Always in Moderation

This photograph by Carl Tsui captures me moderating one of the panels at the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo in Cambridge this past weekend.

This was the panel on “Reinterpretations of Classics.” The previous day I’d emceed a discussion of “Educating with Comics,” which was really about communicating science topics in comics form. (I don’t have photos of that one.)

I think discussions of comics benefit tremendously from visual content—comics are a combination of words and pictures, after all. So I prepared brief PowerPoint introductions for all eight panelists showing samples of their work and their book covers.

I’m also proud of the trick shown below: ending each slide show with the panelists’ names and a representative or recent book cover to hover over their heads. That let audience members who came in late or lost track of the intros identify the panelists, and gave their books an extra push. And of course it gave me the authority to tell the panelists where to sit.