EDITOR’S NOTE: The New York Times found the story of the savior of The Mountain Messenger worth exploring. Read our Q&A with veteran foreign correspondent Tim Arango, who says a good story is where you find … Read more
EDITOR’S NOTE: Erika Hayasaki’s conversation with Storyboard contributor Katia Savchuk explores what it took to earn a regular byline in magazines. She also shared the two separate pitches she wrote to land “End Pain Forever” as a cover piece in Wired. Read more
Anthony Ronzio Gabor Degre/BDN Over the past two years the Bangor Daily News, a small-town newspaper in central Maine, has made a name for itself by publishing ambitious … Read more
We recently noticed that Los Angeles Times reporter Christopher Goffard had expanded a series he had done for the paper into the book “You Will See Fire.” We’ve talked with other narrative journalists who have done … Read more
In “News to Me,” Laurie Hertzel writes about life as an ink-stained wretch during nearly 20 years at the Duluth News Tribune. Now books editor at the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune, Hertzel is also an award-winning reporter … Read more
What might life without books look like, and how will the shift to digital texts and images change news narratives? Earlier this month, Nieman Lab staffer Megan Garber wrote about the “Gutenberg Parenthesis”—the idea that the reign of … Read more
How will digital opportunities change the way we tell stories? Earlier this month in New York City, a roundtable of journalists from major media outlets and community-oriented news organizations met to consider new narrative possibilities. Funded by Shell, the afternoon … Read more
Part 2 of a look at graphic narrative journalism
[Part 1 discussed how “comics journalism” rose from the underground and independent comics scene to combine conventions of the traditional comic book with telling personal, true stories.]
The 1990s “indie” comics scene saw two trends. One reflected an almost neurotic drive to get away from the power fantasies of superhero stories. Using a careless graphic style that emphasized the pathologically normal, authors told stories from the point of view of a “defeatist,” in the words of comics artist Joe Sacco.
On the other hand, this was the era in which American non-superhero comics also started engaging with topics bigger than the middle-class suburbs of their creators. Inspiration came from the sudden acceptance of comics in the wake of Art Spiegelman's 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Maus, which also built a bridge between the artistic language of the European bande dessinée and its comparatively low-brow American cousin.
Bringing these two trends together, the first issue of Joe Sacco's Palestine came out in 1993, followed by nine original single comic book issues. Trained as a journalist, Sacco tells the story of the two months he spent in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip between 1991 and 1992.
Read the full story » Read more
Print journalism and comic books share a history. Without the former the latter would never have come to be. Journalists have also had their own struggle—the phrases “New Journalism” and “literary journalism” attempt to distinguish what’s used to wrap fish … Read more
The behemoth of Twitter has been a game-changer for journalism. It has become a tool for breaking stories, making — or breaking — careers, calling attention to issues, and giving a platform to people who long were denied a … Read more
