History can be pretty boring when it’s a series of dry facts, but fitting it to a narrative arc, while engaging, can also lead to problems. This week I speak to Kelly Gaumont from the Canuck is a Slur podcast about creative non-fiction, facts, storytelling and the opportunities of new media.

Kelly’s linktree:

https://linktr.ee/CanuckIsASlur

And Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/c/canuckisaslur/about

If you have thoughts, drop me an email at [email protected] or on Bluesky at ourstories.blusky.social.

Blatantly stealing some of Kelly’s pre-show notes because they are great

Kate Beaton, creator of the history-heavy comic strip Hark! A Vagrant; was a major gateway for me to develop a newfound interest in Canadian history specifically (although the strip was not at all limited to that), because it was now trying to tell me the same information through a much more engaging medium

• Here is an example
• Here is another
• Here is one that isn’t Canadian at all

Ryan North, creator of the heavily-constrained comic strip Dinosaur Comics taught me that format constraints (such as having the six-panel visual arrangement of your comic never change for decades on end) can actually allow your creativity to flourish as it pushes against those limitations, as well as allow your audience to have a familiar structure through which they can understand your message

• Here is one about stories and literature
• Here is one that refers to the Canadian phenomenon of bagged milk
• Ryan North studied computational linguistics, so he wrote a lot of comics about various aspects of language that you can learn a lot from

Some of the other things we mentioned:

Story Garden: https://youtu.be/YUfzr5tJlpo?si=5rEOPHZsyhH5aLjs

Beneath the skin: https://linktr.ee/beneaththeskinpod

Lions led by Donkeys: www.youtube.com/@lionsledbydonkeyspodcast7424

Revolutions Podcast by Mike Duncan: revolutionspodcast.com