Drawing our nature: Comics and environmental psychology

This graphic essay explores the intersection between comics and environmental psychology. Reviewing previous scholarship, we first turn to the thematic and structural resonances between these two spheres. Among the former, sometimes called the ‘literal’ approach, is the insight that funny animals are an entrenched feature in many comics. The second or formal approach sees the comics medium itself as an ecosystem whose different parts (images and words) interdependently create a whole. We continue with three examples of how insights from environmental psychology resonate with the process of reading comics. The first example relates to the copresence of clashing voices in a comic, when text and image are in tension with each other, a situation akin to cognitive dissonance. The second aspect concerns sequence and its discontents. In comics, we take in different panels not just one after another but also simultaneously. This allows comics artists to complicate linear sequences, thereby mimicking the complex causality we see in environmental calamities and their solutions. Strategic gaps are the last example we discuss, again, a mechanism intrinsic to comics as an art form. Just like readers need to bridge the space between each panel and between each page, so do we have to bridge the gap between knowing and acting on environmental crises, between the now and the possible future. We close with a brief list of academic resources for interested readers.