How superheroes can save your PowerPoint presentations

Despair mingled with hopelessness. That’s what I usually feel when someone fires up a PowerPoint presentation. Lists of bullet points, flow charts, process diagrams, more bullet points, graphs, and did I mention the bullet points?

But as I was leafing through the pretty pictures and wonderful words of one of my graphic novels, I realised something. A comic book is a template for a great PowerPoint presentation. Panels are just slides, each one advancing the story and telling the reader something new. The only difference is that comics are interesting. And I think it’s because they do four things that most presentations don’t.

Comics focus on the little things

The faster something happens, the more images you need. If your story involves a dramatic gunshot, you spread it across a lot of panels so it’s easier for the reader to digest. The finger squeezing the trigger. The hammer pulling back. The bullet leaving the barrel. So if you have a graph, for example, don’t show it all at once. Plot each point you’re talking about separately. Build it up. Spread it out. So your readers have a chance to take everything in.

Comics cherish the turn of the page

Flicking over a page creates natural suspense. It gives you pace and rhythm. And it’s a beautiful moment to have something suddenly revealed, whether it’s the punch line to a joke, something unexpected or a tah-dah moment. Don’t be afraid to do the same in a presentation as you switch between slides.

Comics use words lightly

The narrator in a comic will usually only have a few words for each panel. Sometimes none. Each panel is essentially just one idea that moves the story on. The same should be true of a slide; each one should make a single point.

Comics are illustrations

Pictures are what make a comic, well, a comic. True, with a presentation you might not always have a literal picture. You might just illustrate your point, maybe with a single word or a quote. Just pick something that shows what you want to say, then narrate over the top. When you use your slides to symbolise your point, instead of parroting the words on the screen, people will listen to you rather than read what’s going on behind your head.

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