Motion Comics as Digital Public History: A New Means to Attain Multi-Perspectivity in Contested and Entangled Histories Free

Two different experiences prompted me to write this article: first, my research interest in Black cultures of remembrance in the Atlantic World, and second, my practical experiences with the production of motion comics as a way to incorporate oral history into public history education.¹ Both interests intersected when we switched to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Searching for short educational videos to liven up online teaching sessions, I found several, and discovered a trend that predated, but was further spurred by, the pandemic and remote instruction. The short videos, on average ten minutes in length, ranged in format and style from lectures that private individuals gave based on their personal experiences to professionally produced series that systematically introduced a variety of related subjects.²

Among the videos were short films and series that either entirely or in part were presented as motion comics, that is, moving picture stories with a narrating voice and sound effects.³ These open-access videos were professionally produced, easily accessible, low-threshold forms of educational material on a range of subjects. They appeared to examine especially (but not exclusively) contested aspects of US history, including histories of minority racial and ethnic groups that for a long time had not been part of the curriculum. An example is the series Crash Course Black American History.⁴ The animated videos caught my students’ attention, produced lively discussions, and helped garner interest for the more “traditional” types of sources such as academic texts that I also utilized.

This discovery was especially of interest to me because, since 2019, together with colleagues and students, I had been working on my own motion comic projects for public history education. On November 9, 2020, the thirty-first anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, our first motion comic, “Ghost Train: Memories of Ghost Trains and Ghost Stations in Former East and West Berlin,” premiered online in English and German.⁵ During the Cold War, “ghost trains” represented a peculiar type of European space. The term refers to subway trains that traveled between parts of West Berlin by passing underneath a stretch of East Berlin. On the East German side, the stations were sealed off so that no one could get in or out, which turned them into “ghost stations.” From an Eastern perspective, the trains passing through these stations were not meant to exist, whereas from a Western perspective, they passed through an uncanny “ghost land” that appeared to be devoid of actual people.⁶

The motion comic “Ghost Train” is based on the childhood recollections of Sarah Fichtner of West Berlin and my own during a visit to East Berlin in the 1980s. More specifically, we interlaced Sarah’s memory of accidentally riding on a West Berlin “ghost train” through “ghost stations” in East Berlin with my own recollections of listening to “ghost trains” run underneath an apartment of the capital of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Our motion comic was conceived during a workshop of the international Finnish project “Re-Connect/Re-Collect: Crossing the Divides through Memories of Cold War Childhoods” and subsequently produced with funding from that initiative (see images 1 and 2).⁷

The reactions to our motion comic were numerous and varied.⁸ We discerned two different levels of engaging with the past via the motion comic. First, the production of the motion comic affected us as authors. As we combined our personal stories, a new narrative emerged that took on a life of its own while nonetheless still being recognizable as our personal memories. This effect was enhanced when we joined up with Iranian artists Azam Aghalouie and Hassan Tavakoli, who had recently arrived in Berlin and now developed their own perspectives on our story. That is, they started out with photographs that we provided but proceeded to create protagonists and landscapes that had their own identities. We could recognize ourselves in them while simultaneously being able to distance ourselves from the girls in the story.

Second, people in the audience appeared to react strongly to our motion comic. They too appeared to be in dialogue with it. Since the mood of our story is comforting, the response was largely positive feelings. Audiences from across the globe contacted us via social media to relate how “Ghost Train” triggered their own memories of the division of Berlin and specifically of ghost trains and ghost stations. They reflected Sarah’s and my own memories but also added nuances.⁹

Motivated by the success of “Ghost Train,” between 2021 and 2023 we produced four more motion comics with groups of three to six students. The project, titled, “MoCom: Motion Comics as Memory Work,” is available online in both English and German. We also offer additional educational materials in German that have a few English-language essays interspersed.¹⁰ The motion comics were funded through the federal German program “Young People Remember” (Jugend erinnert) via the Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Eastern Germany in Berlin and the Saxony-Anhalt Memorial Foundation. Lisa Hölscher served as project manager at the Marienborn Memorial to Divided Germany in the federal German state of Saxony-Anhalt. Marienborn is a former border crossing point between the two Germanies. At the memorial site, Felix Ludwig (then its acting director) and Insa Ahrens, among others, supported the project not only by actively assisting in the production of additional educational materials, but also by providing feedback and resources throughout the production process, as well as by screening the motion comics during their public history events.¹¹ The production process and several screenings of the four motion comics confirmed our initial impression that this type of memory-based motion comic provides an effective means of engaging with the past—for those who share their memories, for those who transform them into a moving picture story, and for those who watch the final product.

Because of their emotional effect, we have come to think of our motion comics as (e-)motion comics. We define these as motion comics that are primarily based on personal recollections and memory work rather than on a variety of textual sources, pictures, or material culture. In our motion comics, we always juxtapose two different memories that we gathered in oral history interviews. We limit ourselves to two because we found that more voices complicate the plot. The interviews typically were conducted with two different persons (or groups of persons) who did not know each other beforehand. The themes or objects of both memories are, however, related. For instance, in “Ghost Train” one girl rides on the train and the other one listens to it. In dialogue with the artists, Sarah and I connected unconnected recollections of an object, which we turned into a shared memory in which the two individual memories communicate with one another across space and time. To us, this felt like adding missing puzzle pieces to a canvas of remembrances. This had a surprising effect; the motion comic allowed us to come to terms with a difficult and personally taxing (if not vexing) period in the past.¹²

Motion comics are rather flexible in depicting past events. We are only just beginning to discover their range of possibilities in public history education. For instance, in contrast to our product, other motion comics are often more linear in their narrative structure. Nonetheless, they can be equally emotional by way of their content, added movements, and sounds. For instance, the aforementioned Crash Course Black American History videos have a completely different structure and style than our motion comics but still inspire people to discuss history.¹³ The Crash Course videos are not primarily based on specific individual memories and are thus presented in a less personal documentary style.

Producing, watching, and discussing motion comics with different (inter-)national audiences made us realize that they can be powerful tools to get people interested in historical topics. They work well for public history purposes because they can help educators draw diverse audiences into a specific subject matter. Enough historical motion comics are now available to allow a useful analysis of them.¹⁴ This would include an examination of the production process as a joint historical and artistic group effort, an analysis of how motion comics may serve in shaping our understanding of the past, and an exploration of the didactics that are involved in understanding (and making use of) the ways in which audiences interact with motion comics. After all, as I suggested above, audiences appear to engage in a dialogue with the motion comic they watch. How can we use this involvement for public history education? We need to get to know the format in its historical, visual, and aesthetic breadth, which means we also need to keep producing new motion comics.

Scholars have examined in which ways feature films and documentaries effectively convey historical subject matter. Both formats have been available since the early twentieth century.¹⁵ At this point, however, we have little analytical literature about motion comics and their usefulness for public history education. The main source of information is an article by Mohd Ekram Al Hafis Bin Hashim and Muhammad Zaffwan Idris, who, in 2016, first tackled the question of a theoretical framework for motion comics in history education.¹⁶ Apart from that, literature is lacking specifically concerning historical subjects in motion comics. In 2015, Drew Morton attempted to define the history of motion comics.¹⁷ An online search revealed articles about motion comics for subjects such as HIV prevention and math education. Some of these articles also discuss the production process.¹⁸

With this article, I mean to start filling the gap. My objective is twofold: first, I provide definitions and a contextualization as well as further examples of motion comics and a discussion of the available literature. Thus, I contribute to writing the history of the motion comic. My specific contribution is its use for public history education. Second, I provide the basis for an analytical framework by highlighting different aspects that go into understanding the role of motion comics in public education online as well as in schools, museums, and memorial sites. I do so by examining our experiences with the production of “Ghost Train” and the four MoCom motion comics. That is, I illustrate how we transformed memories into (e-)motion comics.

At this point, I cannot unfold a detailed description of motion comic didactics. Our didactic focus thus far has been on getting young adults involved in creating (e-)motion comics. The next step will subsequently be to explore how our—and other—motion comics may be used more broadly in the field of public history. From our experiences with the production process, I can, however, offer useful insights into the question of how to use motion comics as educational tools.

For the systematic future production of motion comics for public history purposes, it is helpful first to take a close look at those that are already available. In the following, I do so by describing motion comics not only regarding style and purpose but also by examining their role in (digital) public history. I aim to contextualize motion comics in comparison with related visual formats such as graphic novels, films, and computer games. In the future more scholars will write analytical texts that expand the definitions of motion comics. The following is merely a starting point.

The idea that everybody and everything has a history worth telling is recent in academia. David Thelen and Roy Rosenzweig’s 1988 book, The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in America, helped popularize this belief. After surveying 1500 people, they found that “people carried family history along in diaries, family trees, photo albums, and especially in personal memories, which they shared at family reunions, over the dinner table, and around the Christmas tree.”¹⁹ Such private histories can be at odds with the history lessons taught in schools, museums, and universities. Embarking from the legal notion of a “distinction between public and private realms” that resulted in a search for “private spheres free from the encroaching power of the state,” historians in the 1990s therefore developed a notion of “historical understanding based on common experiences.”²⁰ According to Paul Ashton and Hilda Kean, public historians questioned the concept of a clear line between “historians” and “their public” and replaced it with the thought that “people are active agents in creating histories.”²¹ Public history became a matter of ownership, for “public historians do not own history” but instead “are merely collaborators, particularly in community-based histories.”²² As Thelen pointed out, the “past should be treated as a shared human experience and opportunity for understanding” for everybody.²³

Openness towards a type of “grassroots historiography” inspired openness towards new types of sources and educational formats. The written word lost its hold as the exclusive and most reliable documentation of the past. New sources and educational formats included material culture, visual culture, and oral history.²⁴ Photographs, objects, architecture, and personal recollections—both written and spoken—came to be discussed systematically in academic discourses about the past. The “citizen historian” as well as their sources became a part of the creation of public history scholarship, which subsequently led to new ideas (alongside new technical and digital possibilities) of how to use these perspectives and sources for educational purposes.

Through digitalization projects at libraries, exhibitions, and museums, new types of sources are easily accessible to the general public, academic researchers, and public historians. Yet, for the public, instead of sorting through large digital data collections, databases can be channeled through meditating formats such as motion comics. This creates several questions for public historians. Who collects information to create historical narratives and what kind? How do these narratives reach different “consumers of history”? That is, how can they be more accessible?

Currently, the idea of “accessibility” appears to be associated primarily with the removal of physical and communicative barriers in public institutions so that persons who are physical, cognitive, and sensorial others may partake in the spreading and consumption of knowledge.²⁵ Occasionally, scholars nowadays furthermore examine accessibility for persons from “disadvantaged backgrounds,” which adds the notion of a social if not ethnic “disability” to the idea of physical, cognitive, and sensorial difference.²⁶

I argue that in the digital information age with nearly everybody being able to access knowledge instantly from most places across the globe, the notion of “accessibility” needs to be conceptualized more broadly: an American woman will have a different take on historical issues than an Eastern European man, to name just one example. In a world with an ever-increasing sensibility for the multiple layers of identity formation including ethnicity, creed, gender, sexuality, social background, and ability, new means of conveying complicated subject matter to different groups of people is of primary importance. Multi-perspectivity is key to succeeding in such an undertaking—with several perspectives available, different people will find starting points to identify with the issue at hand. Motion comics can do that.

Motion comics are vehicles that not only mediate between the past and the present, but they also allow historians, in cooperation with artists and historical laypersons, to transform and channel a mass of information—including digitalized data such as oral history and visual props—into a more easily “digestible” format that nonetheless has various levels of abstraction factored in.²⁷ For instance, in MoCom, we combined oral history with an artistic rendering of the interviewees’ recollections in words, pictures, movements, and sounds. Moreover, by interlacing different individual memories, we created new historical narratives that featured several individual perspectives on one subject matter. Thus, our motion comics may be described as multi-layered yet easily accessible products that address several senses at once.

Motion comics became possible with advances in computer technology, including what media scholar Craig Smith describes as the “advent and maturation of Computer Generated Imagery (CGI), Visual Effects (VFX), and sophisticated digital compositing,” which “enables Hollywood filmmakers to create CGI comic book characters that blend almost seamlessly with live-action characters and real or imaginary environments.”²⁸ Smith points out that “a number of commercially successful film releases such as Spider-Man (Raimi 2002), and the more recent Avengers Assemble (Whedon 2012)” have “arguably created a greater demand for comic book derived narratives across various media platforms, such as film, television, the Internet and digital tablets and smartphones.”²⁹ Hashim and Idris add that, in 2008, Warner Bros. created a milestone when they “launched twelve episodes of Watchmen in a format known as motion comic.”³⁰

Further developing the idea that history may be told via comic books and graphic novels, motion comics provide a fresh means for public history education by adding movement and acoustic clues to drawings.³¹ As a medium “between” comics and film, motion comics are cheaper and less time-consuming to produce than animated films, while also operating with drawings, movement, and sound. They tend to be about ten minutes long, which means that they may be used as “history nuggets.” These are easily accessible low-threshold examples of history education to interest diverse audiences in a specific topic, theme, person, concept, or event in the past. They are likely to reach younger people as well as people who search for knowledge on the internet, and who prefer visual input to the written word. They may be available online via open access on the internet, but may also be screened at schools, museums, and memorial sites.

The lines between comic strip, motion comic, and animated film are not clearly drawn. At this point, motion comic styles range from seemingly animated films to online comic books that may be “animated by adding panning and zooming techniques and provided with sound effects, voice and character, music and special effects.” It may be seen as a further development of the comic as “Sequential Art,” that is, “a picture” or series of “sequential or juxtaposed images that create the storyline.”³² As a comic book come to life by movement, motion comics may fulfill a broad range of different tasks. They can be interspersed in documentaries or feature films, mimic the style of movies, or apply comic-book elements such as visualized “bang” or “boom” drawings that may be underscored by actual sound and movements. As such, they build bridges and thus remediate between “old” and “new” forms of media.³³

The motion comic for use in public history can nonetheless be distinguished from other forms of short animated online films. For instance, the animation “LOUISE” was uploaded in 2021 by GOBELINS Paris (France), a YouTube channel created in 2006. This French production is set at the Garnier Opera in 1895. It tells the story of a dancer who decides to prostitute herself in order to earn money to pay back a debt to a girl who is equally pressed for money.³⁴ The format of “LOUISE” is reminiscent of a brief feature film, its art of storytelling more literary than historical. It discusses epoque-specific issues of gender in relation to social class and sexuality, subjects that were central topics in early educational motion comics in the 2010s, and yet it is arguable whether it qualifies as a public history motion comic. This example stresses the importance of defining and analyzing motion comics according to their subject matters, art of storytelling, and stylistic specifics.

Motion comics may serve to enhance two important aspects of public history education. They can easily attract viewers while simultaneously introducing complicated topics in history from multiple perspectives. The accessibility, brevity, and multi-perspectivity of motion comics hold the interest of viewers in addition to being able to convey particularly difficult or contested histories to the public. They may focus on stories of exploring pain and vulnerability. After all, in motion comics, identities may easily be veiled without losing sight of the seriousness of the (hi)story that they depict. The abstraction of personal features in the drawings furthermore allows viewers to identify with a drawn protagonist whose identity is nonetheless based on an actual person.

This complexity also extends to the didactic possibilities of motion comics. For instance, discussions following the screening of a motion comic tend to be lively. After all, we remember more easily what we see and experience than what we merely hear or read. As Nesrin Özdener and Sezin Eşfer pointed out in 2009, it can be advantageous to create:

Motion comics on historical subject matters not only convey information about the past in a memorable way, but they connect different layers of learning. That is, they provide bridges between cultures by, for instance, conveying historical events in multiple languages or in translation. Likewise, they combine history lessons with foreign-language acquisition.³⁶ In MoCom, we produced all of our motion comics both in German and in English, which allows for foreign-language instruction in internationally relevant aspects of German history. We even made sure that protagonists in our moving picture stories have slight German, Iranian, or Syrian accents in the German and English versions to hint at their respective cultural backgrounds.

Motion comics may be used to support both history and foreign-language teaching—the language is learned by studying important events, whereby the learning effect might be enhanced thanks to the storytelling in animated pictures. This phenomenon still needs to be examined more closely for motion comics. A foundation is available with studies that focus on foreign-language acquisition with the help of feature films. In 2018, researchers examined the effectiveness of movies in the development of listening and speaking skills of Indonesian students of English as a second language.³⁷ Likewise, another study from Turkey found in 2019 that:

Motion comics allow students and teachers of history to discuss the ways in which national historiographies are tied to their linguistic representations, as different dialects and accents can be experienced acoustically in the motion comic. Discussions of the connections between language acquisition and history could raise awareness for the cultural specifics of historical understanding within a given national context while also transporting (if not translating) them across cultural borders in the international realm.

Following my efforts to define motion comics and explore their possible uses as public history products, in the following I trace their evolution on the basis of an analysis of selected examples from the English- and German-speaking realms. I found that motion comics in public education have developed in three overlapping stages. The first motion comics were targeted at young people as educational films about public health matters. Following these public health motion comics, the first motion comics on historical subjects were released. They often dealt with antiquity and other topics with fewer visual sources available than for more recent subjects. As a next step, entire series of motion comics were produced about topics that, until a few decades ago, had largely remained untold. An example would be Black history, which alongside Black studies was not institutionalized in academia until the 1960s as a result of the African American civil rights movements.⁴⁰ Even today, a discussion is ongoing about the extent to which Black history overlaps with US history.⁴¹

Americans have created an extensive body of public health motion comics over the past fifteen years. An example is Hannah Spangler’s “Overcomer Animated Short” (uploaded April 26, 2016). It does not have a narrating voice, but features sound and music to enhance the story, told exclusively through moving pictures and phrases that fade in and out. “Overcomer” is an experimental personal story about depression and anxiety, told in touching illustrations. Spangler explains that it was her “first animated short film for my Experimental Animation class at KVCC” (Kalamazoo Valley Community College in Michigan).⁴² She adds that it was “a very personal project for me as it touches on my anxiety and depression a couple years ago. Thank God I’ve gotten through those dark times. I’m hoping this film will impact others in a positive way.”⁴³

With “Overcomer,” Spangler was following an ongoing trend. During the 2010s, motion comics were put to good use to inform the public—and especially young adults—about serious topics such as public health and abuse. For instance, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) opened a YouTube channel called HHS IDEA LAB in 2012 to publish, among others, short videos about STDs and AIDS prevention. The idea was to promote “the use of innovation to better deliver on the HHS mission.” Although the channel is still available, the IDEA LAB can no longer be found on the official HHS website.⁴⁴ A brief animation of less than two minutes is left on YouTube that provides viewers with an idea of the IDEA LAB’s approach. It is called “Using Motion Comics to Educate Young People About HIV and STDs.”⁴⁵ As I noted above when describing “LOUISE” and “Overcomer,” motion comics are particularly useful for topics related to public health, mental illness, and abuse. In drawings, physical features may be simplified or stylized so that no stigma can be attached to actual persons, be they actors.

Even if serious subjects are being discussed, motion comics can be made to seem “fun,” and thus be more effective in spreading their message. A provider of more entertaining educational motion comics is AMAZE Org, which joined YouTube in 2016 with the goal of taking “the awkward out of sex ed.”⁴⁶ They advertise their motion comics as “[r]eal info in fun, animated videos that give you all the answers you actually want to know about sex, your body and relationships.”⁴⁷ They have a number of subcategories including a section called “#AskAMAZE.” Subjects include “Mental Health,” “Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation,” “STDs & HIV,” “Personal Safety,” “Puberty & Body Positivity,” “Pregnancy and Reproduction,” “Healthy Relationships,” and “AMAZE International,” which offers animated videos in languages other than English.⁴⁸

But not all the motion comics providers aim to be “fun.” Those focusing on abuse do not hide the seriousness of their message. Since 2016, the nonprofit Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center Foundation has made use of motion comics or “animated videos produced in conjunction with Wonder Media and The Joshua Center on child sexual abuse at the University of Washington” in its “national campaign on child abuse awareness and prevention.”⁴⁹ On their YouTube homepage, they explain that the “program’s main goal is to educate children about what to do when confronted with abusive behavior, safe and unsafe touches, going to a parent or another trusted adult if they are confronted in an unsafe situation, and that it is not their fault.”⁵⁰ An example would be “Are You Listening?,” which was released on August 14, 2023. The homepage notes that the “film looks at Consent [sic] with young teens and the importance of ask, listen, and respect.”⁵¹ In another example, DayOneNY is a project that “partners with New York City youth to prevent and end dating abuse.”⁵² Starting in 2008, it has offered “preventative education, free and confidential supportive services, legal assistance, and community programs,” to help “young people make healthy choices from day one of dating.”⁵³ For this purpose, they also produce preventive motion comics, such as “Sunshine—Don’t Confuse Love & Abuse—Day One” (uploaded 2018).⁵⁴

Motion comics have been shown, therefore, to be effective public education tools, especially for young adults, which means that they might also be used to teach history. Initially, motion comics were used as a history education for non-historians, such as students of medicine. Through the use of motion comics, comprehensive, visually enhanced narratives could be created about topics for which for various reasons visual history sources are scarce either because they did not exist at the time or were not preserved. Today, the drawings in motion comics are recognizable as present-day interpretations of past events and persons. Nonetheless, they depict complex historical information that is based on other types of sources such as written texts. For such topics, the motion comic creates a visualization that would not be available otherwise.

The YouTube Channel TED-Ed, which went online in 2011, uses motion comics “to create lessons worth sharing.”⁵⁵ They have an additional website with “supplemental learning materials” geared towards students and teachers.⁵⁶ Some of their topics border the mythic, such as the 2018 motion comic entitled “Did the Amazons really exist?”⁵⁷ Others concern the history of medicine, revealing the potential of motion comics as history education tools for people outside of academic history. For instance, the 2019 motion comic “Ancient Rome’s Most Notorious Doctor” visualizes scenes from the life of Galen of Pergamon (129 AD-216 AD).⁵⁸ The potential of public history motion comics as instructional tools for medical students is also evident in other productions, such as in “The History of Surgery.”⁵⁹ This motion comic was uploaded in 2021 to the YouTube channel Med School Insiders, which was started in 2016. Their objective is to offer “premed and medical students with high yield, evidence-based, and effective strategies on pursuing a career in medicine. Narrated by Dr. Kevin Jubbal MD, our videos empower future doctors and physicians with the tools to live effectively both personally and professionally.”⁶⁰ By producing motion comics on historical subjects, they emphasize the importance of the development of individual medical specialties over time.⁶¹

Besides ancient and medical history, motion comics can be useful as an introduction to the oppression of marginalized groups, for example, the history of the transatlantic slave trade and slavery or the history of the inner-German border. Both subjects touch upon sensitive subject matter within national and international contexts that can arouse emotions including suffering and guilt. My hypothesis is that by communicating aspects of history via motion comics, they may come alive through the combination of visuals, movement, and sound. Audiences may identify with the protagonists and thus have a more intense learning experience than simply reading about it. The parallels with computer games are striking, such as when gamers direct a character through a virtual history canvas and thereby enter the past as an active agent.⁶² Therefore, it would be worthwhile to consider the literature on gaming to pursue this line of thinking further as yet another basis for an emerging analytical framework for motion comics.

The possibilities of the internet combined with new media technologies allows for professionally produced versions of as yet untold histories to be made available publicly in open access. The motion comic is the perfect vehicle to do so. For instance, in contrast to Crash Course US History in forty-eight episodes (2013–14) presented by writer and video blogger John Green, Crash Course Black American History targets groups of people who were overlooked in the past in more established public and history education settings.⁶³ Crash Course Black American History is a series of podcasts with bestselling author Clint Smith that comprises fifty-two episodes ranging chronologically and topically from the “Transatlantic Slave Trade” (episode 2) to “Black Lives Matter” (episode 52). The very first episode is a brief introduction to the project.⁶⁴ The series makes use of a mixed format that alternates between the narrator Smith and motion comic segments that visualize aspects of the subject matter. This would otherwise either not be possible because few pictures are available (for example about the middle passage), or they might be emotionally disturbing.

The series uses a lecture-style documentary format in which the lecturer is shown between motion comic segments. This is not to say, however, that the motion-comic segments of these lecture-style presentations cannot have an equally multi-layered sound scheme as other types of motion comics, such as the MoCom (e-)motion comics that are based on oral history. It is simply a comment on the multiple options of how motion comics and motion comic elements may be used for teaching history. With the lecture-style motion comic and the (e-)motion comic, two distinctive forms of motion comics developed over time. I suspect that additional formats might be developed in the future, such as distinctive documentary-style motion comics.

When we produced “Ghost Train” we realized that motion comics are a hybrid medium, as Craig Smith’s had argued in his 2015 work “Motion Comics: The Emergence of a Hybrid Medium.”⁶⁵ This hybridity is evident in at least three different ways. First, the motion comic is a hybrid format because it can be interspersed into other media formats. For instance, documentaries can have motion-comic elements to illustrate a specific point. Second, it is a hybrid format because it not only (re)mediates different forms of media today but is also in dialogue with older forms of media. In MoCom, our artists used photographs to visualize a certain memory. Thus, the drawing remediated the photograph as a past translation of an actual event or person.⁶⁶ Third, motion comics stand somewhere “between” academic history writing and literary texts.

Against this backdrop, let me describe in more detail the two already established motion comic formats and how they (re)mediate history. One, as educational tools about the history of individual academic disciplines, motion comics can be constructed as a lecture with visual enhancements. That is, a narrator (with subtitles) relates the story, the contents of which are illustrated with moving pictures. TED-Ed and Med School Insiders both use this format. When the narrative features a voiceover, it does not leave as much room to experiment with sound. Experimental sound can be used in addition to or instead of a narrator. The lecture-style motion comics may, however, have varied visual representations.

When using the lecture format, e.g., for portraying the history of academic disciplines, the motion comic producers need to be aware of academic discussions regarding objectivity of visual means such as drawings and photography.⁶⁷ In any depiction of the past, a person with an understanding of academic historical method should be involved to make sure that the motion comic is more than an entertaining collection of curious anecdotes. The content needs to be selected carefully to reflect the complexity of the past without overloading the clip with details.

Two, motion comics are versatile; the lecture style is just one of several possible formats. Other approaches might utilize nontraditional sources and methodologies, including oral history. Sarah Fichtner and I developed a motion comic style based on oral history interviews, the (e-)motion comic. When motion comics are based on oral history, we find that it is effective to juxtapose several memories about one event, person, or object in order to provide multiple perspectives on the given topic. The side-by-side presentation allows individual stories to communicate with one another. Thus, they portray the object, person, or idea in question in a multi-facetted way. As a result, a complex description of the subject matter emerges that may spark discussions. That is what we did in “Ghost Train.”

Between 2021 and 2023, we developed the concept further in the project “MoCom—Motion Comics as Memory Work” at the Marienborn Memorial to Divided Germany. We produced four motion comics with groups of students and young adults about memories relating to the inner German border (see images 3,⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹ to 10).⁶⁸ All of our MoCom motion comics relate two intertwined memories on a specific theme. They all deal with aspects of the European space of the inner-German border. We also intended to show that this border did not just concern Germans, but people with migration experiences in Germany. Furthermore, we aspired to show how experiences with the inner-German border may be compared to experiences with other borders, such as the one between Europe and Africa (see MoCom 1, “Border Crossings”). We produced four stylistically different motion comics to provide a glimpse of the vast possibilities that motion comics offer in public history education.

Our oral history motion comics differ in their construction, purpose, and overall effect from the lecture-style format that I described above. We found that motion comics can make oral history more accessible to the public. Of course, written text or film also can be effective. Yet, a text does not have the same power to stir its readers as does a moving picture narration with sound that addresses several senses simultaneously. Likewise, while a documentary or feature film may have emotional power, they lack the abstraction from “real” life that might make it easier for others to identify with the moving images in motion comics. Interdisciplinary research is necessary to analyze this observation further in public history contexts. A starting point might be literature on computer games, for they too are a new media form that engages viewers by creating virtual worlds to draw them into historical subject matter.⁶⁹

To contribute to cultures of remembrance, a motion comic does not have to be based on oral history, nor does it have to present two intertwined stories. A single story or memory may be told in a linear way, which is the case for motion comics that were produced by the southwestern German memorial site in Kislau based on regionally focused sources about National Socialism. Their website and motion comics are, unfortunately, only available in German.⁷⁰ The Kislau project tells one story or case in simple, yet effective pictures. The motion comics have a minimum of animation. They work with zoom and panning effects. They differ in narrative and visual style, subject-matter, and message from the motion comics that we produced in MoCom.

To my knowledge, the Kislau project was the first professional series of motion comics on history subjects in Germany. It was overall one of the earliest producers of public history motion comics. The project started in 2014 and now comprises thirteen short films of about five minutes length, which are available on the memorial site’s YouTube channel.⁷¹ They even uploaded a brief “making-of” video in 2016.⁷² Kislau and MoCom are two motion comic projects in the field of public history in Germany, with one focused on the period of National Socialism from local perspectives, and the other one on the Cold War as international history. They both deal with controversial, emotional, and contested aspects of German history, which supports my assumption that motion comics can be used to tell aspects of histories that, for various reasons, are challenging—as is also the case with Black history in the United States.

In 2020, Sarah and I wrote a successful grant application for a project we named “MoCom: Motion Comics as Memory Work for Young Adults with and without Migration Experiences.”⁷³ Our goal was to collect memories of the border between the two German states during the Cold War, but also to incorporate the fact that Germany has been an immigration destination since at least the end of World War II. Even the GDR (East Germany), despite its closed borders, welcomed migrant workers and foreign citizens at least temporarily. We wanted to connect these two aspects of German history—division and migration. In addition, our working groups comprised students with different cultural backgrounds. The multicultural setting meant that some groups worked in English rather than in German, as some participants joined from abroad or had not been to Germany long enough to know the language.

We developed a specific style. We always select two different memories on a given subject to provide two different perspectives on it, which lead to multi-perspectivity in our storytelling. We initially experimented with more than two perspectives but found that for a motion comic of only five to ten minutes length, too many points of view make it difficult to tell a story comprehensively. Multi-perspectivity can be enhanced by having more than one motion comic on a particular subject matter, that is, by creating a series. In an individual motion comic, we always subdivide both memories into individual chapters, which we then intersperse with one another, so that both storylines advance simultaneously throughout the story arc. This allows us, for example, to combine a tragic story with one with a happy ending. In this way, we can hint at different possible outcomes of seemingly similar settings. This is another basis for a comparison with computer games, in which the gamers have options that lead to different outcomes.⁷⁴

In the production process, diverse skills and expertise are needed from the fields of history, literature, and the visual and performing arts. This diversity of participants’ backgrounds also ties in with the different stages in the production process, namely oral history interviews, the composition of a coherent story with two distinctive yet intertwined storylines, and the artistic interpretation in drawings thanks to professional artists. Furthermore, historians are needed to conduct additional visual history research. That is, we collected visual sources including photos that relate to the memories and that depict the contemporary witnesses. Photos may also show objects from the specific time period (including cars or bags). For context, we searched for additional visual material such as maps. The production process boils down to five stages, some of which may happen simultaneously:

First, oral history interviews are needed. But before we sent our students to interview their family members, friends, and neighbors, we first introduced them to the basics of oral history. We also gave them guided tours at the Marienborn Memorial to Divided Germany and set up an interview with someone who experienced that border crossing point during the Cold War. The Marienborn Memorial has a pool of contemporary witnesses on whom we could call to conduct “sample” interviews with our students. This not only provided them with ideas for their own interviews but also expanded their knowledge of the inner-German border. Sometimes our students conducted interviews in English or, in one instance, in Korean. Following the interviews, one of the greatest challenges was to select two memories for the motion comic. All the groups had more material than they needed. The surplus material was later edited to go into a brochure with additional resources to accompany each of the four motion comics.

Second, during the writing process, different members of the group wrote segments of the story both to share the burden, but also to make sure that the two stories were told in different voices. This part of the production process tends to be especially time-consuming. We learned the value in having someone on board who is an experienced creative writer and knows basic literary techniques to build up tension with subsequent relief. Engaging in the basic rules of storytelling makes the motion comic more effective. Moreover, during the writing process it should be kept in mind that the story is meant to be visualized. When creating the narrative, it is important from the beginning to structure it into individual scenes and to make notes on possible ways of visualization, as well as the incorporation of movements and sounds to enhance the message. For instance, in one scene of our second MoCom motion comic, “The Density of Freedom,” we changed one character’s mood from “stern” to “smirking” simply by exchanging the mouth. Nothing needs to be explained in words, the change of mood is told exclusively by visual means as a change of facial expression. It is helpful to agree upon such nonverbal aspects of the storytelling during the writing process.

Third, with the narrative structured into individual scenes, we set out to produce visual history for the artist(s). We did so in three steps: We started out (with the permission of our contemporary witnesses) by checking private photo albums to obtain images of the protagonists and possibly of the events related in the motion comic. Next, for objects that appeared in the story but for which we did not have personal photographs, we did additional research. For example, we searched for pictures of border soldier’s uniforms and means of public transportation from the period in question. Finding images of uniforms was especially challenging. We got in touch with experts on the subject when needed. Last, we collected additional images of maps, landmarks, and the inner-German border at specific moments in the past. At this stage of the production, in addition to visual resources, we also collected possible background sounds from open-source websites, such as the engine noise of a truck, a baby crying, or musicians playing in the street.

Fourth, when the script was completed, the text could be recorded while the artists prepared the drawings. In “Ghost Train,” we simply had two narrating voices that told the two girls’ stories—Sarah read her part, and I read mine. As we are both experienced public speakers, we admittedly did not worry much about recordings when we conceptualized MoCom. But already the members of the first working group pointed out that their motion comic needed additional sounds. Moreover, their texts required more than two narrating voices. Both the protagonists relate their stories in the present but also speak in the past. In the end, we had multiple voices in all four motion comics. Some participants turned out to be rather gifted in rendering dialogues. In “The Density of Freedom,” the contemporary witnesses both recorded the German version (but not the English one) themselves. By the time of MoCom 4, “Wandering Roots,” the participants aspired to create professional recordings, ideally with expert voice talents. Based on our experience, we will conceptualize and prepare the recordings carefully in the future.

Fifth, the script, collected images, and sounds were sent to the artist(s). Ideally, artists should be part of the process from the beginning, but we found that they had their own ways of communicating with us. Some wanted to be involved in the historical research and storywriting, while others did quite a bit of research themselves for elements such as sounds. Others were grateful for photographs on which they could base their visual worlds. All of them added their individual artistic touches. Along with their own drawing styles, they also introduced ideas about color schemes, sound, animation, and comic book effects. They first created about fifty thumbnails, that is, the storyboard. After we discussed those, they created a rough cut. Following another discussion and subsequent adjustments, the final motion comics came to life.

We created four motion comics that differ considerably in their visual, animation, and acoustic styles. The artists had a final say in how each motion comic looked and sounded. Their individual interpretations of the stories prompted them to opt for specific “comic-elements” that seemed best suited for each motion comic. For example, “Ghost Train” and MoCom 1 “Border Crossings” were both drawn by the same artist team, Azam Aghalouie and Hassan Tavakoli. In their visual style, both motion comics are similar to animated films rather than comic books. By contrast, in MoCom 2, “The Density of Freedom,” Marc Buyny decided with the students to include more recognizable comic elements, which was possible as the story is more philosophical than the others. It asks questions about freedom rather than primarily depicting events. In MoCom 3, “Friendship Beyond Borders,” Livia Brocke employed animations as an element of the story telling—movements point to where or what is happening. MoCom 4, “Wandering Roots,” by Marc Müller is more static for long stretches at a time, as it has more complex animations and also an intricate storyline. But this motion comic also features a special visual effect: it mixed the motion comic format with actual archival film material by incorporating two iconic film scenes—namely an excerpt from the so-called “Monday demonstrations” in Leipzig that put much pressure on the GDR government, and a scene from the press conference when Günter Schabowski, then an official representative of the GDR establishment, in the evening hours of November 9, 1989, somewhat accidentally announced the opening up of the Berlin Wall “to my knowledge—right away.”⁷⁵

We noticed that the specific subject matter of the stories contributed to our decisions regarding the visualizations, animations, and sound. It made sense playfully to experiment with surreal elements in “The Density of Freedom”—at some point secret police turn into wolves capturing the teenagers who are simply trying to experience a bit of freedom in East Berlin. But such playfulness seemed less appropriate for “Friendship Beyond Borders,” which has a more tragic storyline. With each motion comic, we discovered new aspects of how effects could be achieved in the illustrations, animations, and also sound. Being mindful of such possible effects throughout the production process can ensure that the motion comic conveys a powerful message.

As is the case with other visual media, the mood of a motion comic can change or be enhanced significantly by adjusting the visuals.⁷⁶ It is therefore important to be mindful of the effects that changes in nuances may have regarding colors, shades, shapes, and outlines. We quickly learned in the production process that we had to make choices. The artists all had their personal styles, but, once again, the stories seemed to require individual treatments. For instance, we had long discussions about color schemes for each motion comic. Would it be in color? Or black-and-white? Our black-and-white motion comics (1 and 3) are much more serious in storyline and tone than the ones in color (2 and 4). Yet in both motion comic 1, “Border Crossings,” and 3, “Friendship Beyond Borders,” we used different shades for each of the two storylines to help the viewers tell them apart and also to provide mood. This is particularly obvious in “Ghost Train” with the cooler bluish black of Sarah’s story, which enhances the anxieties of a little girl alone on a ghost train, and a warmer reddish type of black for my own story, which is set in the comforting surroundings of a protective apartment (see images 1 and 2). Color choices also raise the question of authenticity.

Transforming memories into motion comics challenged us to ponder the question of authenticity in historical representations, which cannot be limited to the visuals of motion comics. History is always a fabrication or rather a construction of past events. In motion comics (just as in films and other visual media), this construction happens on various levels simultaneously, namely by way of interpreting a given memory in the narration, in its visual representation, and through sounds.⁷⁷

In addition to serving to introduce people to the subject matter of the inner-German border, our motion comics consequently raise questions about memory work as well as about oral and visual histories as historical sources. We noticed three different challenges regarding authenticity in our motion comics: critical observations from audiences, contemporary witnesses “working” with their own memories during the production of “their” motion comic, and the necessity to make two very different memories “fit” in order to produce a coherent narration that does not contradict itself. In our (e-)motion comics we combined two different memories of different people in differences places and at different times. We therefore needed to take some liberties with the memories to create a coherent story line.

In a motion comic, everyone understands that the drawings are artistic translations of actual memories of people and events. This, however, inspires some viewers to check for visual “authenticity.”⁷⁸ Whenever Sarah and I presented “Ghost Train” at public events, members of the audience would point out “mistakes” in the drawings. They typically referred to “historical inaccuracies” and “false” facts. Quite often this related to the visualization of an object. For instance, we were told that the underground train seen in the motion comic is not actually from the 1980s but was introduced much later—the door handles give it away. In a previous article, Sarah and I pointed out that we deliberately kept some visual “inaccuracies” in “Ghost Train” even when we knew about them, because we wanted viewers to think about how it is impossible to have an “actual” depiction of the past. Additionally, these “inaccuracies” keep discussions going by “annoying” at least some viewers and thereby engaging them in discussions about the past and its present-day depictions.⁷⁹ Inaccuracies may be rooted in an inability to find adequate sources, but they may also be based on “faulty” memories.

Thus, motion comics may serve as an opportunity to reflect upon unreliable memories. Motion comics provide opportunities to discuss how close we can get to the imagery of the past. In MoCom 2, “The Density of Freedom,” working group member Ronny Thon suggested making “mistakes” a part of the story; memories can be faulty, and they may change over time. In German, we jokingly say that a contemporary witness is a “historian’s worst enemy,” because that person’s private recollections might contradict what the documents and other people say. Reasons for an individual’s “deviation from facts” might be that a person did have an unusual experience, or because their memory changed over time. We adjust memories as new experiences overshadow what we used to know or believe at the time of our original memory.⁸⁰ In MoCom 2, our contemporary witness Ernest muses on whether he had an electric or acoustic guitar during his excursion to East Berlin. As he is pondering, the images change to depict the different types of guitars; simultaneously, the facial expressions of the protagonists change in surprise as the guitar is changing. Hence, the motion comic challenges the viewer to wonder about the trustworthiness of Ernest’s memory.

Moreover, our contemporary witnesses read the manuscripts at various stages during the production processes, which prompted them to keep working with their memories. It meant that they were processing their own stories. They actively commented, adjusted, even changed details as we went along—sometimes to protect a family member or themselves, at other moments because they felt that we had not yet arrived at what they meant to communicate. In MoCom 1, “Border Crossings,” our contemporary witness “Reza” relates how he hoped to escape from Iran to the GDR but ended up in West Germany. For the motion comic, he decided to conceal his identity. He also decided not to appear in public for the premiere, which was taped for a news segment of a regional TV station (MDR). Similarly to what Sarah and I experienced as contemporary witnesses with “Ghost Train,” however, “Reza” later communicated back to us that he had found closure thanks to the motion comic. He also became less concerned about possible dangers for himself should his story be known. Likewise, during the premiere of MoCom 4, “Wandering Roots,” our Syrian protagonist Isi, who was present with several members of his family, was visibly moved as he witnessed the most significant episodes of his life’s story realized on screen. He found comfort in the images of his moving back and forth between Syria and East Germany with his East German wife.

Based on our observations, we concluded that motion comics open up opportunities to relate sensitive experiences of persons who fear for their lives should their identity become known. Whereas in a TV documentary their faces would be blurred or their experiences dramatized with an actor or actress, in the motion comic they receive a personalized and unique face that is based on their own features. The new face takes on a life on its own—the little girl in “Ghost Train” does not look like me at age six, although her features are based on my childhood pictures. Nonetheless, I recognize myself in her. Personal memories may be told safely by changing details, features, names, and even places to protect identities and current whereabouts. This is of particular importance when the motion comics are available online.

Apart from such sensitive issues, we also had to smooth over discrepancies that resulted from the fact that the two different memories might be set at a different time of day or in a different place. “Ghost Train” suggests that the girl in East Berlin hears the very train on which the West Berlin girl is riding (among other trains). The synchronicity and interconnectedness are of primary importance. Yet Sarah’s memory actually took place on a school day in the late 1980s, while mine happened on a Saturday night as I was going to bed in the early 1980s. Only then did I hear the trains in that apartment. We turned that into an afternoon nap with a fuzzy reference to the day of the week to make it credible that Sarah was coming home from school as I was napping possibly while on vacation.

We openly speak about the liberties we took with the memories in our motion comics to stimulate discussions about what they mean. With “Ghost Train”—just like with the MoCom motion comics—our objective was not to reconstruct the past in every single detail. Our objective was to arrive at a shared truth that connects the two different experiences. We argue that “truth” may be understood as an “emotional” truth about which the child wonders and the adult reflects with hindsight.⁸¹ For this, we only need to suggest the time period in the drawings for the audience to recognize it. In “The Density of Freedom,” events seem to happen simultaneously just as in “Ghost Train,” although once again we merged and adjusted different memories to appear to take place at the same time, because the point was to portray how differently East Germans experienced their lack of freedom. In “Friendship Beyond Borders,” both storylines move across decades, which is why we blend in the year of action whenever the narration switches. The main theme is how the relationships between two sets of friends change as the inner-German border becomes more and more physically tangible and the division of both Germanies more real. In the end, a soothing effect is achieved by the order of events. Decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, two of the old friends who were separated by the inner-German border finally meet again.

Because of their potential to trigger emotions both during the production process and also with different audiences, motion comics can contribute to engaging viewers in profound discussions about what oral history can do for cultures of remembrance and public history education. Memories transcend spoken words and moving images. As we watch a motion comic, it can constantly be re-interpreted anew.

Although our motion comics are non-commercial products, we still need people to watch them, and we still need to provide the staff at museums and schools with specific teaching aids. We soon realized, however, that in the context of our project, we were merely able to produce motion comics alongside a few initial ideas about how to use them in public history settings. In all, the production of a motion comic takes about nine months from the initial idea to the premiere. For the project manager, the participants working on the script, and the artist(s), it is a full-time job for either part or the entire creation period. Therefore, the production of additional materials merits a project group on its own. Even systematic marketing was hardly feasible. Word of mouth recommendation would have to do at this point. Despite those logistical limitations, we gathered a few experiences regarding the didactic work with and promotion of our motion comics.

We do provide additional didactic materials on the project website in open access.⁸² Most of it is in German, but we included some English-language items that were written by non-native German project members. We realized that these materials merely serve as a starting point. The didactic possibilities are greater than we thought when we first designed the project. Even when conceptualizing the project, it was clear to us that with several groups of students collecting memories, we would end up with more material than could go into one short motion comic. We therefore thought about additional didactic materials from the onset. We decided that for each motion comic we would design an online brochure with additional stories and related documents, pictures, and information. We added a few ideas about didactics for the specific motion comics, which were primarily developed by the staff of the Marienborn Memorial to Divided Germany.

Several considerations went into creating additional educational materials. A first step was to develop an understanding for the target age groups for each motion comic. Moreover, besides our prospective audiences’ ages, it needed to be determined beforehand for which purposes additional educational materials were needed to work with the motion comic in classrooms or at memorial sites. In preparing didactic material targeted to various groups, we asked precise questions, such as: What specific focus should the didactic material have within the realm of history teaching? Should the center of attention be the work with contemporary witnesses or the subject matter itself? Likewise, the motion comics may be used for art education, language classes, or even as examples of literature. Some might serve well in philosophy, the social sciences, or political education. In the future, more varied education materials need to be developed with particular audiences in mind. In MoCom, we did not have the resources for the necessary analysis, preparation, and creation of additional materials. The creation of such materials would merit another project in its own right.

In the beginning, we did not differentiate our target group. We simply wanted to produce motion comics “by and for young adults.”⁸³ During the creation process, we refined this generalization. We realized that our four motion comics can be used with different age groups. For instance, a test-screening of MoCom 1, “Border Crossings,” with students aged ten to eleven revealed that they could follow the story and understood challenges that were associated with crossing the inner-German border. They engaged with the subject. Then again, MoCom 2, “The Density of Freedom,” with its ponderings about freedom, memory, and the format of the motion comic in public history education seemed much better suited for older students, i.e., high school juniors and seniors. MoCom 3, “Friendship Beyond Borders,” might also be viewed with older students as it also reflects upon death and mourning. MoCom 4, “Wandering Roots,” like MoCom 2, was prepared mainly by university students rather than high school kids. It has a more intricate storyline with ponderings about what “home” and “arriving” truly mean.

To promote our motion comics, we typically present them at academic conferences on history, public history, and social anthropology. The memorial site actively uses them in their public education work. They also use them to “warm up” audiences before a featured film or public event. The project members spread the word via social media. Some of them organized screenings in their hometowns. I include them in my own classes and screen them in my colleagues’ seminars on public, visual, and international history.

Generally, the main lesson we learned from the didactic and promotional work of our motion comics is that it is rewarding to be involved in the production of a motion comic. Audiences also seem to notice and appreciate this. The creation process still presents challenges. For instance, it was difficult to recruit high school students for this project, for it is a time-consuming extra-curricular activity. We found that it works better to offer a class on the university-level titled the “Production of a Public History Motion Comic,” in which the students are awarded with credits for their efforts. They also get the opportunity to add the final product to their application portfolios.

Besides producing motion comics in class, follow-up courses might be offered in the future to design additional target-group specific didactic materials and come up with marketing strategies. Ideally, any motion comic class should have an interdisciplinary student body including students of history, the arts, literature, media studies, and acting to record the narrations. In addition, students with solid knowledge of foreign languages would make it possible to record several versions of the motion comic. This ensures wider accessibility of the motion comic. Last but not least, for didactics and marketing, cooperations with students of economics, psychology, and education might be useful.

Motion comics are short, animated clips that can be used to introduce students and the interested public to contested, entangled, and international aspects of history. Motion comics engage viewers on multiple levels simultaneously in a combination of visualizations, movement, and sound. Combined with historical narration, these videos can create intense learning experiences. Motion comics (re)mediate between the past and the present, old and new forms of sources and educational tools as well as different perspectives on an idea, event, person, or object. Such (re)mediation processes can happen within the motion comic, but also in exchanges of the motion comic with its producers and audiences.

There appears to be room for experimentation within the format. In my analysis of available motion comics and the literature about them, I found first, that much of the literature is coming from American and German sources, and second, motion comics are versatile both in style and format. I discerned two established forms—the lecture-style motion comic and the (e-)motion comic. The former is more linear in the depiction of events and relies on a narrator who is either intercut in person with motion comic elements or speaks as a voiceover. By contrast, the (e-)motion comic is based on oral history interviews. “Ghost Train” (2020) and the four MoCom-project motion comics that I developed with colleagues in 2022 and 2023 use this style. We interlaced two unrelated memories of one specific historical person, event, or object to achieve multi-perspectivity in historiography.

Multi-perspectivity can result in greater accessibility not just in public history but in a variety of related disciplines, as they offer different connecting points for diverse audiences to “delve” into the motion comic and its subject matter. Because of their brevity, motion comics can depict individual incidents as a type of historical snapshot. They nonetheless convey complex historical information by presenting different perspectives on an idea, object, event, or a person. They can enhance a historical message by way of color schemes, sounds, added comic effects, and movements, which may result in surprisingly nuanced storylines. One story may be told in a linear way, but it is also possible to interlace several. Yet we found that more than two might be too much for a ten-minute motion comic. It does, however, depend on the story.

Motion comics are versatile in their uses for public history education. We are only just beginning to understand the range of didactic options for their use in schools, museums, and memorial sites. In addition to the use of the final product, the production process can be turned into an educational exercise for students and young adults. From the production of our (e-)motion comics, we learned that motion comics not only provide a means for audiences to engage in a dialogue with the past by watching. They also serve as a learning experience in the making. Based on our observations we learned that people are already engaging with history during the production process, which starts with the contemporary witnesses sharing their memories and also includes the people from various disciplines who work on turning those memories into a motion comic. As we discussed and transformed the individual memories into motion comics, we all did memory work, which was enhanced by our searching for relevant photographs, objects, sounds, and different types of texts from diaries to academic articles.

On account of both the group effort in the production process as well as the two different, yet intertwined memories that are told in our MoCom (e-)motion comics, multiple perspectives are reflected in the final product. They may be traced not only in the storylines, but in the different layers of the story’s visual and acoustic representations and in its movements. In combination, they reflect much more than the subjective outlooks of two protagonists. It is a group experience that nonetheless leaves room for individual perspectives, which may be at odds with each other but, at the same time, may also complement one another. Motion comics are therefore a public history format that not only draws viewers into historical subjects but also challenges them to ponder how we represent and interpret the past. They are of particular educational value such as by making us question the authenticity of memory as oral history or by inspiring us to search for discrepancies in the historical record.

To conclude, motion comics add an intriguing layer to public history work as a hybrid historical and artistic format that combines historical content, vision, sound, and movement. As such, they can have a lasting effect on the producers as well as the audiences. They have therefore great potential to get people interested in history or to “loosen them up” for discussions about it. I hope that more motion comics will be produced in the future for public history education, possible in interdisciplinary seminars, and that more academic studies will be written further to develop an analytical framework so that the vast options, styles, and formats that motion comics offer may be adequately understood for their usefulness in the broad field of public history education.

This article could not have been written without the invaluable experiences gathered during the constructive cooperation with the following people: my fellow initiator/supervisor Sarah Fichtner, our project manager Lisa Hölscher, the staff of the Marienborn Memorial to Divided Germany, especially Felix Ludwig and Insa Ahrens, artists Azam Aghalouie and Hassan Tavakoli, Marc Buyny, Livia Brocke, and Marc Müller, and the participants of the four MoCom working groups: 1) Alexandra Enciu, Madina Haidari, Adrian Pourviseh, Romy Schwarzer, and Katja Utzig; 2) Nelly Eichler, Malina Helms, Daniel Mandic, Alina Reinhardt, İdil Deniz Şakar, and Ronny Thon; 3) Fiona Neugebauer, Paul Reckardt, and Annika Skala; 4) Malou Bokowski, Anja Hartmann, Luis Kumpfmüller, Constanze Wiedemann, and Junseok Won. The Saxony-Anhalt Memorial Foundation and the Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Eastern Germany made this project possible with grants in the context of the “Jugend erinnert” (Young People Remember) initiative of the German federal government.