales from the Virtual Curation Lab No. 1. The first two comics focus on the research by Dr. Means into the founding fathers’ obsession with Ice Age megafauna, while the third comic looks at the extinction of Ice Age megafauna and makes a link to extinction and climate change today. Ms. Colangelo and Dr. Means recently finished the fourth comic, Tales from the Virtual Curation Laboratory Tales No. 1, which tells short stories about significant items–and one person–3-D scanned by the Virtual Curation Laboratory in its first decade.
- Contact: bkmeans@vcu.edu
- Relevant course: Visualizing and Exhibiting Anthropology, Spring semesters
Grace D. Gipson, PhD
Co-Director
Grace Gipson is an Assistant Professor in African American Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. As a proud HBCU graduate and Black future feminist/pop culture scholar, Grace's area of research interest centers around Black pop culture, digital humanities, the intersections of race and gender in comic books and gaming, Afrofuturism, and race and new media. Her work on comics and graphic novels has been featured in various articles, publications and book chapters through such outlets as Huffington Post, Chicago Humanities Festival, NPR.org, and Black Perspectives. Her current book project “Reclaiming Her Time: Exploring Black Female Experiences and Identities in Comics and Graphic Novels” seeks to explore the layered identities and experiences of various fictional Black female characters as personified in comic books and fandom culture and their relationship to real life situations. Outside the classroom, you can find Grace collecting comic books and stamps on her international travel discoveries, ticket stubs to the latest movies, co-hosting the video podcast "Conversations with Beloved and Kindred," contributing her personal and professional thoughts on pop culture via blackfuturefeminist.com, as well as redefining and curating the popular term “Black Girl Magic” within the social media landscape via @BlackGirlMagicinMedia.
- Contact: gipsong@vcu.edu
- Relevant course: Black Sites and Sights: Visual Media and Race, Spring semesters
Francesca Lyn, PhD
Co-Director
Francesca Lyn, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. Lyn is a scholar whose current interdisciplinary research centers on how women of color depict their own lived experiences. Her project "The Fragmentary Body: Traumatic Configurations in Autobiographical Comics by Women of Color” was the recipient of the 2019 John A. Lent Scholarship in Comics Studies, an award presented by the International Comics Art Forum to a substantial research-based writing project about comics. She is the instructor of record for the self-designed courses, “Gender, Race and Comics” and “Gender in Comics.” Her teaching emphasizes the integration of lived experiences in scholarly inquiry. Lyn helped create Comic Arts Richmond, an independent small press comics show. She is also a member of the Small Press Expo’s executive committee and creates her own comics.
- Contact: lynfp@vcu.edu
- Relevant courses: Queer Comics, fall semester
Upcoming Events
The Graphic Narratives Lab, in collaboration with independent artist Rae Whitlock, is hosting an artist talk with Kayla E., creative director of Fantagraphics, in conversation with Dr. Francesa Lyn, co-director of the Graphic Narratives Lab. The talk will be about Kayla E.’s forthcoming graphic memoir, Precious Rubbish, followed by a book signing. Contact Dr. Means at bkmeans@vcu.edu if you have any questions.
- Monday, Apr. 7th | 6:00pm-7:30pm | Room 216 of the STEM Building, located at 817 West Franklin St.
Opportunities
HRC Graphic Narratives Lab Student Fellowships
The HRC Graphic Narratives Lab is seeking three undergraduate student fellows for the 2024-2025 academic year. The fellowships are open to any major, and will last through the fall and spring semesters. Fellows will propose a project plan, either in the creation (i.e comic strip, zine), writing (writing a script for a comic or zine), and/or scholarship of comics (i.e. an essay discussing a topic/theme within the comics genre).