Opening pages to everyone: making comics accessible
Now in Indian Sign Language! Comic artist Hatiye Garip on her work; and resources & communities for disabled comic book creators/illustrators.
Hiya everyone!
Before I get into this week’s interview, a gentle reminder that the deadline to apply for the StoryLab mentorship is 24th August.
For those who missed the previous newsletter, StoryLab is an 8-week mentorship programme that Reframing Disability is launching in collaboration with News Verifier Africa. In a small but meaningful way, StoryLab aims to support early-career disabled journalists and ensure they get a chance to contribute to the underrepresented field of journalism.
This mentorship is open for early-career disabled journalists worldwide and will be co-led by me, Priti Salian, and Zainab Sanni, a Nigerian journalist and co-founder & editor-in-chief of News Verifier Africa. Zainab and I together have years of experience in journalism, disability inclusion and accessibility, training and mentorship, and would like to share our knowledge and experience with the candidates.
Together, we will mentor four disabled journalists, helping them develop their story ideas, shape pitches, and build confidence in an environment where access needs are recognised and respected.
Why are we doing this?
StoryLab is our response to a gap we see across newsrooms globally.
Too few disabled journalists make it into newsrooms, and that lack of representation leads to inaccurate, incomplete stories about disability and society. This mentorship is rooted in the findings of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism’s report by Priti Salian, which highlighted a stark lack of representation of disabled journalists in newsrooms.
We believe that equipping journalists with disabilities with the skills and confidence to tell their own stories and report on the world is essential to creating more accurate, inclusive, and diverse journalism.
StoryLab is designed specifically for disabled journalists who may not have formal training or access to traditional networks, and who have faced barriers to freelancing and publishing. By offering practical, accessible, and tailored guidance, we aim to help shift who tells stories, making journalism more reflective of the disability community.
We came together to do this because we care deeply about creating more inclusive opportunities in journalism.
There are many ways you can contribute to StoryLab
This project is not funded. We did not apply for funding. But if you believe in this initiative we would appreciate if you could support us.
By funding accessibility-related costs like sign language interpretation
Stipends for participants
Stipends for the two co-leads
Premium video conferencing tools
Data and internet costs
If you're a sign language interpreter from any country, please write to us. While our immediate needs will depend on who is selected and what their access requirements are, we’d love to include you in our database for future mentorship programmes.
If you're a journalist and would like to mentor a candidate in the future, we’d love to welcome you and add you to our database.
Write to me at pritisalian@gmail.com to discuss if you’re interested in contributing in any way.
StoryLab In A Nutshell
Program Dates: Sept 2 – Oct 29, 2025
Open to disabled journalists worldwide
No formal journalism degree required
For early-career disabled journalists with 1–3 years experience, or published work (even blogs, personal essays, or zines count)
Deadline: Sunday, August 24, 2025
Participants announced: Thursday, August 28, 2025
What You’ll Get
6 group sessions
2 one-on-one coaching sessions
Feedback on your story idea, pitch, and draft
A space where your access needs come first
Now, to today’s piece. With an additional Indian Sign Language Translation by Harshita Sharma, Indian Sign Language fellow at ISL interpreters Fellowship at the Hear A Million project by EnAble India.
[Video Descritipn: Hashita Sharma – an Indian Sign Langauge fellow at the ISL Interpreters Fellowship at Hear A Million, a project by Enable India in Bengaluru – is a young Indian woman dressed in a wine top with her black hair tied in a plait. She signs Hatiye’s interview in this 13-minute video with no sound.]
In how many formats have you expereinced comic books? Multiple languages? Both digital and print? Audiobook? Maybe Virtual Reality? But how many times have you found comic books in braille, tactile or large-print editions, dyslexia-friendly fonts and layouts, digital versions with alt-text, and easy language? These are just some of the ways comic books can be made accessible, as disabled illustrator, comic artist, and designer Hatiye Garip is doing.
In an email interview with Reframing Disability, Hatiye shares her work, recommendations and plenty of support groups and organisations for disabled comic book creators/illustrators.
Hatiye is the founder and creative producer of the Accessible Lines project. Originally from Istanbul, she is currently a DAAD doctoral fellow researching accessible comics in Cologne, Germany. She likes to draw birds, flowers, and ordinary moments. She is interested in accessible illustration, comics, graphic medicine and experiments with onomatopoeia (the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (such as buzz, hiss))and field recordings.
[ID: A photobooth-style strip of two black and white portraits of Hatiye Garip, who has dark, short bobbed hair and wears a checkered shirt. The top photo shows Hatiye winking. The bottom photo shows her with a scrunched-up face. The background consists of vertical panels with purple and pink abstract designs, featuring polka dots and geometric shapes.]
When disabled artists create, self-expression, crip humour, and lived experiences take centre stage.
Me: How did you get interested in accessible comics?
Hatiye: While I had an existing interest in comics, my focus on accessibility and its intersection with comics began during my year as a volunteer at the European Network on Independent Living (ENIL) in Brussels, Belgium, in 2016. Being in the heart of comics culture provided inspiration and direction for the following years.
My deeper engagement with accessible comics emerged during the production of my first graphic novel, The Land of Uncertainty, published by Good Comics in the UK in the summer of 2023. When I asked the publisher about making the comic accessible, Paddy Johnston of Good Comics—who has a background in podcast production and music—collaborated with me to create an audio-described version alongside the standard print edition, ensuring access for blind and low-vision readers.
Shortly before publication, we applied to the Accessible Comics Design Competition organised by San Francisco State University’s Accessible Comics Collective and were selected. This allowed us to expand the project beyond audio descriptions to include transcripts and a limited-edition print version with tactile graphics.
Today, I continue exploring this field as part of my doctoral research on accessible comics.
Me: What are the various features that you have used in your comics across print and digital, to make them accessible to people with diverse disabilities?
Hatiye: The accessibility features in my comics vary depending on the project and collaborators. These include alt-text, image descriptions, transcripts, multiple digital versions, and digital comics accessible from my website and social media without needing physical copies. I also ensure that my comics and artworks are in high resolution so they can be zoomed in with magnifier tools. In The Big Picture: Behind the Social Model, I used all these features plus dyslexia-friendly fonts, such as Lexend. I wish to make my comics available in various languages, as removing language barriers is essential. While I aim to make more multilingual projects, I explored this [when working on my project] Accessible Lines, collaborating with illustrators and comic artists to create audio descriptions both in Turkish and English, narrated by the creators themselves. The project is ongoing, with plans to release the website by 2026.
Me: Which accessibility features are you looking forward to trying in your future work?
Hatiye: There are many accessibility features I'm keen to try out. I am constantly imagining new possibilities, but my main focus is on developing creative solutions where accessibility becomes an integral part of my art, rather than an afterthought. I recently attended a masterclass on accessibility in the performing arts led by Nickie Miles-Wildin. While I can't immediately implement the idea of combining comics/illustration with radio drama or stage performance, it's a concept I'm very excited about.
Me: A lot of people say that accessibility, such as alt-text, takes time, but some artists say that it enhances the aesthetics of their work. What are your views on this?
Hatiye: I can understand both perspectives. For me, the challenge isn't just the time commitment, but often the lack of energy to write descriptions. This might stem from how I use one hand to draw but need both hands for typing, or perhaps because I’m someone who thinks visually and prefers drawing over writing. However, I believe it’s crucial for artists to at least understand how to write alt-text. This way, when others describe their work, artists can retain control and suggest corrections if needed. Collaborating with NGOs has shown me how descriptions can unintentionally reinterpret art in ways I never imagined. That’s why the direct involvement of artists in accessibility processes is so valuable and important.
Me: What are some of the tropes you have found about disability in comics?
Hatiye: During my master’s studies, I analysed disability representation in children’s picture books. The most prominent trope I encountered was the tendency to portray all disabled characters as children, and rarely depict them as active adults. In comics, I've found that such stereotypes often arise when the creators (writers or artists) are not disabled themselves. The most frequent trope I’ve observed is the failure to portray disability as ordinary. Conversely, in works by disabled artists, self-expression, crip humour, and sharing lived personal experiences take centre stage. These creators avoid exoticising disability, instead presenting it as a natural aspect of life.
Me: I came across your comic on the social model of disability. Have you covered any other disability-related themes in your comics/illustrations?
Hatiye: Depicting disability has become an honour for me, as it allows me to accept and celebrate myself fully. The Big Picture: Behind the Social Model is my second work featuring an entirely disabled cast. Previously, I illustrated a child-friendly version of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for an NGO in Türkiye, which included numerous disabled adult and child characters. I’ve also designed Turkish Sign Language coffee cards for Starbucks Türkiye and created works focusing on adaptive clothing and disability representation. Recently, my disability-themed illustrations appeared in Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT)’s reports addressing technology, artificial intelligence, and disability. Many more examples await discovery in my portfolio.
Me: How well-known is the accessible comics industry? What can be done to educate artists to make their work accessible?
Hatiye: I can say that this industry is still growing and developing. It is expanding thanks to the Accessible Comics Collective at San Francisco State University, the Social Audio Description Collective, along with blind and low-vision artists, individuals, and organizations prioritizing accessibility and inclusion. However, like all accessibility-related fields, its growth hasn’t kept pace with the rise of far-right ideologies. Accessibility remains still a globally underdeveloped issue.
Design education lacks courses on accessibility outside architecture departments. When I taught illustration part-time at Kadir Has University in Istanbul just before starting my PhD, I encouraged my students to include alt-text in their assignment submissions and to incorporate diverse representations in character designs. The enthusiasm and results I observed were inspiring.
To accelerate progress, accessibility must be integrated into illustration, art, and design curricula. As the motto “Nothing about us without us” emphasizes, this requires disabled educators and leaders to guide these efforts.
Hatiye’s resources for disabled artists
Disability Rights Organisations
European Disability Forum (EDF): an independent NGO and umbrella organisation of persons with disabilities that defends the interests of over 100 million persons with disabilities in Europe.
ENIL (European Network on Independent Living), a user-led network of disabled people, with members throughout Europe.
Inclusion Europe works for people with intellectual disabilities.
Centre for Creative Ageing and Inclusive Arts (kubia) in Cologne has a huge focus on accessibility.
Accessible Art & Disability-Focused Organisations & Collectives
Europe Beyond Access supports disabled artists and is run by a consortium of high-profile European cultural organisations
Tangled Art + Disability is a not-for-profit art + disability organisation in Canada dedicated to connecting professional and emerging artists, the arts community, and a diverse public through creative passion and artistic excellence.
Wellcome Collection, a free museum and library exploring health and human experience
Un-Label, an organisation in Cologne focused on promoting artistic innovation and diversity through inclusive cultural work.
Find artists and creatives in the disability community through the Disabled Cartoonists Database and Creative Connector.
A.B.L.E. (Artists Breaking Limits & Expectations) offers accessible performing arts programs for disabled individuals in Chicago.
Cripple, a publishing initiative that supports disabled artists and designers.
We Are Unlimited, United Kingdom, works with disabled artists to support and further their work and career. They commission, fund and promote disabled-led work.
Recommendations
Comics Beyond Sight: A Highly Visual Case for Blind Access
By Nick Sousanis and Emily Beitiks. Find the interactive version in MIT Technology Review and listen to the audio version.
Empathy Exercise
A live audio-described version of a short comic by blind cartoonist and zine-maker M. Sabine Rear.
Buffalo Sonnet: Audio-Described Digital Comic
Written and illustrated by Kamau Ware, created in collaboration with the Social Audio Description Collective and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
The big picture behind the social model
[ID: A comic strip with three frames. The title reads "The Big Picture Behind the Social Model"—with "The Big Picture" underlined in blue and a purple squiggle beside the text. Next to it, the text says "Created by Hatiye Garip," with yellow lines radiating out from the name and a curly red line below. The first frame shows a person sitting and saying, “I’ve been a disabled person for as long as I can remember.” The second frame is a close-up of the person saying, “But I am still learning about my disability.” The third frame shows another person saying, “Same, Agnes! There are so many things I don’t know.”]
One more thing!
I can’t wait to read Delhi-based development professional Tarini Mohan’s memoir Lifequake: A Story of Hope and Humanity. What about you? Tarini is a friend of Reframing Disability, and her book has been getting rave reviews. Give it a try and let me know your thoughts!
Thanks for reading today’s issue. As always, share your thoughts by hitting reply or engaging with me on LinkedIn and Instagram. Reframing Disability has an Instagram account too - follow and engage!
Warmly,
Priti