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Exploration and specificity: a critical analysis of uses of comics as a method across qualitative research processes

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Lydia WysockiORCiD

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Abstract

This article explores the uses of comics as a method in qualitative research, an area of growing interest across the social sciences, arts and humanities. It critically reviews a comprehensive range of studies using the comics medium as part of their methodological approaches to attaining informed consent, communicating with participants (beyond the one-way elicitation of information), transcribing data and disseminating research findings. In analysing these uses of comics not as one codified method but as multiple approaches, this article advocates for greater use of comics as a keyword to better advance a collection of distinct yet connected approaches used across phases of research projects towards divergent methodological objectives. In asking what a given use of comics is being used to do in a given study, this article emphasises’ research participants’ agentic participation in research and highlights the need to problematise assumptions of visual and creative methods as participative.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Wysocki L

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Qualitative Research

Year: 2026

Pages: Epub ahead of print

Online publication date: 09/03/2026

Acceptance date: 25/11/2025

Date deposited: 13/03/2026

ISSN (print): 1468-7941

ISSN (electronic): 1741-3109

Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd

URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941261420112

DOI: 10.1177/14687941261420112

Data Access Statement: Not applicable.

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