John Swogger was introduced to CCS by Al Wesolosky (’09). Like Al, John enjoyed a career in archeology before turning his attention to comics. We’re excited to have John on campus and help support him as he continues to deepen his cartooning practice. —James Sturm
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I make comics about archaeology – about the excavations and sites that I work on, about the science and the analysis that we do there, and about the communities with whom we do that work alongside. I’ve been doing this for about fifteen years or so, and for much of that time I still felt more like an archaeologist than a cartoonist. When I was invited to be the 2024-5 Applied Cartooning Fellow, I finally had to admit that I was indeed a cartoonist.
This year I’m wrapping up a collaborative project with the Kumeyaay tribes of Southern California, making a comic about the history of the state told from their perspective. I’m also working on a comic with Jen Shannon (Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian), Shannon Martin (First People’s Fund; Gun Lake Tribe of Potawatomi) and Sonya Atalay (University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Anishinaabe-Ojibwe) about the bringing back of Native seeds from museum anthropology collections back to Anishinaabe tribal communities. I’ll be putting together a short comic about the research library of the Corning Museum of Glass; I’m collaborating on a comic about the community researchers working on the medieval frontier that ran between England and Wales; I’m drawing a retelling of a traditional story from the island of Palau in partnership with the island’s Society of Oral Historians and the government Department of Education; and I’m writing a comic working with a traditional tattooist from Micronesia, telling the story of ancient migration across the Pacific through its ancient art.
The truth is the distinction between archaeology and cartooning seems increasingly moot these days. I’m excited about working on my archaeological comics while I’m here and the opportunity to share with my fellow cartoonists a way of writing, drawing and working that is as new and surprising to me as it may well be to them!
