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In healthcare education, it is important for nursing students to be able to reflect on their performance in high-fidelity clinical simulations in order to develop key skills. Learning Analytics (LA) offers opportunities for data-driven reflection by providing visual representations of educational experiences. While many LA tools rely on data visualisations to communicate insights, these are often difficult for students to interpret, limiting their effectiveness. Despite these challenges, there is limited research exploring alternative and potentially more accessible formats—such as data comics, a narrative visualisation technique that integrates data with the structure of traditional comic strips—to represent and communicate insights from learner data in a more engaging way. This study addresses that gap through a qualitative analysis of nursing students’ perceptions of data comics as reflective tools, focusing on: (i) support for student reflection, (ii) advantages and limitations, and (iii) concerns about their use in healthcare education. Third-year nursing students who participated in a simulation were interviewed and asked to reflect on personalised data comic prototypes generated from their multimodal data using a mix of human input and AI methods. The results indicated that while data comics present an engaging and accessible form of reflective visualisation, considerations need to be made regarding the designs to ensure that they are appropriate for the target audience and do not oversimplify the simulation experience. These findings indicate that data comics should not act as a replacement for conventional visualisations but rather serve as supplementary material to communicate contextual information or aid in interpretation of visualisations.

Winner of the Best Book Award in Comics History from the Grand Comics Database Honorable Mention, 2019-2020 Research Society for American Periodicals Book Prize The term “graphic novel” was first coined in 1964, but it wouldn’t be broadly used until the 1980s, when graphic novels such as Watchmen and Maus achieved commercial success and critical acclaim. What happened in the intervening years, after the graphic novel was conceptualized yet before it was widely recognized? Dreaming the Graphic Novel examines how notions of the graphic novel began to coalesce in the 1970s, a time of great change for American comics, with declining sales of mainstream periodicals, the arrival of specialty comics stores, and (at least initially) a thriving underground comix scene. Surveying the eclectic array of long comics narratives that emerged from this fertile period, Paul Williams investigates many texts that have fallen out of graphic novel history. As he demonstrates, the question of what makes a text a ‘graphic novel’ was the subject of fierce debate among fans, creators, and publishers, inspiring arguments about the literariness of comics that are still taking place among scholars today. Unearthing a treasure trove of fanzines, adverts, and unpublished letters, Dreaming the Graphic Novel gives readers an exciting inside look at a pivotal moment in the art form’s development.

In Anime’s Media Mix, Marc Steinberg convincingly shows that anime is far more than a style of Japanese animation. Engaging with film, animation, and media studies, as well as analyses of consumer culture and theories of capitalism, Steinberg offers the first sustained study of the Japanese mode of convergence that informs global media practices to this day.

Manga (Japanese comics) are popular worldwide. However, current e-manga archives offer very limited search support, i.e., keyword-based search by title or author. To make the manga search experience more intuitive, efficient, and enjoyable, we propose a manga-specific image retrieval system. The proposed system consists of efficient margin labeling, edge orientation histogram feature description with screen tone removal, and approximate nearest-neighbor search using product quantization. For querying, the system provides a sketch-based interface. Based on the interface, two interactive reranking schemes are presented: relevance feedback and query retouch. For evaluation, we built a novel dataset of manga images, Manga109, which consists of 109 comic books of 21,142 pages drawn by professional manga artists. To the best of our knowledge, Manga109 is currently the biggest dataset of manga images available for research. Experimental results showed that the proposed framework is efficient and scalable (70 ms from 21,142 pages using a single computer with 204 MB RAM).

Introduction Humanitarian settings are underserved by HIV self-testing (HIV-ST). Methods We conducted a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of HIV-ST (Arm 1), HIV-ST alongside edutainment comics (Arm 2), and edutainment comics (Arm 3), compared with the standard of care (SOC), in increasing HIV testing with refugee youth aged 16–24 in the Bidi Bidi Refugee Settlement, Uganda. Intervention effects on HIV testing at 3-month follow-up (T2) were assessed using generalized estimating equation models alongside open-ended questions. Results Retention was 98% (n = 117/120) at T2. In adjusted analyses compared with the SOC, HIV testing changes from baseline to T2 were highest in Arm 2 (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]: 8.46; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.87–24.97), followed by Arm 3 (aOR: 4.14; 95% CI: 1.58–10.87), with no significant differences in Arm 1. Conclusion HIV self-testing is feasible for refugee youth in Uganda and can be supplemented with edutainment comics to advance HIV prevention efforts. Plain Language Summary: Findings from an HIV self-testing and comic intervention with refugee youth in a humanitarian setting in Uganda.

In this article, we perform an exhaustive analysis of the use of Artificial Neural Networks and Deep Learning in the Visual Arts. We begin by introducing changes in Artificial Intelligence over the years and examine in depth the latest work carried out in prediction, classification, evaluation, generation, and identification through Artificial Neural Networks for the different Visual Arts. While we highlight the contributions of photography and pictorial art, there are also other uses for 3D modeling, including video games, architecture, and comics. The results of the investigations discussed show that the use of Artificial Neural Networks in the Visual Arts continues to evolve and have recently experienced significant growth. To complement the text, we include a glossary and table with information about the most commonly employed image datasets.

Understanding visual narrative sequences, as found in comics, is known to recruit similar cognitive mechanisms to verbal language. As measured by event-related potentials (ERPs), these manifest as initial negativities (N400, LAN) and subsequent positivities (P600). While these components are thought to index discrete processing stages, they differentially arise across participants for any given stimulus. In language contexts, proficiency modulates brain responses, with smaller N400 effects and larger P600 effects appearing with increasing proficiency. In visual narratives, recent work has also emphasized the role of proficiency in neural response patterns. We thus explored whether individual differences in proficiency modulate neural responses to visual narrative sequencing in similar ways as in language. We combined ERP data from 12 studies examining semantic and/or grammatical processing of visual narrative sequences. Using linear mixed effects modeling, we demonstrate differential effects of visual language proficiency and “age of acquisition” on N400 and P600 responses. Our results align with those reported in language contexts, providing further evidence for the similarity of linguistic and visual narrative processing, and emphasize the role of both proficiency and age of acquisition in visual narrative comprehension.

The Dutch graphic novel Naasten, about palliative family caregiving, is the product of an interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers and two comic artists. This paper aims to present lessons, reflections and practical recommendations for other researchers interested in adopting (comic) arts-based research methods, in which artistic methods are used as novel ways for generating, analysing, interpreting or representing research data.Our project started with the goal of translation: we aimed at representing research findings into a more accessible, visual and textual form to stimulate discussion and reflection outside academia on moral challenges in family care. This was inspired by comics’ hypothesised potential to show complex and embodied experiences, thus enabling more understanding in readers and offering powerful science communication tools. Although this goal of translation was realised in our project, we learnt along the way that the project could have benefited from a more explicit focus on interdisciplinarity from the start and by monitoring the interdisciplinary learning opportunities throughout the project. The following issues are important for any art-research collaboration: (1) an interest in and acknowledgement of each other’s (potentially diverging) aims and roles: all parties should—from the start—commit themselves to interdisciplinary collaboration and to exploring the added value of using each other’s methods, thereby finding a common methodological ground and language; (2) a continuous discussion of the sometimes contrasting approaches between artists and researchers: differences in using theory and story may result in different criteria for creating good art. When balancing scientific and aesthetic aims, the trustworthiness of the art work should remain an important criterion; (3) an awareness of the potential of interdisciplinary collaboration to offering new perspectives on one’s scientific data collection and analysis, for example, providing other conceptualisations or indicating blind spots, provided that artists are involved in the early phases of research.

Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is a persistent concern in humanitarian contexts, yet there is a dearth of SGBV prevention and post-rape clinical care interventions tailored for refugee youth. Graphic medicine, the use of images and text such as in comic books, has been employed to depict lived experiences to promote health, wellbeing, and education. Comic books provide a low-cost, youth-friendly approach to health promotion that is accessible to varying literacy levels. Limited research, however, has described the process of developing graphic medicine approaches for SGBV prevention and sexual violence stigma reduction with and for refugee youth in humanitarian settings. To address this knowledge gap, this paper shares a Qualitative Comic Book Mapping approach, whereby qualitative data alongside theoretical and empirical SGBV literature informed the development of comic book scenarios with refugee youth aged 16-24 in Bidi Bidi refugee settlement, Uganda. Steps included conducting focus groups and in-depth individual interviews with 78 community members (youth, elders, service providers) in Bidi Bidi to explore SGBV lived experiences among refugee youth in Bidi Bidi and ideas for solutions to reduce SGBV and related stigma, in addition to improving post-rape care experiences and engagement. The Qualitative Comic Book Mapping approach involved: a) thematic analysis of qualitative data and identification of overarching themes; b) aligning qualitative themes with theories of change for SGBV prevention and stigma reduction; and c) co-developing comic book scenarios with refugee youth peer navigators and community experts to integrate SGBV prevention and stigma reduction theory with refugee youth lived experiences. The final comic book involved five youth-focused scenarios and was integrated in an intervention with refugee youth, including providing youth with a blank version of the comic book to complete themselves. We share how theoretically-informed comic books can be developed from qualitative data with refugee youth in a humanitarian setting.

This study aims to study the effect of the use of media on scientific students. This study uses a quasi-experimental method with a pretest-posttest control group design, this study guidance to the experimental class and the control class. The population in this study was the students of grade ten of science department in Senior High School 1 Sigli in the academic year 2018/2019, while the sampling was done using random sampling techniques and the samples of grade ten-two for the experimental class and grade ten-three for the control class were take 28 people each. The treatment in the experimental class is learning by using comic media. Data collection was carried out using observation sheets at each meeting. Data analysis techniques used descriptive analysis and the results showed the average scientific assessment increased the acquisition of the first meeting to three. For the control class, meticulous attitude increased by 47.32%, curiosity 61.31%, open attitude 41.96% and critical attitude 48.51%. While the experimental class 93.45% meticulous attitude increased 93.45%, curiosity 80.65%, open attitude 85.71% and critical attitude 76.49%. Thus the use of comic media is very influential on the scientific attitude of students.