The Value of Instructional Comics for eLearning

Educators have been using instructional comicsfor learning for over 60 years, but how effective are they for interactive, self-pacedeLearning? I would argue that designers can and should use instructional comicsfor eLearning.

Motivating adults to read material specific tolearning new tasks or procedures can be a challenge. Organizations are always lookingfor new and innovative ways to attract and hold the attention of learners,while influencing and motivating them to change behaviors or improveperformance. Instructional comics are a creative way to do this.

Comics and eLearning

Skillful instructional designers juxtapose visualsand text for both synchronousand asynchronous training all the time. We know that visuals(images, graphics, charts, etc.) combined with text improves overall learningif designed correctly. A comic allows readers to view the material as a visualnarrative. Readers are attracted to the appealing pictures, characters, andstories, and research proves that they retain more than when they read the samestory in a text-only format.

The big question for instructional designers is:What value is added to the design if the material is presented as a comic? Thekey is to consider the material as a story, not as a comic. If the material canbe written as a story, then you have the foundation for an instructional comic.

Defining the comic medium

Comics can be either entertaining oreducational. Periodical comics and graphic novels are generally viewed asentertainment, while instructional manuals and procedural storyboards aregenerally viewed as educational.

Will Eisner, widely considered the grandfatherof the graphic novel, explains this in more detail in his book Comics and Sequential Art: Principles andPractices. “In the work of comic art intended purely for entertainment,some technical exposition of a precise nature often occurs,” he writes. “Acommon example is a procedure like opening a safe in a detective story or theassembly of parts in a space adventure. This technical passage is actually aset of images with an instructional message embedded in an ‘entertaining’ story.”

Eisner argues that comics are a literary form. “Inits most economical state, comics employ a series of repetitive images andrecognizable symbols,” he writes. “When these are used again and again toconvey similar ideas, they become a language—a literary form, if you will. Andit is this disciplined application that creates the ‘grammar’ of sequential art.”

It can be argued that eLearning is similar, inthat it is a series of repetitive images with content that conveys ideas toimpact a specific outcome. It is not sequential art per se, but eLearning issequential in nature. An instructional comic builds on what we already do, withthe addition of art and a narrative.

Determine whether the material can be written as a story

There are a lot of toolsavailable today to produce the comic format, however makingeLearning look like a comic by including comic characters or applying a comictheme to existing material does not make it a true instructional comic. Myadvice is put away those tools and start with the story.

I’ve designed and developed severalinstructional comic projects over the years—from simple printed job aides tofull interactive comic curriculums—and a story can be found in almost any material.As an instructional designer, you must uncoverthe story.

Will Eisner divides instructional comics intotwo categories: technical and attitudinal. Technical comics are mainly forlearning processes or performing tasks, whereas attitudinal comics are more forsoft skills such as learning new behaviors and social interactions.

For an instructional comic in the technicalcategory, think of how you can present the material in different ways. Unlikephotos which are constrained by what can be physically photographed, the flexibilityof drawn images in comics allows the artist to demonstrate a technicallycomplex task from the point of view of the learner.

For an instructional comic in the attitudinalcategory, study the material with a stronger lens and place yourself as a learnerin the intended audience. See yourself as a character in the story, and how thatcharacter relates to the learner. That’s the easy part. The harder and moretime-consuming part is re-writing the material as a story-prose script.   

In conclusion

Although comics certainly appeal to children,they can be powerful training tools for adults. As Eisner wrote, “I want topoint out to adults that there is a world of good material available to you nowin comic form—in this medium—and learn to give it your support because the moreyou support it, the better the material will be as it comes out.”

In the early 1940s, the Army requested a testbetween the standard training manuals and Will Eisner’s comics. They discoveredthat when information was presented as a comic, soldiers better understood thetask and retained the information more. Eisner was a master of the craft, withthe ability to visualize the instruction in context with the message and drawthe art to support that context. That led to several decades of Eisner creatingmilitary instructional comics.

It’s important to note that an instructionalcomic is not about the artwork. Whether you can draw or not, outsourcing thetalent is no different than outsourcing voiceover talent—it’s about the design.Comics and graphic novels have made a tremendous surge in recent years, in bothentertainment and education. The future looks bright for designers who are ableto create instructional comics for eLearning. I invite you to join the surge!

Editor’s note

KevinThorn will be a featured speakerat The eLearning Guild’s DevLearn 2018 conference. He is presenting twosessions: Getting Started withStop-Motion Animation for eLearning and Design Before Developing: Getting Started with Storyboarding for eLearning.Clickhere for further information or to register for the conference.