In his multi-award-winning book “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook got Wrong,” sociologist James W. Loewen (2018) argues that “there is a reciprocal relationship between truth about the past and justice in the present” (p. xix). This presentation builds on this quote by exploring how cartoonists use comics as a medium for justice and historical revisionism. Degand draws from archived interviews with cartoonists from the past, his interviews with comic producers in the present, and his ongoing analyses of their portfolios, to demonstrate how comics are used to communicate and preserve activist, cultural, and familial legacies.

Darnel Degand is an associate professor at the University of California, Davis. His interests include comics, educational media, and media production. Some of his publications can be read in Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, Studies in Comics, and The Comics Grid.

Attend in person or online on Zoom.