
Creative approaches to patient information (2021)
Great North Children’s Hospital (Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust) has been working with Newcastle University researchers to explore creative approaches to patient information. As a legacy of that work, the team has produced a quick-start guide and materials to help staff plan their own collaborations with artists including comics creators and illustrators to produce […]

Applied Comics Collaborations
Applied Comics Collaborations is about working together to make good and useful comics. In each project three comics creators work with one academic researcher to make one collaborative draft of a comic, aiming to a way through the multiple possible ways of making a comic that communicates specific information to a target audience. Each project […]

Strike comics (2019, 2020, 2022)
Strike comics are comics made as part of industrial action. Making strike comics is probably the greatest form of political cartooning. These three collections of strike comics were made by Lydia Wysocki as part of the 2019, 2020, and 2022 University and College Union industrial action for fair pensions and fair working conditions. 27000 printed […]

Cholera Commotions
“Cholera is like tourists: they come, they annoy us, then they leave.” Cholera Commotions is a comics anthology collaboration created by Berwick Academy students, Northumberland Archives, Museums Northumberland, Applied Comics Etc, Newcastle University and Printspot. The anthology was created over three days in summer 2018 as part of a Learning Arc: Archives Education Group project. […]

My MRI! Informing children about MRI scan procedures
Children have a right to be informed about and participate in decisions about their health and treatments. The Radiography team at the Great North Children’s Hospital identified a need to make their MRI scan information for children more accessible, with a focus on the process of having a scan rather than the technology involved. Here […]

Group exhibition ‘Idea of North’ (2018)
Our comics are on show in BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art as part of Idea of North, a curated exhibition as part of the Great Exhibition of the North. The exhibition is on until 30th Sept 2018. Head to the far left corner of the big gallery on level 4 to see: Freedom City Comics […]

Learning framework: Freedom City Comics (2018)
This learning framework supports the use of Freedom City Comics by schools and other groups. All the activities are designed as springboards for your own projects, lessons, and activities. It’s completely up to you how to use this learning framework! Read and download the full framework: https://research.ncl.ac.uk/fccomics/learningframework/ Download individual chapters of the framework: https://www.tes.com/resources/search/?authorId=6753649 This […]

Freedom City Comics (2017)
Freedom City Comics anthology presents snapshots of the history of civil rights and politics on Tyneside. Each chapter focuses on a different era of the history of people and events in Newcastle and the North East. The 7 chapters are linked by the themes of freedom highlighted by Dr Martin Luther King Jr in his […]

DIY Comic (2017)
We worked with Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books in preparation for their 2017 exhibition Comics: Explore and Create Comic Art at Seven Stories. Overall, the exhibition features process and final artwork by a mix of old and new comics creators, with a huge focus on supporting children to make their own comics. Our […]

Comic Swap (2017+)
Comic Swap is a postal comic swap for children’s comics-making clubs. It’s co-organised by us and Hannah Sackett. Read more on the Comic Swap blog. The first swap (2017) was hosted by Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books. Six comics clubs took part from all around the UK: Bath, Dundee, Gateshead, Gloucester, Newcastle, and North […]

FaSMEd comic (2016)
The FaSMEd project invited us to work with children at George Stephenson High School in Killingworth, Newcastle upon Tyne, as part of their larger European research project. Their team is investigating Raising Achievement through Formative Assessment in Science and Mathematics Education – working with teachers on new-style maths and science lessons. What does all that have to do with comics? […]

The Right To Learn: Workers’ Educational Association (2016)
We worked with comics creator Terry Wiley to create ‘Philip Anthony Brown: The Right To Learn’, an 8-page comic about a key lecturer in the history of the Workers’ Educational Association. Read it online on the WEA’s website, and look out for printed copies at Workers’ Educational Association: North East events. WEA members researched the life of […]

Gertrude Bell: Archaeologist, Writer, Explorer (2015)
Born in Washington New Hall in what was then County Durham, archaeologist Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) had a remarkable life. She travelled round the world twice, investigated archaeological sites through the Syrian Desert to Asia Minor, and became a powerful force in Iraqi politics. Gertrude established the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, and served as the Honorary Director of Antiquities […]

True War Stories (2015)
For this project we worked with the Thomas Baker Brown Archive, Newcastle University Library Special Collections Education Outreach team, and artist-writer Terry Wiley. Thomas Baker Brown was a man from North Shields, Tyne & Wear, who served as a signaller in World War I. His son donated his archive to Newcastle University Special Collections, and we […]

Spineless: The Newcastle Science Comic (2015)
Spineless: The Newcastle Science Comic is our 16 page, 7-creator comics anthology created in partnership with Great North Museum: Hancock in Newcastle, as the childrens exhibition guide to their Spineless exhibition about invertebrates (minibeasts, bugs, beasties…) in summer 2015. We’ve printed 20,000 newsprint copies of Spineless (and a full digital version: go to the Newcastle Science […]

Asteroid Belter (2013)
Asteroid Belter: The Newcastle Science Comic was a 44-page, newsprint, 10000 copy print run comic for the British Science Festival 2013 hosted by Newcastle University. It was produced as collaboration between a total of 76 artists, writers and scientists, led by our editorial team: Lydia Wysocki, Paul Thompson, Michael Thompson, Jack Fallows, Brittany Coxon and Michael […]

COMICS: Newcastle, Gateshead, and Stockton Libraries (2014)
In summer 2014 Newcastle, Gateshead, and Stockton Libraries joined forces with local comics creators to host a great comics festival for children and young people. Applied Comics Etc took part in the festival by running our infographics workshop. Then we were invited back for more. In partnership with the libraries and with Tyne Bridge Publishing […]

Use comics! An infographics workshop (2014)
Newspapers, websites, and documentaries love using graphs, symbols, and pictures to present information. We delivered a workshop for Newcastle Libraries about understanding what makes good, bad, and misleading infographics. We explored what comics can teach us about combining words and pictures, and challenged participants to make their own own good (or evil) infographics.

Sparks: Comics and collaboration (2014)
We led a workshop for scientists, researchers, physical/digital makers, and artists who took part in the Science Collider run by Sparks North East . Collaborators arrived not knowing what data they’d be playing with or who their teammates would be. We focussed on how comics could help them get started and keep things on track, and provided a […]

Exhibition: The science of comics (2013)
To celebrate the launch of Asteroid Belter we curated a dual-site exhibition. In Newcastle City Library we focussed on the science of how comics are made, with original artwork and process pages from our contributors and our young Science FACT-ion competition winners. At Newcastle University we took a closer look at some of the scientific […]

Science FACT-ion (2013)
Ahead of the British Science Festival 2013 we developed a downloadable activity pack available as a PDF from the Teachers’ Toolkit. Download the kids’ pack and adult helpers’ pack here – the competition has closed but the activities remain awesome. Science FACT-ion used the medium of comics to show 8-13 year olds how science fact and […]

Newcastle Science Comic (2012, ongoing)
Here are some snapshots of our completed projects, including links (where possible) to read our comics online.
Newcastle Science Comic is our heading for all things science + comics: Asteroid Belter, Science FACT-ion, The Science of Comics exhibitions, and other workshops. We sometimes still do projects as Newcastle Science Comic, but we’re not only Newcastle Science Comic. Since 2012 we’ve broadened our horizons to include other subject areas. We began with Newcastle Science Comic […]