EXPERIENCING MICROAGGRESIONS

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The School of Dentistry and the Scottish Centre for Comics Studies (SCCS) recently worked together to produce a comic, Experiencing Microaggressions, which aims to increase awareness of racial microaggressions experienced by staff and students while working in clinical areas. The comic was written by Chris Murray, Golnar Nabizadeh, Kitty Guo, and Mohammad Islam. The artwork was created by Clio Ding, with production by Damon Herd. The creation of this comic was funded by The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. It was launched on 7th February 2024 as part of the University of Dundee’s participation in UK Race Equality Week (2024). The team who created the comic won a Dundee Difference Award in January 2025, having been nominated in the Inclusivity Champion category.

More information about the comic is available here: https://www.dundee.ac.uk/stories/using-comics-highlight-microaggressions-clinical-teaching-areas

The comic can be downloaded for free from the University of Dundee’s Discovery Portal: https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/en/publications/experiencing-microaggressions-four-stories-of-racial-microaggress

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The Scottish Centre for Comics Studies (SCCS), based at the University of Dundee, exists to bring together researchers, teachers, students, archivists, artists and writers, and industry professionals to promote a greater understanding and appreciation of the medium and its history.

The city of Dundee has a long association with comics. Dundee is one of the great powerhouses of comics production, not just in the UK, but internationally. The publisher DC Thomson is at the heart of the city, with its long history of comics production. The University of Dundee is a pioneer in the teaching of Comics Studies, with modules on comics at Undergraduate level in the School of Humanities and in Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, and the UK’s first MLitt in Comics Studies, launched in September 2011. With dedicated exhibition space at the University of Dundee, and a commitment to building the resources required to expand the provision of this field, the SCCS hosts conferences, workshops, lectures and exhibitions intended to raise the profile of comics in Scotland.

Men Minds Comic

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The Comics Studies Creative Research Hub has recently completed a collaboration with the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ) and colleagues from the University of Strathclyde and the Mental Health Foundation. The result was a comic co-produced with a Young People’s Forum of around 10 young men aged 16-24. Utilising peer research, Men Minds engaged with often marginalised young men including refugees and asylum seekers, young men identifying as part of the LGBTQ+ community, and young men who had been in conflict with the law. The Young People’s Forum helped to shape and undertake the research, and the stories in the comic. The stories in the comic are based on real-life experiences that have been shared during the research, although the characters in the comic are fictional.

The comic, published by UniVerse Comics (the University of Dundee’s comics publishing imprint) aims to normalise conversations about mental health, and reduce stigma, It was produced in conjunction with comic artist Ell Balson, writer Dr Megan Sinclair, and Professor Christopher Murray. Balson and Sinclair are graduates of the Masters in Comics and Graphic Novels, and Sinclair undertook a PhD on Healthcare comics at the University of Dundee supervised by Murray, who runs an ongoing project on healthcare and educational comics through the Comics Studies Creative Research Hub.

The young men who took part in Men Minds had diverse backgrounds, but they shared some common experiences. Many of them didn’t believe in traditional notions of masculinity and challenged the assumption that men do not want to talk about mental health. However, these long-held social norms about what it means to be a man, and unsympathetic societal attitudes towards young men, still permeated their everyday environments (families, peers, schools, communities and other institutions), often leading to intense shame and stigma. As a result, young men felt alone and isolated in their mental health.

The comic and the findings from the project were presented at the Scottish Parliament and at a series of events across Scotland in May and June 2025.

The project leader, Dr Nina Vaswani, said ‘Our Young People’s Forum have been an absolute credit to this project, as have all of the young men who took part. We hope that this comic inspires other young men and helps to open up conversations between young men, their families, peers and others about mental health.’

The comic is available here: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/225ea28d0f.html

Please share it as widely as possible to help end the stigma around talking about mental health for boys and young men.

More information about Men Minds is available here: https://www.menminds.org/