This dissertation project addresses the need for culturally relevant and community- driven research with Black youth in the field of education. Traditional research approaches are often perceived as exploitative and disconnected from the needs of marginalized communities. As a result, policy reforms fail to adequately address the needs of Black children and youth. Community-engaged approaches have emerged as a promising alternative, but new approaches are needed to disrupt traditional power dynamics between adults and youth while remaining developmentally appropriate. This project explores the use of comics-based research as a method for co- creating culturally relevant and accessible research products with Black youth. Utilizing collaborative graphic autoethnography as method, this project positions youth co-researchers as primary knowledge producers. By centering participant-created comics as the dissertation product, this research aims to decenter the researcher and engage youth in a developmentally appropriate research process. Through participatory arts- based methods, critical autoethnography, and counter-storytelling, this collaborative approach fosters cooperative inquiry, analysis, and social change. The dissertation project seeks to contribute to interdisciplinary efforts to refine transformative collaborative processes and represent youth stories of school experiences in a humanizing, culturally relevant, and impactful manner for them and their communities.