Autistic people in the UK are being invited to participate in a University of Cambridge-led project exploring the uniquely powerful connection between autism and comics.
Too often the question of how to support autistic people is addressed from a deficit perspective
Prof Jenny Gibson
The study will lead to new guidance encouraging both the comics industry and enthusiasts to make comics communities better places for neurodivergent fans and artists. It is being led by academics at the University's Faculty of Education and will begin this month with an open, online survey aimed at autistic comics fans.
Research by the Comics Cultural Impact Collective (CCIC) - which will also be part of the collaboration - indicates that hundreds of young people self-identifying as neurodivergent are involved in Britain's comics community, either as fans or creators.
The CCIC also suggests, however, that neurodivergent enthusiasts often find spaces like fan conventions, comic book stores, online communities and the comics industry less than welcoming, and frequently feel 'siloed'. How to address that - and what it is about comics that attracts so many autistic people in the first place - have never been fully explored.
The online survey will begin to answer these questions by collecting information from autistic comics fans and creators. Professor Jenny Gibson, an expert in neurodiversity and autism and one of the project's academic leads, described it as "kick-starting a wider conversation about comics and autism".
"Comics seem to have massive appeal for a surprising number of autistic people, and many of them are not just fans but enormously talented cartoonists, artists and illustrators," Gibson said.
"This is something the comics community is increasingly aware of, and there is a lot of enthusiasm for becoming better allies for autistic people. What we lack is information about how we can best do that, partly because we don't know enough about the perspectives and experiences of autistic comics enthusiasts."
The project is called "The Collaboration for Comics and Autism". As well as the CCIC, Gibson and co-lead Dr Joe Sutliff Sanders will be working with the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, Dekko Comics (a specialist publisher supporting neurodivergent learners), the Association of Illustrators, the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration and autistic cartoonists Bex Ollerton and Eliza Fricker.
Beyond this, they want to involve as many autistic artists and fans as possible by gathering their experiences of engaging with comics culture and of the opportunities and barriers they have encountered.
Various explanations have been proposed for why comics seem to have such appeal for autistic people. Dekko Comics argues on its website that many autistic young people, who may often find verbal communication challenging, respond positively to the clear and accessible sensory material in comics, which may be an important bridge between their inner and outer worlds. Research by Dr Neil Cohn suggests that over 90% of children with autism spectrum disorder and language disorders enjoy comics, compared with about 60% of neurotypical children.
Comics and art also provide many autistic people with a valuable outlet for self-expression. The Cambridge project, for example, originated from a workshop at the People's History Museum in Manchester for autistic comics artists, which Gibson and Sanders co-led with the editor of Sensory: Life on the Spectrum, an anthology by dozens of autistic creators.
Sanders, a leading comics scholar, also highlights the richly detailed imaginative world of comics in which fans immerse themselves, often becoming aficionados in the process. This may mean comics are particularly well suited to helping autistic people satisfy psychological needs that we all share, such as the need for a sense of belonging, competence, and having control over our own lives.
"Comics have the power to spark a particular kind of obsession and passion among fans," Sanders said. "They enable a sort of flow state; that pure joy that comes from losing yourself in something that you find interesting and engaging. They are almost ready-made for accumulating knowledge and sharing it with like-minded people who will really value what you have to say."
"The problem is that, like so many other parts of society, fan conventions and communities - and the comics industry as a whole - can sometimes inadvertently brush aside neurodivergent people. We need to understand what we can do differently in order to make this world as inclusive and accessible as possible."
The results of the online survey will provide the basis for a series of workshops in Cambridge later this year, during which artists, fans and people involved in the industry will begin to develop a best-practice guide for autistic inclusion.
Gibson and Sanders plan to launch it at the Lakes International Festival in September. The guide will also be distributed to a wider network including fan groups, publishers, galleries and professional bodies. It will be released as a comic book, and its impact will be tested through a follow-up survey so that it can be refined as necessary in future editions.
"Too often the question of how to support autistic people is addressed from a deficit perspective, as if the problem is that they lack neurotypical skills," Gibson said. "This project will flip that perspective. By learning more about how autistic fans connect with comics, we will begin to understand what we can do differently to make the most of their knowledge, talents and enthusiasm."
The initial survey for The Collaboration for Comics and Autism can be accessed here.
