Louis Netter PhD, HEA fellow

Biography

Louis Netter is the Course Leader for BA (Hons) Character Design and Concept Art.
He is a practicing illustrator and animator with over 20 years of experience. His satirical illustration has been published in magazines and books and his artwork is collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Library of Congress amongst other collections in the US. 

Dr Netter's animations have been screened at the Coney Island Film Festival and the Williamsburg International Film Festival. His research film Art and Gender in South Sudan won several international awards and received an honourable mention in the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS) Practice Research Awards. He is a member of the Editorial board of Black Book: Drawing and Sketching Scientific Journal
 

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Design
Course Leader for BA (Hons) Character Design and Concept Art

Academic Background and Research Focus

He has a PhD from Royal College of Art in Reportage Drawing and is exploring further practice-based research in documentary comics and animation and is developing ‘comic as research’ projects following the publication of Steal This History in the journal Re-Thinking History, published by Taylor and Francis. Dr Netter's monograph Reportage Drawing: Vision and Experience (Bloomsbury) is the only book on reportage drawing that critically evaluates the act through a theoretical lens. 

His other practice based research is exploring medical narratives in the comic, community outreach and lived experience through art making in Nairobi slums. As well as exploring the factors that impact violence against women in Southeast Asia. Dr. Netter has completed his second graphic novel called Refuge. The novel explores the lesser known history of displaced African Americans in the post slavery period seeking the establishment of their own communities.

Website: http://www.louisnetter.com

Research and Knowledge Exchange projects

  • Drawing is Enough, Book, Exploration of drawing practice and its centrality in the arts and design. Historical and practice informed. Thames and Hudson or Bloomsbury, (Expected publication, 2027)
     
  • A Puff of Smoke: Comics, history and complicated truths, Podcast series, Host: Louis Netter with multiple guests, Oliver Gruner, Professor Hugo Frey, Tom Sykes, etc.Virtual Reality, immersive experiences and new methods for making connections between past and present in museum settings. Journal article, AIREA journal, Author Louis Netter, (expected publication 2026)
     
  • The Silent Comic: Contemporary wordless comics. A practice based exploration, Journal: Studies in Comics, Intellect, Authors: Louis Netter (expected publication in 2026)
     
  • The Covid Comic, Journal article: International Journal of Creative Media Research, (soon to be published 2025), Authors, Louis Netter, Oliver Gruner
     
  • A Whiff of Grapeshot: Practice Research and the Image-Maker-as-Historian, Comic-as-Research, Journal: Re-Thinking History, Taylor and Francis. Authors, Olly Gruner, Louis Netter, Will Pooley. (Published 4/2025)

Publications

  • 2025 A Whiff of Grapeshot by Louis Netter, Oliver Gruner and Will Pooley, Comic-as-Research paper, Re-Thinking History (Journal), Taylor and Francis, 4/25
     
  • 2025 Strange Trails, Fool for Love, Lord Huron (Universal Music Group), 20 page comic illustrating their song
     
  • 2024 Surrender to the Moment/Mining the pavement, Colouring In, Research Project between Kingston School of Art and Camberwell, Truth issue 5/24
    https://www.colouring-in.com/
     
  • 2023 ‘Sketchbooks from Covid and Beyond’, Black Book: Drawing and Sketching Scientific Journal, 30/1/2023
     
  • 2023 ‘Whose story is it, anyway?’, Social Identities Journal (accepted for publication)
     

Articles

 

Books

  • Reportage Drawing: Vision and Experience, Bloomsbury Ltd., 1/24, 2023.
     
  • Refuge the graphic novel written by Bill Campbell and Illustrated by Louis Netter Rosarium Publishing, 2023.
     
  • Coast of Teeth: Travels to English Seaside Towns in an Age of Anxiety, Signal Books. Written by Tom Sykes and illustrated by Louis Netter, 2023.
     
  • The littoral and the metaphorical: psychogeography, liminality and English seaside towns, Routledge, 2023.
     
  • 2020 Contemporary reportage drawing: ecstatic moments and hybridity, Black Book: Drawing and Sketching Scientific Journal, 2020
     

Presentations

  • Talk for the Royal Geographic Society (2023). This talk was split into two parts, looking at writing and drawing as ways to understand modern seaside towns. Together, these methods create a detailed and realistic picture that avoids romanticizing or exaggerating poverty.
     
  • Presentation of a paper called ‘'Coast of Teeth': Textual and Visual Reportage of England's   Seaside Towns in a Time of Crisis’ at MeCCSA Conference 2022: 'Silenced Voices’, Aberdeen.
     
  • Presentation of a paper at the Institute of Historical Research entitled ‘Coast of Teeth: Conceptualising Seaside Towns as a Writer and Artist.' 2022.

Comics, Sketchbooks and Illustrations

  • Illustration published in ADBUSTERS magazine, issue 147, 1/1/2020
     
  • The Corbyn Comic, Self Made Hero, 28/3/2021
     
  • Steal This History: Historiography, the Sixties and the Comic, Rethinking History, Taylor & Francis, Volume 21, Issue 4 (REF UoA 32), 2017
     
  • 2015 In Step by Louis Netter and Sophia Fredericks, World War III Illustrated, AK Press, 2015
     
  • Sketchbook: Louis Netter, The Beach, TRACEY: Drawing and Visualisation Research, Loughborough, 2011

Work by Louis Netter