Crimescene Infographic – How was Ötzi killed?

IT’S TOO EASY to find infographic artists working with news, who will tell you never ever to invent details and dramatize a situation in your efforts to tell the story. Especially when it’s a murderstory.

Well, Ötzi the Iceman got killed – some years – ago, and it’s exciting to speculate what really happened back then. (5.300 years ago). The theory up until now has been that he had been chased up in the mountains, where he was caught and killed. But a new examination has revealed that his stomach was full – he had eaten a good meal within an hour of getting killed. Now, he wouldn’t have done that if he was chased by murderers, eh? He was probably assassinated then …

So National Geographic went to work and bring us this infographic to explain the new theory. And wow! – I love it.

Extra credits for bringing in Marvel comic book artist Alexander Maleev (Daredevil and Spider-Woman) to work with Mariel Furlong and NGM staff. It’s the November issue. (Online-story here but without the graphic)

I wouldn’t mind to see such infographic treatment spread from magazines and into newspapers too. But where will the limit be? How old will the incident have to be before it can be dramatized?

5000 years? (not too many incidents then)

1000 years? (then we can do Jesus too)

10 years? 1 week? Or should we just let the individual artist and his editor decide what to do, when they have a dramatic story to tell?