Eleri Harris, a 2014 graduate of the Center for Cartoon Studies, lectured at CCS this semester as a visiting artist. In a two hour talk and workshop, Eleri provided an overview of her work as a comics journalist and editor, a history of the Nib, and gave a brief workshop on comics storytelling for an online audience.
Eleri had a background in online, print, and broadcast journalism before coming to CCS. After receiving her MFA at the school, she went on to work with her thesis advisor, Matt Bors, as an associate editor, and then deputy editor at The Nib, a print and web publication that focussed on comics journalism and political cartoons. Over the course of ten years, Eleri worked with the Nib through three iterations before it ceased publication in the summer of 2023. The Nib’s impact on nonfiction comics is hard to quantify — it paid out millions of dollars to cartoonists working in nonfiction comics, created an international network of comics journalists, and helped create a broad public awareness of comics journalism as a format. Today, nonfiction comics are found prominently featured in the pages of most major publications, from the New Yorker to the Washington Post.
Eleri’s final reported piece for the Nib was a comic about deforestation that brought together her personal experience with reporting from Tasmania and around the globe. Eleri also talked about her process of reporting stories, teaching journalism, and co-directing the Comic Arts Workshop residency. She finished off her workshop with some great practical advice for nonfiction cartoonists (“the internet likes to see people’s faces,” “the most likely place to lose a reader is on panel #3, don’t draw someone looking something up on their laptop.”).
-Dan
