Cartoonist Marek Bennett on Bakhtin on the Essence of Ethnography

I met New Hampshire cartoonist, Marek Bennett through a mutual friend several years back as we were beginning to formalize the work that would become the El viaje mas caro mental health/wellness applied cartooning project.

comix by Marek

“Bakhtin: ‘Deepest Communion'” by Marek.

Marek has become an invaluable partner in El viaje mas caro – and an awesome friend to me and my family.

Ethnography is a new concept to most of the cartoonists I meet, and Marek took to some of the core notions of the ethnographic method immediately. He was actually excited! Imagine that?

Following the advice of my buddy, El viaje partner, and anthropologist, Teresa Mares I hipped Marek to the intro of D. Soyini Madison’s Critical Ethnography as a place to begin a more formal engagement with ethnographic concepts.

Not long after, Marek came up with this: Bakhtin: “Deepest Communion”.

Made me love the guy even more.

I’m hoping Marek and I will get it together to work on something together soon.

As a sidebar, I really recommend his travelog, Slovakia (over 600 pages of awesome comics about Eastern Europe for a mere $30!).

His newest, The Civil War Diary of Freeman Colby is a huge treat as well. It’s like a US Civil War companion to Emmanuel Guibert and Alan Cope’s Alan’s War in the way it highlights tedium and boredom – something that contrasts with more dramatic accounts of wartime experience, and diversifies the narrative of both these conflicts.

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Filed under Comrades and Fellow Travelers, Cool Shit, El viaje mas caro, Ethnography