Journal of Visual Communication in Medicine

ISSN: 1745-3054 (Print) 1745-3062 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ijau20

Writing medical comics

Miriam Waite

To cite this article: Miriam Waite (2019): Writing medical comics, Journal of Visual Communication
in Medicine, DOI: 10.1080/17453054.2019.1575641

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17453054.2019.1575641

Published online: 08 Aug 2019.

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JOURNAL OF VISUAL COMMUNICATION IN MEDICINE
https://doi.org/10.1080/17453054.2019.1575641

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Writing medical comics

Miriam Waite
University of Dundee

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The emergent field of medical comics is being lauded as a way to visually communicate Received 25 January 2019
medical information to patients more effectively than current methods. However, there is Accepted 25 January 2019
very little advice available in the literature as to how to design them. This comics article
attempts to address some questions you might have when starting a medical information
comic. It talks about designing comics for novice comics readers; what sort of colours to use
(if any); character choice and anthropomorphism; the length of the narrative; and the use of
humour. Essentially it advocates simplicity, while overcomplicating everything.

CONTACT Miriam Waite mimrw@icloud.com

ß 2019 The Institute of Medical Illustrators
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