CFP: The Ages of the Incredible Hulk / essay collection (July 15)

CFP:

The Ages of

the Incredible Hulk

Edited by Joseph J. Darowski
Publisher: McFarland & Company

The editor of The Ages of the Incredible Hulk: Essays on Marvel’s Jade Giant in Changing Times is seeking abstracts for essays which could be included in the upcoming collection. The essays should examine the relationships between Incredible Hulk comic books (or comic books featuring Hulk-related characters) and the social era when those comics were published. Analysis may demonstrate how the stories found in Hulk comic books and the creators who produced the comics embrace, reflect, or critique aspects of their contemporary culture. This will be a companion volume to The Ages of Superman, The Ages of Wonder Woman, The Ages of the X-Men, The Ages of the Avengers, and The Ages of Iron Man.

Potential chapters include, but are not limited to, the following:

Controlling the Bomb: A Scientist’s Unintended Consequences in The Incredible Hulk; Nuclear Power, the U.S. Military, and Fear: The Weaponization of Bruce Banner; Balance of Power: The Hulk’s Awkward Role in The Avengers; The Hulk Versus the U.S. Military in the Vietnam War Era; The Two Sides of Nuclear Power: Bruce Banner and Samuel Sterns; Hulk Versus the Abomination: Cold War Politics in Superhero Adventures; She-Hulk and the Working Woman; The Incredible Hulk: Crossroads and the Search for Identity; Raising Awareness of Child Abuse in Marvel Comics and a New Origin for the Hulk; Future Imperfect: Unchecked Power After the Cold War; Addressing AIDS in Marvel Comics: Jim Wilson, Rick Jones, and the Hulk; The Sensational She-Hulk and Hyper-Awareness of Contemporary Comics; Hulk: The End and Dystopian Fears in the New Millenium; Twenty-First Century Gladiator: Planet Hulk; Red Hulk: Becoming What You Fear.

Essays should focus on stories from the Hulk’s comic book adventures, not media adaptations of the character. Furthermore, essays should look at a single period of comic book history, rather than drawing comparisons between different publication eras. For example, an essay that analyzed Hulk comics from the early 1960s and contextualized them with what was happening in American society would be more likely to be accepted than an essay that contrasted Hulk comic books from the 1970s with Hulk comic books from the 1990s. Any team title or mini-series that features Hulk, or Hulk-related characters such as She-Hulk, Red Hulk, or Skarr, can be considered as source material for potential chapters. The completed essays should be approximately 15-20 double-spaced pages.

Abstracts (100-500 words) and CVs should be submitted by July 15, 2014.

Please submit via email to Joseph Darowski, darowskij@byui.edu

CFP: Digital Comics, special issue of Networking Knowledge (July 11)

Call for Papers
Digital Comics
A special-themed issue of
Networking Knowledge,
the journal of the MeCCSA-PGN
Deadline for abstracts 11th July

The medium of comics has always evolved alongside the technology via which it is produced, distributed and consumed. In this age of easily accessible digital technologies, the comic form is undergoing a series of transformative changes. This remediation of the form has seen the medium change to accommodate the wider range of story-telling tropes and functionalities offered by the digital environment. Through portable touchscreen displays we are able to consume comics, film, animation, prose, games and other forms of interactive visual media. The multimodal capacity of these devices allows for the emergence of hybrid forms of comics which incorporate tropes from these other screen-based media.

Against this background, papers focused towards the following areas would sit well within this themed edition of Networking Knowledge:

• New and emergent digital comic forms and technologies.
• Changes to the underlying structures of the form as a result of digital mediation.
• Crossovers, adaptation and hybridisation between comics and other digital media.
• Acts of reading and the impact of digital mediation.
• Aesthetic and literary analysis of digital comic narratives.
• Digital distribution, changes in the industry and the threat of piracy.
• Webcomics, widening readerships, minority voices and fan cultures.
• Multimodality and comics relationship with larger transmedia narratives.

Other areas relevant to the study of digital comics will also be considered.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words for papers of 5,000 to 6,000 words should be submitted via e-mail to Jayms Nichols and Daniel Merlin Goodbrey at netknow@e-merl.com by Friday 11th July 2014.

Abstracts should specify the research question and make a clear connection to one or more aspects of the digital comics theme. Proposed papers must be original and must not have been published or accepted for publication elsewhere.

If you have any questions about the issue, please e-mail the address above. If you have questions about Networking Knowledge in general, please contact the editor, Sam Ward, at aaxsjw@nottingham.ac.uk.