Dr John Miers
Faculties, departments and locations
- Kingston School of Art
- Department of Illustration Animation
- School of Design
- Design, Arts and Creative Practice
Senior Lecturer in Illustration and Critical and Historical Studies
- Email:
- [email protected]
About
I am a cartoonist, illustrator, teacher and researcher. My primary interest is in narrative illustration, particularly sequential forms such as comics.
In the past five years my practice has been focused on Graphic Medicine, often defined as “the intersection of the medium of comics and the discourse of healthcare”. My first comic in this field, which dealt with the experience of being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, was produced during a post-doctoral residency at London College of Communication. It was voted “best one shot” in the 2020 Broken Frontier awards and is held in the Wellcome Collection library. Subsequent comics have appeared in publications shortlisted for Council of Editors of Learned Journals and Eisner awards.
This context informs much of my project supervision and teaching, from undergraduate to doctoral projects.
In addition to my work as senior lecturer in illustration at KSA, I am a research associate at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, working on a four-year European Research Council project exploring the adoption of Graphic Medicine by formal healthcare institutions in the UK, US, Canada, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
I also have a long-standing research interest in visual metaphor, initially explored in my PhD and subsequently developed into a monograph. This line of research was sparked by my interest in producing wordless comics, particularly my project Babel, which was highlighted in Tate / Yale UP’s introduction to Comics Art.
With Maggie Gray, Nick White, Gareth Brookes and Isabel Greenberg I co-run the Kingston School of Art Comic Club.
Qualifications
- 2011-2018: PhD Graphic Communication, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London
- 2003-4: Postgraduate Diploma Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London
- 1997-2001: BA Fine Art, Slade School of Fine Art, University College London
Domains
Qualifications
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, November 2020
- Best Postgraduate Teacher, Union of Kingston Students Academic Impact Awards 2020
- 2003-4: Certificate in post-compulsory education, University of Westminster
Courses taught
My approach to the creation and analysis of graphic communication is guided by my interest is how drawing style creates narrative meanings by guiding audiences' expectations regarding genre, mood and character. I explored this from a theoretical perspective in my PhD (Visual Metaphor and Drawn Narratives, Central Saint Martins, 2017), and my monograph Visual Metaphor and Drawn Narratives.
More recently I have applied this approach in the field of Graphic Medicine, as described above in my bio. Discussions of how these two strands of research intertwine can be found in my contribution to Seeing Comics Through Art History: Alternative Approaches to the Form, and in the final chapter of my monograph.
I am a passionate advocate of creative practice as a research method and form of dissemination; many of my recent peer-reviewed articles have been in comics form, and all of my recent written outputs include original drawings created as demonstrations of their theoretical arguments.
I have the immense privilege of acting as lead supervisor for PhD students Jiahao Ji, Fei Tang, Jane Webster, Xingzhen Han and Wallis Eates. I am not currently able to accept any new PhD supervisions.
Publications
Triangulation (Being the record of a discussion of comics theory conducted on 2nd May 2018, transcribed into words and then comics in the period since.)
Miers, John, Chessum, Thierry and Davies, Paul Fisher, 2022, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics (13), 1pp 110-127, Published
Conflict or Compromise? An imagined conversation with John Hicklenton and Lindsay Cooper about living with multiple sclerosis
Miers, John, 2021, Biography (44), 2&3pp 25-38, Published
Making the invisible visible: hyperlinked webcomics as alternative points of entry to the digitised Gertrude Bell Archive
Wysocki, Lydia, Jackson, Mark, Miers, John, Webster, Jane and Coxon, Brittany, 2019, International Journal of Heritage Studies, E-pub ahead of print
Depiction and demarcation in comics: towards an account of the medium as a drawing practice
Miers, John, 2015, Studies in Comics (6), 1pp 145-156, Published
Visual metaphor and drawn narratives: embodied cognition and expression in comics
Miers, John (2026). Cham, Switzerland: [Published]
Conflict or Compromise? An imagined conversation with John Hicklenton and Lindsay Cooper about living with multiple sclerosis
Miers, John (2022). In: La Cour, Erin, Poletti, Anna, (eds.), Honolulu, U.S.: University of Hawaii Press [Published]
Do humans dream of digital devices? Subconscious user experiences and narratives
Sturdee, Miriam, Lewis, Makayla and Miers, John (2022). pp 171-183 [Published]
Media
Miers, John (2022). In: La Cour, Erin, Grennan, Simon, Spanjers, Rik, (eds.), Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillanpp 190-191 [Published]
Mediation
Miers, John (2022). In: La Cour, Erin, Grennan, Simon, Spanjers, Rik, (eds.), Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillanpp 192-192 [Published]
Metaphor
Miers, John (2022). In: La Cour, Erin, Grennan, Simon, Spanjers, Rik, (eds.), Cham. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillanpp 196-197 [Published]
Psychologies of perception: stories of depiction
Miers, John (2022). In: Gray, Maggie, Horton, Ian, (eds.), Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillanpp 75-95 [Published]
Representation
Miers, John (2022). In: Grennan, Simon, Spanjers, Rik, La Cour, Erin, (eds.), Cham. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillanpp 274-275 [Published]
Stylistic analysis, or "sweating the small stuff"
Harrington, Bill, Rumeu, Jaume, Round, Julia, D'Arcy, Geraint, Miers, John, Horton, Ian and Pursall, Dona (2021). In: ., ., (eds.), Oxford, U.K.: Rebellionpp 120-122 [Published]
Picturing national and personal acts of violence: modes of depiction in Barefoot Gen
Miers, John (2019). In: Mickwitz, Nina, Horton, Ian, Hague, Ian, (eds.), Abingdon, U.K. and New York, U.S.:pp 19-34 [Published]
Bacon and the cartoonist: the emergence of the figure through two opposing diagrams
Miers, John (2017). In: de Assis, Paulo, Giudici, Paolo, (eds.), Leuven, Belgium:pp 375-385 [Published]
Dispossession: time, motion and depictive regimes
Miers, John and Grennan, Simon (2015). In: Grennan, Simon, Grove, Lawrence, (eds.), Leuven, Belgium:pp 33-54 [Published]
Graphic medicine in the British healthcare industry
Miers, John(2025). [Published]
Collaborating with 'Experts by Experience‘: stroke survivors as co- teachers for postgraduate students in art and design
Kulnik, Stefan Tino, Mohapatra, Sushmita, Addo, Mercy, Hamer, Victoria, Harrap, Duncan, Jakob, Anke and Miers, John(2024). [Published]
Traveling arts x HCI sketchbook: exploring the intersection between artistic expression and human-computer interaction
Lewis, Makayla, Sturdee, Miriam, Lengyel, Denise, Toselli, Mauro, Miers, John, Owen, Violet, Davis, Josh Urban, Gaudl, Swen E., Xiao, Lanxi, Priego, Ernesto, Snooks, Kim, Vidal, Laia Turmo, Blevis, Eli, Privato, Nicola, Piedade, Patricia, Ford, Corey, Bryan-Kinns, Nick, Severes, Beatriz, Kaipainen, Kirsikka, Claisse, Caroline, Huq, Raksanda Mehnaz, Eladhari, Mirjam Palosaari, Troisi, Anna, Henriques, Ana O., Grek, Ar, McMurchy, Gareth, Lc, Ray, Nabil, Sara, Jardine, Jacinta, Collins, Robert, Vlasov, Andrey V., Knight, Yana, Cremaschi, Michele, Carderelli-Gronau, Silvia, Núñez-Pacheco, Claudia, Reyes-Cruz, Gisela and Rivière, Jean Philippe(2024). [E-pub ahead of print]
Do humans dream of digital devices? Subconscious user experiences and narratives
Sturdee, Miriam, Lewis, Makayla and Miers, John(2022). [Published]
Exploring AltNarrative in HCI imagery and comics
Lewis, Makayla, Sturdee, Miriam, Miers, John, Davis, Josh Urban and Hoang, Thuong(2022). [Published]
The state of the (CHI)Art
Sturdee, Miriam, Lewis, Makayla, Gamboa, Mafalda, Hoang, Thuong, Miers, John, Šmorgun, Ilja, Jain, Pranjal, Strohmayer, Angelika, Fdili Alaoui, Sarah and Wodtke, Christina R.(2022). [Published]
Issues of inclusion when archiving and displaying mini-comics from the Les Coleman Collection
Miers, John and Horton, Ian(2021). [Published]
If epilepsy is a dragon, multiple sclerosis is a
Miers, John(2018). [Published]