The Norton Learning Blog team recently sat down with award-winning cartoonist Peter Kuper to discuss how he channeled his love of insects into his newest graphic novel, Insectopolis. Kuper shares how COVID-19 inspired his work, why humans should care about insects now more than ever, and how this title might just inspire a future generation of scientists and artists. 

What got you interested in writing a book about insects? 

Since I was a child, I’ve had a fascination with arthropods. At age four, I decided I wanted to be an entomologist—a studier of bugs. At age seven, my enthusiasm for spiders was replaced by an obsession with Spider-Man. (I know, spiders aren’t insects; let’s not split hairs.) Though my career path led me to cartooning, my love of insects has never left me. I concluded there must be a Venn diagram where I could pursue both interests.  

Insectopolis began as a proposed history of insects through the millennia and the people who had studied them, done as a graphic novel. This was the idea that won me a 2020–2021 Cullman Fellowship from the New York Public Library. They give 14 authors and artists offices in the library for one year to work on their projects and use the library’s collection for inspiration and research. 

I was working out exactly how to tell that story when COVID-19 hit. Although I was allowed into the library, the public was not. The hallowed institution felt like a ghost-filled, postapocalyptic environment, my steps echoing down empty halls. But when I visited the map room to look up the flight path of the monarch butterfly, a light bulb went off in my head—I could populate the entire place with insects (at least in my drawings)! Suddenly I had the framework for my story: People are gone, and insects are thriving and studying their own history in the magnificent library. The only people to appear would be the ghosts of entomology’s past, naturalists forgotten through time. 

One of the things I discovered as I researched what would become the graphic novel Insectopolis was how similar entomologists are to comic fans. They are enthusiastic about anyone who shares their passion for insects. I found it easy to connect with some of the leading experts, all of whom were incredibly generous with their time. Through them, doors opened that allowed me to access museum collections and ensure my drawings were accurate. 

The more I explored, the more I was able to imagine what insects might be thinking and saying to one another in their mysterious languages. 

During your research, did you make any surprising discoveries you hadn’t expected to find? 

I came across a number of entomologists and naturalists I had never heard of, such as the first black entomologists to receive PhDs in entomology: Charles Henry Turner and Margaret Collins. Turner had difficulty finding work after receiving his degree in 1907 and had to do all his research on his own time while teaching at a high school. He made discoveries about insect intelligence—that bees could see colors and patterns and moths could hear—among many other discoveries. Margaret Collins was a child prodigy, entering college at age 14. She faced racism and sexism along the way, yet she prevailed to become a top expert in termites and landed a major position at the Smithsonian Museum. 

I also learned that dung beetles can navigate by the Milky Way, insects were the first animals to fly, going back more than 400 million years, and there are ten quintillion insects in the world—and that’s only the tip of the beehive. 

 Why should people be interested in insects?  

The current climate crisis is bringing many insects to extinction and therefore directly threatening our food and planet. The price of groceries will rise and products will even disappear if we don’t take action to save pollinators. Without insects, there would be no more chocolate or coffee, raspberries, almonds, apricots, apples—most fruits and vegetables. Three-quarters of the world’s crops in one way or another depend on pollinators. Insects also aerate our soil, remove dead things, and deal with feces. Two billion people around the world depend upon them as a direct food source. To quote the famed naturalist E. O. Wilson: “If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.” 

How is Insectopolis different from other books on science and entomology? 

Using words and pictures together brings readers a combination of the information and the images of the insects and history in an especially illuminating way. There’s nothing passive about reading a comic. It demands attention to all the details that make up each page—the backgrounds are often as informative as the book’s foreground narrators. Students can move at their own pace, and there are several layers of reading to Insectopolis. One can read straight though in a fairly short time or slowly examine each image or spread.  

Modern readers have a high level of visual reading comprehension. Through novel artistic approaches, Insectopolis will further exercise and expand these visual skills. For example, at one point the storytelling moves from western left–right reading to the eastern manga style of right–left to tell the history of manga creator and insect enthusiast Osamu Tezuka. Another hidden aspect to the book is the half dozen “Easter eggs” in the form of QR codes leading to short interviews with expert entomologists that are peppered throughout the book. Among those is Mexican poet Homero Aridjis reading his poem about monarch butterflies in Spanish as well as translated to English. 

How could Insectopolis be used in classrooms? 

Insectopolis explores world history going back millions of years and the epic events that shaped our planet right up to today. It includes examinations of major scientific and artistic achievements, along with all aspects of how insects have interacted with humans and with one another. Students will learn about dozens of important entomologists and naturalists and see how our lives interweave with the natural world. They will also learn about biology, critical events in history, and the beliefs of different cultures, artists, authors, explorers, and inventors. All of this is told through comics, which will make complicated subjects more accessible and characters from history come to life. Note that Insectopolis is not a children’s book and does address adult themes like procreation and uses the art form in surprising and intricate ways to unfold the information. Students will discover different ways sequential art can be applied with varying styles and storytelling approaches that may inspire their own artistic experiments. The book also offers the opportunity to engender conversations based on individuals’ reactions to insects and their personal encounters with arthropods throughout their lives. Everyone has at least one insect story! 

What do you hope readers of your book will take away from Insectopolis? 

If readers never cared for bugs or were frightened by “creepy-crawlies,” perhaps through Insectopolis they’ll develop a newfound appreciation for these extraordinary animals who make our world go round. 

Without insects, we could not survive. I hope that as readers learn about insects through my book, they may come to like them, or perhaps even love them! Beyond that, I hope some students will be bitten by the science bug and imagine how they might find a career path in the study of the natural world or perhaps in drawing and cartooning. 

Learn more about Insectopolis: A Natural History here. 

MEET THE AUTHOR