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.