POW! BAM! DATA! Holy Graphs, Batman!

Using the language of comics to tell complex stories with data.

Dynamic graph comic about World War II created using DG Comics. The panels are automatically identified as “interesting” because of changes in the underlying dynamic graph modeling relationships between countries.

What if you could explain your Facebook friendship network using a comic book? What about the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire? The email communication between senior management leading up to the bankruptcy and collapse of the energy company Enron? In today’s information-rich world, making sense of evolving data can be challenging. Whether it’s tracking the spread of a virus, observing shifts in social media connections, or following stock market trends, visualizing dynamic data has always been difficult. Our team of researchers at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea, IBM Research in the U.S., and Aarhus University in Denmark has developed a tool called Dynamic Graph (DG) Comics that offers a novel approach to this problem, drawing inspiration from an unexpected source: comic books.

DG Comics is a specialized software that transforms complex datasets into visual narratives similar to comic strips. This isn’t about simplifying data to the point of losing meaning, but rather about presenting it in a format that’s easier for many people to follow and understand.

Each cluster below the depth slider (left) represents a panel (right) through a set operation of
two subcluster snapshots. The aggregate graph snapshot is computed by the union of graphs for T1 and T2.

Here’s how it works: Imagine a social network where connections between people change over time — new friendships form, old ones fade away. DG Comics takes this dynamic data and creates a series of comic panels, each representing a snapshot of the network at different points in time. But what makes this tool particularly useful is its ability to intelligently summarize data. Finding stories from a large, dynamic graph of data can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. Instead of drowning you in an ocean of panels showing every tiny change, DG Comics uses clustering to group similar snapshots together. The idea is to summarize uneventful times and highlight times with much activity so that you get to see the big picture without getting lost in the details. With the help of the time-aware, dynamic graph clustering technique, DG Comics helps users identify the most meaningful interactions that can translate into compelling narratives.

DG Comics offers (A) a Summary View, (B) sliders for filtering and highlighting nodes, (C) a Graph Comic View, (D) Main Character and (E) Supporting Character tables, and (F) a Timeline View. Users can switch to (G) the Node Attribute Table or (H) Community View using a tab. It supportsmental map preservation by fixing nodes across displays, and community changes using bubble sets.

Creating a comic is beyond the visual skill of most people, but DG Comics comes with a helpful interface (see above) that lets you customize your comic without needing any artistic skills. You can choose which characters (or in data terms, which data points) should be the stars of your story, add captions to explain what’s happening, and even add some classic comic book elements such as motion lines to show changes dramatically. In other words, DG Comics begins by sketching a draft based on meaningful stories from dynamic graph data, then allows users to enhance the cartoon by refining aesthetics and adding other details to bring it to life.

But why comics, you ask? Well, it turns out that comics are an effective way to tell stories with data. They combine visual information with text in a sequence that people find easy to follow.

Comics can be used to fight massive amounts of data. (Image by MidJourney v6.1.)

There are many applications for this tool. Scientists could use it to explain complex ecosystems, businesses could track customer relationships over time, and teachers could make historical events come alive by showing how alliances between countries shifted throughout the years.

During our research, we put DG Comics to the test with real users and experts from various fields. The feedback was very positive. Users found it intuitive and enjoyable to create stories from their data, while experts saw potential applications in their respective domains, from biology to business analytics.

As we continue to refine DG Comics, we’re excited about its potential to help people understand and communicate complex, time-changing data. With tools like this one, we’re turning data analysts into storytellers, one panel at a time.

Citation

• Kim, J., Lee, H., Nguyen, D.M., Shin, M., Kwon, B.C., Ko, S., and Elmqvist, N. (2024). DG Comics: Semi-Automatically Authoring Graph Comics for Dynamic Graphs. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (Proceedings of IEEE VIS 2024). [PDF]