Graphic Ethnography & Ethnographic Cartooning

As a project in her highschool science class this past spring, Essex Junction resident Thalia Kolovos (yes, Andy’s daughter!) set out to interview a number of Essex High School students about climate change, how they see their lives being affected by it, and how all this makes them feel.

Recently, Associate Director and Archivist (and resident comic nerd) Andy Kolovos has been exploring childhood engagement with comic books in Vermont through the memories of cartoonists in their 40s to 70s, who actively purchased comic books here from the 1950s to the early 1990s. Andy presented a short paper about this recent project at this year’s American Folklore Society conference. With the Non-Fiction Comics Festival coming up this weekend, we decided to share Andy’s paper where he (and the people he interviewed) talk about how comics served as a launching pad for their childhood art-making.

Turner Family Stories is a recent publication from VFC that brings together cartoonists and oral history to share the family stories and personal experiences of Daisy Turner of Grafton, Vermont with new audiences. Contributing cartoonist Marek Bennett spoke to us adapting Alec Turner’s extraordinary journey from Virginia to Vermont and how his life complicates how Civil War history is told and presented.

As a part of our Vermont Cartooning and Culture Project, cartoonist Iona Fox visited with three participants in the Vermont Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program and created a series comics about them.