University of Toronto Press will release Voices from Nepal – Uncovering Human Trafficking through Comics Journalism, a new graphic novel by Dan Archer in October.
The graphic novel is the culmination of a crowdfunding campaign back in 2012 that enabled Dan to visit Nepal to research the subject.
How can we better protect survivors of human trafficking? How can we learn from their stories without causing further harm?
With a pen in one hand and watercolours in the other, Dan Archer embarked on an investigation into human trafficking and how comics can be used to empower survivors and raise awareness of human rights issues.
Based on years of research and reporting, the book holds a mirror up to the ways that international and local NGOs study and combat trafficking, reflecting on both the positive and negative impacts they can have.
Featuring interviews with trafficking survivors across Nepal, as well as former traffickers themselves, Archer dispels common misconceptions around labour trafficking, sex trafficking, organ trafficking, and more. Through a combination of live sketches, illustrated reportage, and visual testimonies, he champions the use of graphic journalism in human rights reporting and emphasises the need for a survivor-centric approach to this work.
Carefully compiled and expressively illustrated, Voices from Nepal sheds light on an important issue while fostering a discussion about how we can improve the tools and methods we use to make change.
Dan Archer is a graphic journalist and founder of Empathetic Media, an extended reality production studio. He’s been working as a graphic journalist ever since graduating from the Center of Cartoon Studies in 2009 with an MFA in Cartooning.
His work focuses on human rights-related topics and he uses illustrated reportage and comics to protect the anonymity of his interviewees. His graphic journalism has been featured by the BBC, The Guardian, Vice, the US State Dept, CNN and Associated Press among others.
Dan was the first comics journalist to be elected to the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship, in 2011, and became a Reynolds Journalism Institute Fellow in 2015 and Tow Digital Media Fellow in 2017, during which he explored interactive immersive non-fiction storytelling. He was nominated for an Eisner Award, for his collaboration on Yiddishkeit with Harvey Pekar.
“It was my terrible experience of jury service at the Old Bailey, London’s oldest criminal court, that convinced me of the power of using comics to tell stories that couldn’t be told using traditional recording equipment,” says Dan. “Since that day, I’ve produced comics on a wide range of social justice topics, from homelessness to human trafficking, using the drawn medium to protect his interviewees’ identities and ensure that their stories reach a wider audience.”
Dan, Professor Cecilia Mo and Professor Margaret Boittin were co-principal investigators on an international research project monitoring migration and trafficking in Nepal from 2013-18 that was sponsored by Humanity United, Stanford/Vanderbilt/McGill University, and produced in collaboration with several leading Nepali NGOs.
Dan researched, designed and produced the treatments for the survey, across multiple formats, which included comics, poster, animation, brochures and a radio drama. All of the materials were based on dozens of interviews with human trafficking survivors across Nepal from 2012-14.
Their white paper, which compared the efficacy of the different forms of media campaigns on human trafficking awareness in Nepal, is readable here.
“When I started making non-fiction comics I focused on the larger issues like political corruption (in my graphic history of the Honduran Coup), Prop 8, the military-industrial complex in the United States and so on,” Dan said of the origins of the project back in 2012, in an interview with Comics Beat, “but I slowly gravitated towards telling personal stories, adapted from first-hand testimonies from people whose voices were often absent from mainstream media.
“I became interested in human trafficking after my 2009 project through the Fulbright program with the wonderful Olga Trusova, in which we used comics to tell the stories of seven trafficking survivors from eastern europe. After finishing that project in 2010, I continued working on trafficking/violence against women in the US, but it was when I spoke to Madhu during my Knight fellowship that I saw an opportunity to use comics in an environment where literacy levels were low and a significant chunk of the target audience was children.
“Trafficking is also not only sex trafficking, which makes up only a fraction of incidences, and was more prevalent a decade ago,” he also noted. “Bonded labour and domestic servitude amongst children is a huge problem that many papers perhaps feel lacks the emotive punch of sex trafficking. Plus the risks of workers going abroad (especially to the Gulf/Qatar etc) are huge, and few protection systems are in place for those who risk everything to leave their country and provide for their families.”
• Voices from Nepal – Uncovering Human Trafficking through Comics Journalism by Dan Archer | ISBN: 978-1487555016 | Buy it from AmazonUK (Affiliate Link)
• Find out more about Dan Archer’s work at archcomix.com or empatheticmedia.com | Linktree | Instagram
• What is Comics Journalism? by Dan Archer
• The San Francisco Public Press has an interview with a survivor of human trafficking and an introduction to trafficking in Truthout here
• Read a 2021 interview with Dan Archer from The Art of News here
• Read Dan Archer’s 2012 interview with Henry Barajas at Comics Beat about this project here
• Drawing the Times – Perilous Pathways
Words by Raquel Carvalho Comics by Dan Archer
Filipino women, both in their home country and in popular migratory destinations such as Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi, are being lured to Poland through word of mouth and social media accounts promoting jobs. The prospect of living and working in Europe seems like a dream come true. But many have found precarious jobs and exploitation
• Drawing the Times
A platform for graphic journalism
The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.
He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: Comic Previews, Comics, Creating Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Other Worlds
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