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Excel lab

Excel Visualization Exercise

Goal

Use Excel to explore a comics-related dataset, create a pivot table, and turn it into a clear visualization.

Context

This dataset comes from the Cooper Comics Collection. It reflects one collector’s effort to reconstruct a comics world centered on a comic book cover that fascinated him in his youth. In that sense, this is not just publishing data: it is also a dataset shaped by collecting, memory, and fandom.

Data

Cooper Comics Collection data

Instructions

1. Download and open the Cooper Comics Collection data in Excel.
2. Spend a few minutes looking through the available sheets and columns.
3. Choose one question that you think the data can help answer.
4. Select a sheet and create a pivot table from the data.
5. Use the pivot table to organize the data in a way that helps answer your question.
6. Create one chart based on the pivot table.
7. Add a clear title and make sure the chart is readable.
8. Write 2–3 sentences answering:
   • What question were you asking?
   • What does your visualization show?
   • What is one strength or limitation of this visualization?

Possible questions

• Which publishers appear most often in this dataset?
• Which genres appear most often?
• What patterns appear across dates or time periods?
• Which titles or categories seem most prominent?
• What does this dataset emphasize, and what might it leave out?
• What does this collector’s reconstructed comics world seem to center?

Notes

• Keep it simple.
• The goal is to practice using pivot tables and charts, not to produce a perfect final product.
• If you finish early, try changing the chart type and consider which version communicates the data more effectively.