Cartoonists and educators Shay Mirk and Eleri Harris have teamed up once again. They were editorial colleagues at the late, lamented the Nib—the long-running influential hub for graphic nonfiction and comics journalism that closed up shop in 2023. Now, the duo’s Making Nonfiction Comics: A Guide for Graphic Narrative (Abrams ComicArts, Nov.) offers a how-to guide for artists, writers and journalists to navigate the many facets of crafting reality-based comics. Bringing their own experience to the page, they also broaden the pool of expertise via interviews with dozens of diverse creators, such as Thi Bui, Maia Kobabe, Joe Sacco, and Whit Taylor, resulting in a primer “full of sound advice and brimming over with energy, humor, and passion,” according to PW’s starred review. PW talked with the pair about the nuts and bolts of collaborating, and how comics can create community.

What can artists expect here that’s different from other how-to books about making comics?

Harris: One thing we wanted to address was layouts. Often there's an overemphasis on narration or captioning. Some people are turned off by nonfiction comics because they perceive them as having too many words. Creators can play with how they integrate images and text. It doesn't all have to be representational.

Mirk: Oftentimes a beginner’s comics can feel like an illustrated Wikipedia entry. We wanted to push people to be metaphorical, to be abstract. We also wanted to be collaborative. We included the voices of over forty artists, all who found their own individual ways to create their work.

Is the book also about fostering community?

Mirk: That's what has sustained our focus in comics—the community. We wanted to capture that feeling: Creating work with our friends for our friends, feeling supported and cheered along the way and learning from each other.

We also wanted a diversity of drawing styles—to see show every artist has a different visual voice so readers can wonder, What would mine look like? Not everyone is going to draw like Joe Sacco, you know?

How did your personal politics inform this book?

Harris: I don't think there’s a separation between the personal and the political. We both care about the environment, about social justice issues. So that's prominent.

Mirk: When you're a journalist, the stories you choose to report on are shaped by your background, experience and identity. As much as you try to be objective, it's still shaped by what you think is important. I make comics is to process my feelings about the world. And that's pretty political.

How did you divvy up the work?

Mirk: We approached the book like a jam comic. We wrote out a list of all of the chapters and then split up who would write the first draft of each. Then we swapped and edited the other person's chapters. When we had a final text version of the book, we swapped off writing the thumbnails for each chapter as well.

Harris: Meanwhile, I’d received a grant from artsACT—part of the government of the Australian Capital Territory where I live. The drawing took 795 hours, so that was helpful. We were also able to pay contributors for licensing their artwork. Shay became the manager of the human wrangling while I focused on drawing.

Do you look forward to having somebody come up to you and tell you, Your book helped me draw my first comic?

Harris: I think the greatest honor that could be bestowed upon a cartoonist—especially someone making a book like ours—is that it inspires other people to create work that reflects them, their stories, and the world around them.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Eleri Harris's spent 95 hours drawing Making Nonfiction Comics: A Guide for Graphic Narrative. Drawing the book took 795 hours.