About
Understanding Through Comics: A Comics and Comics Studies Journal Club is a Strategic Equity & Anti-Racism (StEAR) Enhancement Fund-funded project that explores issues of equity and social justice through graphic narratives. We especially welcome folks new to comics with our meetings beginning with a brief comics literacy lesson, introducing how exactly one reads sequential art.
Event Information
From October 2025 to March 2026, Understanding Through Comics will host:
- Two Welcome Luncheons at the start of each term
- Seven Discussion Sessions (with free comics!)
- One Guest Speaker and/or Library Tour
- Two End-of-Term Socials, including a comics-making workshop
We invite everyone to register, but online attendees must register as Zoom meeting information will be sent directly to your UBC email. To register, please visit the Pop Culture Cluster event page.
Understanding Through Comics attendees and members are welcome to visit our internal site (password protected) to gain access to reading materials, presentation slides, and so forth.
Exhibition Information
We are hosting a (small) exhibition at the University of British Columbia iSchool. We invite you all to visit Accessible Comics & Blindness Arts: An Understanding Through Comics Exhibition from 15 December 2025 to 31 January 2026 in the iSchool suite on the fourth floor of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre.
Photograph of the Accessible Comics & Blindness Arts exhibition taken on 15 December 2025.
To ensure our exhibition is accessible to visitors who use screen readers or text to speech technology, you may find the item and large labels below. We have also shared the digital files for the exhibition, allowing folks who can’t visit in-person to listen to awesome audio comics.
We also wish to express our gratitude to iSchool PhD candidate Mx. V. Rahbar who curated the exhibition and UBC Library Rare Books and Special Collections librarian Chelsea Shriver who installed the exhibition.
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Digital Resources
These resources are shared for educational purposes only, to ensure UBC iSchool and UBC students at large have an idea of what accessible comics are from library services like CELA in Canada and SAPIE in Japan. We kindly ask you to not share these files with others nor download them. Canadian residents who have a visual, physical or learning disability that prevents them from reading conventional print are eligible for CELA, and we highly encourage you to register with your local public library.
Love’s in Sight / ヤンキー君と白状ガール (The Delinquent and the White Cane Girl) by Uoyama
Love’s in Sight! / The Delinquent and the White Cane Girl Voice Comic with Audio Description: YouTube Video (in Japanese)
Love’s in Sight! / The Delinquent and the White Cane Girl Audio Comic (DAISY audio):
Sample 01 Cover Art (in Japanese)
Sample 02 Table of Contents (in Japanese)
Sample 03 Chapter 01 (in Japanese)
Ms. Marvel: No Normal / Ms.マーベル:もうフツーじゃないの (Ms. Marvel: Normal No More) by G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona, Sara Pichelli, & Various
Ms. Marvel: No Normal / Ms. Marvel: Normal No More Audio Comic (GraphicAudio): YouTube Video
Dancing After TEN by Vivian Chong & Georgia Webber
Dancing After TEN Audio Comic (DAISY audio):
Sample 01 Cover Art
Sample 02 Part One
Sample 03 Part Two
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands Large Print (ePub): Sample 01 Opening and The Story
Note: WordPress does not allow the sharing of ePubs, so the sample has been converted into a PDF.
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands Audio Comic (DAISY audio):
Sample 01 Cover Art
Sample 02 Inside Cover Art
Sample 03 The Story
Sample 04 Cape Breton
Large Labels
The exhibition includes four large labels with the first serving as an introduction, the second speaking to audio comics, the third highlighting Braille comics, and the fourth discussing both voice comics and large print comics. For visitors who wish to listen to the large labels, please open the large labels PDF file and use Adobe Acrobat’s read out loud feature
Item Labels
The exhibition includes many item labels describing each comic showcased. For visitors who wish to listen to the item labels, please open the item labels MS Word file and use either the read aloud or immersive reader option.
What if… ?
Questions or comments about Understanding Through Comics? You may contact program lead Rahbar or programming assistant Sally via email at comics.studies@ubc.ca!
We wish to express our gratitude towards the StEAR Enhancement Fund, UBC iSchool, UBC Department of Asian Studies, and the Pop Culture Cluster as well as the Comics Studies Cluster for supporting Understanding Through Comics: A Comics and Comics Studies Journal Club.