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Nick Sousanis

@nsousanis.bsky.social

5.5K followers 1.4K following 5.3K posts

Comics as thinking. Eisner winner. Unflattening from HarvardUP (http://bit.ly/1vENIO7). Former Detroiter/NYer/YYC/now assoc prof SFSU-Comics Studies! https://spinweaveandcut.com/ Tags #comics #Unflattening #Nostos

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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · Nov 15

I kept my twit-act in part because I’d been documenting progress on my new book since its beginning. As I fully phase out twix, sharing some past posts here as I go. This was the first finished spread - part of 22pg 15ft long continuous sequence retelling the Odyssey! Onward! #Nostos #Unflattening 2

A 2-page black and white comics spread, with imagery continuing beyond the side boundaries of the pages as it’s part of a longer sequence. The center is a tapestry that stretches through the page displaying Odysseus’s ship with the lighthouse of pharos, Penelope weaving a pharos, and the bag of Aeolus. The image of penelope emerges from the tapestry, near it there's a meta-tapestry with warp and weft of threads that make the page, all woven by hands from the reader’s perspective. They hands unwind at the wrists to merge with a labyrinth that fills bottom of page metapmorphosizing from greek key patterns that make the boundary of the tapestry. At top the moon in three phases and a double headed axe spins through the page - in one instance mirroring the full moon with crescents on either side. The axe transforms into a monarch butterfly across the page. Also there’s an owl who moves backwards across the page until it comes to rest on Penelope’s loom. It’s a complicated page... (oh, and I have twice as many characters as Twitter here - but that’s probably enough)

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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 2h

This is true

Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 2h

If somehow you could ignore their grifting, racism, misogyny, ignorance, and just outright cruelty, their sheer incompetence should be sufficient to oust every single one of them…

Apoorva Mandavilli @apoorvanyt.bsky.social · 3h

The Trump administration on Saturday scrambled to rescind layoffs of hundreds of CDC scientists who were mistakenly fired on Friday night in what appeared to be a substantial procedural lapse.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/h...

Trump Administration Is Bringing Back Scores of C.D.C. Experts Fired in Error

www.nytimes.com

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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 4h

Good piece on the uncertain situation international students face in this moment with reporting from my niece among @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social writers www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Eight International Students at Harvard, Watching America Close Its Doors | Magazine | The Harvard Crimson

A freshman debate champion wakes up to news of his peers marching the streets of Nepal. A trio of friends become high-profile activists. A sophomore from Jakarta searches for the America she idealized...

www.thecrimson.com

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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 20h

Excellent piece. And ugh

Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 20h

Looks good!

Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 21h

Hear hear!

Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 22h

We went to usf men’s soccer game tonight - really impressive athletes all around. A nice break and such a great setting…

Reposted by Nick Sousanis

Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 1d

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

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Reposted by Nick Sousanis

Nathan Kalmoe (he/him) @nathankalmoe.bsky.social · 1d

Weird random meme-y shit (laudatory) like this is how it might eventually be called The Great Frog Resistance, where everyone wears a frog pin, & remembrance events in 50 years begin with reverent croaks. Just from some dude's choice of a frog for a costume. Humans are weird.

Adam Selzer @adamchicago.bsky.social · 1d

The frogs have landed in Chicago!

Protestor in a frog suit and an anti-Ice sign with what I believe to be a Pokémon character on a street corner in Rogers Park.

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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 1d

My understanding is that it’s recorded for registrants. So even if you can’t make particular sessions (or I suppose, any of it) - signing up should still get you access to the individual recordings (this is how I’ll have to catch most of it…)

Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 1d

I think it’s all recorded for registrants

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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 1d

I'm next Thursday, but it all starts on monday - a lot of cool folks gathered for this!

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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 1d

this is true - and demands (and rewards) many, many rereadings...

Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 1d

Next week - Sketch Your Mind virtual Conference! A bunch of cool speakers taking drawing, thinking (and me with comics!) next Monday thru Thursday October 13-17. Check it out and register to inspire your own explorations! sketch-your-mind.com/2025/

poster for the conference - photo and list of all the speakers. Some quotes about each of them, and the dates and link

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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 1d

this is only the second grid page in the book so far - but it leads into a chapter of all grids... That will be a fun, and very different constraint to tackle!

Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 1d

My maxim for sketching - I’m very good at drawing badly! bsky.app/profile/nsou...

Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · Nov 17

9/X in figuring out this sequence I arrived upon my maxim “I’m very good at drawing badly” as my sloppy drawing of the axe looked like a lighthouse & I worked in the lighthouse of Pharos as a result. intentional indeterminacy is key to generating connections - in sketching I understand my thinking!

tiny thumbnail sketch of page design - spinning axe and other things

tiny thumbnail sketch - axe and lighthouse side-by-side

Excerpt from a comics page - a double-headed axe spins over the main narrative. Within a tapestry weaving along the page - we see Odysseus's ship pass the Lighthouse of Pharos - and a whole lot more going on on the page!

Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 1d

As I noted in my piece - it’s the surprises - the accidents that happen along the way… bsky.app/profile/nsou...

Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · Aug 24

My statement on Ai from the mini-comic as syllabus i made for new class I'm teaching that starts tomorrow! It robs you of your decisions & struggles - and the joy of being surprised. We won’t to be robbed of our learning - this is essential. This & the full mini at post:
bsky.app/profile/nsou...

a snippet of a mini-comic, at top - straight line stretches from point A to B. Immediately below, same dot at A, then becomes a curving, meandering line that winds through the page and ends at a point with rays and a question mark emanating from it. Text reads: "Nothing can do this for you - for that robs you of experience and conflates answers with learning. Rather, it's all the decisions you make along the way, the mistakes, struggles, and surprises! These pathways you create - this is learning.

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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 1d

Smart and true piece by @philnel.bsky.social on Harold & the importance of using your own purple crayon over letting ai make stuff for you.

Philip Nel @philnel.bsky.social · 1d

Harold and the Purple Crayon is a manifesto for human creativity disguised as a children's book. I wrote about it.
blog.oup.com/2025/10/turn...

Turn off AI. Pick up a crayon.

Google Gemini offers “a new way to bring your imagination to life.” Adobe Firefly promises “The ultimate creative AI solution.” And Craiyon invites you to “Create AI Art.” Don't believe the tech hype.

blog.oup.com

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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 1d

how our home was set in motion. The birth of our solar system - cloud set spinning... 5/30 panels on this page. End of the chapter is at last in sight!
#Nostos #Unflattening 2

a snippet from a comics page in progress - five small panels in horizontal sequence. The first one is a stellar nebula - a formless cloud of gas. Second panel is a supernova - and then we see the shockwave from that stretch over panels 2-4 emanating away from it, only to collide with this stellar cloud at the edge of panel four. And then the cloud has collapsed text reads "a nearby star's last violent gasp, as midwife, collapses this stellar nursery."

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Reposted by Nick Sousanis

Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 3d

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

nyti.ms