Data Visualization Comics
By: Martin Telefont
Tags: Community, Humor, Comics, Data Visualization, Datahumanism

Data Visualization Comics

A community shows it is maturation when it develops its own sense of humour.

Humour! It’s good for you! It releases tension, and if you laugh with somebody you start to bond because it shows that both of you are pleasantly surprised by whatever makes the situation funny. But this is not a general health awareness post, or sponsored by Cartoon Network but about the emergence of a sense of humour that has data visualization at its very heart.

Data visualization is a funny place

While I argued in a recent post that data visualization has been around for a while, the emergence of a connected data visualization community is something pretty new. No idea what this community will turn into, but I can tell you one thing: after 3 months of being immersed in the Data Visualisation Society (DVS) — it’s a funny place.

DVS is a wonderful mix of people from different backgrounds, from computer science to stats/analysis to design and art. All of them trying to improve their craft, and finding people to collaborate, or ripping on pie charts. No? Ok, may just be me and Elijah on the last one.

The two things that help a group to develop their own sense of humour are

a) shared background (yeah not really)

b) shared pain/joy (bingo)

What helps in this is that at the moment it’s very hard to pinpoint what could be considered a well-rounded education to succeed in data visualization (I think the Data Visualization Society may help in this in the long run), so we all stumble and fumble. If you are not, I hear that Mike Bostock is hiring for Observable. (PS Mike, I got nothing but love for what you are doing. )

So with this let me get to the dog and pony show of highlighting some of the people I ran into when I started drawing my own cartoons (cough cough self-promotion, cough cough).

A mini who’s who

In the past couple of weeks, there has been emerging interest in data visualization comics. Below is a first attempt at highlighting Data Visualisation Society Members producing comics. By highlighting them and their work, we hope that more will join in the discussion or the effort.

Matt Hong — We have all seen his cartoon. It’s brilliant work because it actually is a Visualisation!

The comic makes brilliant use of the panels and time intervals spent by people in their respective activities. This reminds me of a comment about Don Knuth. It was along the lines of ‘literate programming is a wonderful thing if you are good at writing and programming.’ There are few people that will really have a need for it, except Prof Knuth. Damn Matt, way to start cartooning off with a mic drop moment.

Susie Lu — Susie’s work stands out a bit. She spent the time and did character development. Yes, the main character of her cartoons looks very much like her. But there is no better way to bring yourself into the work than by bringing yourself into the work.

Figure 2 in Susie’s wonderful article about storytelling in dashboards.

Natalia Kiseleva — While Natalia has only published a few strips, she is definitively somebody to watch in this space. If they remind you of the “The Manga Guide to …” you are on the right track.

Martin Telefont — I don’t consider myself part of the bunch. But I am more than 1/2 way through a 100-day challenge, and I am getting the hang of it. I think … back in a second, just checking if people like my latest cartoon on twitter/instagram.

What next?

I think with the field growing and the output getting more and more love (at the moment, most of it is going to Giorgia Lupi) and appreciation (most going to Nadie Bremer), this may not just be a fad, but something that has staying power.

Will any of us come up with the next Peanuts or Garfield? Probably not. Data visualization comics will most likely remain a niche and not go mainstream. Is there a chance for a xkcd or smbc? I think so. But that requires 3 things: a tenacity to stick around, appreciation of people who see the strips/panels, and opportunities to grow and keep things fresh.

Call to action:

If you like what you see, and want to support its growth:

show your appreciation (likes and retweets are highly appreciated),

ask us to collaborate on something where you think a cartoon or sketch helps, or

throw us an idea/observation and you may end up co-authoring a cartoon (yup there are bragging rights in this one).

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. If you want to reach out, leave me a comment below or contact me on twitter.