Comics journalism is a genre of non-fiction comics which combines journalistic themes and techniques with storytelling applying two narrative tracks, the visual and the verbal. Comics journalists travel to the site of the event or crisis they report on, gathering evidence and writing it up in comics, transmitting the news to their audiences in the form of visual narratives. According to Julika Bake and Michaela Zöhrer, comics journalism on humanitarian issues aims to incite political action and contribute to long-term education and public awareness-raising. The drawn pictures of comics can reinforce the authenticity of the reports of eyewitnesses and produce a greater effect on the reader than text alone. The emergence of the genre originated in press illustration and political cartoons, but Joe Sacco is conventionally referred to as the first major representative of the genre with Palestine (1993). The genre is becoming increasingly visible on online news platforms, which means it blends with the medial variety of webcomics. As a good example of this hybridization, A Short Tale of Ash and Fire, a scroll-down graphic reportage about Portuguese wildfires by Tânia Alexandra Cardoso, can be read online. The blog of Patrick Chapatte illustrates how comics journalism is becoming increasingly popular, being spread online by the world’s leading press platforms.
