Comics Research & Such

CATS IN COMICS #2 Krazy Kat by Gene Kannenberg, Jr.

2011-09-23T23:27:00.000-04:00

I have committed bloggery by invitation. Michael Hill (a.k.a. "Doctor Comics") recently began a series on cats in comics at his blog, starting with the great Doraemon. I was honored to be invited to contribute post #2, on George Herriman's "Krazy Kat," which is now live.

I first met Michael in 1999 (can it be that long ago, already?!?) when he came to the US and presented "Outside Influence/Local Colour: the Australian Small Press" at the International Comic Arts Festival, of which I was then the chair. (He still has his 1999 ICAF t-shirt, designed by Max himself!) At the time I was impressed by his scholarship and his conviviality, and we've kept in e-contact over the years. I was pleased to be asked by him to be his first guest-blogger in this series. Thanks, Michael, for the opportunity to wax rhapsodic!

CFP: On the Scholarship of Religion and Comic Books (PCA) (Dec. 1; Apr. 11-14)

2011-09-12T11:42:00.000-04:00

Call for Papers:

On the Scholarship of Religion

and Comic Books

Popular Culture Association / American Culture Association

April 11-14, 2012

Boston, MA

Area: Religion & Culture, Comics & Comic Art (joint session)
Moderator: A. David Lewis (Boston University)

Overview: The last half-dozen years have seen an explosion in U.S. publications addressing the intersection of religion and comics, but little has been said on the body of work taken as a whole. Outside of individual reviews, rarely are these works discussed in terms of their applications, their intertextuality, their audiences, their shortcomings, or the new questions they raise. This panel is to act as a forum addressing either portions of these works, entire books, their shared space, or the next steps to which they may all lead. In addition to the print publications recommended below, this panel also invites reflections on some of the websites and blogs conducting similar work, also listed:

Books: Superheroes: Religion and Popular Culture (2005), Up, Up, and Oy Vey (2006), Our Gods Wear Spandex (2007), Superheroes and Gods: A Comparative Study from Babylonia to Batman (2007), Disguised as Clark Kent (2007), Holy Superheroes! Revised and Expanded Edition (2008), From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books (2008), The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches (2008), Jews and American Comics (2008), India’s Immortal Comic Books: Gods, Kings, and Other Heroes (2009), Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books and Graphic Novels (2010), Supergods (2011), The Seven Spiritual Laws of the Superhero (2011), Do the Gods Wear Capes? (2011)

Online: ComicAttack.net “Comics Are My Religion” columns, ComicBookBin.com “Religion and Comics” columns, By Rao! Comics and Religion site, Jewish Comics blog, Faith in Four Colors site

Other English-language, U.S. market pieces of scholarship may be considered, but the focus should remain on already-produced analysis, not on works-in-progress nor on the comics themselves. Submissions should be thoughtful reflections on how these pieces function, what opportunities they present, where they may fail, and what has been overlooked.

Abstracts of 100-250 words, a C.V., and brief bio are due by December 1 to ADL@bu.edu for consideration.

CFP: Masculinity in Superhero Comic Books and Films (NeMLA) (Sept. 30; Mar. 15-18)

2011-09-10T17:52:00.000-04:00

CFP:

Masculinity in

Superhero Comic Books and Films

Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)

March 15 to 18, 2012

Rochester, NY

Deadline: September 30, 2011

http://www.nemla.org/community/caucuses/womens.html

http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/41605

With comic books becoming more mainstream, thanks to numerous summer blockbuster films focusing on superheroes—2011 bringing audiences Super, Thor, The Green Hornet, Captain America, X-Men: First Class, and Green Lantern—this session welcomes all papers looking at ongoing portrayals of masculinity in works about superheroes. Submissions may focus the adherence or the subversion of masculine archetypes in superhero comic books, graphic novels, films, plays, video games, and other works in popular culture. Submit 250- to 500-word proposals to Derek McGrath (derek.mcgrath@stonybrook.edu).

Please include with your abstract the following: Name, affiliation, email address, and A/V requirements if any ($10 handling fee with registration).

Interested participants may submit abstracts to more than one NeMLA session; however, panelists may only present one paper (panel or seminar). Convention participants may present a paper at a panel and also present at a creative session or participate in a roundtable. For more information, visit the NEMLA online at http://www.nemla.org/convention/2012/cfp.html.

CFP: Graphic Details Symposium: Talking About Jewish Women and Comics (February 26, 2012)

2011-09-09T17:11:00.000-04:00

Call for Papers

Graphic Details Symposium:

Talking About Jewish Women and Comics
February 26, 2012

at the Yeshiva University Museum in New York City

We invite papers for a one-day symposium that will explore the intersections between Jewishness and gender in comics and graphic narratives. Key questions will include:

What are the unique characteristics common to Jewish women cartoonists’ representations of themselves and others on the page?
How might this particular literary genre be contextualized within the various modes of Jewish literature?
How might sequential art constitute a unique approach for investigations of identity?
What are some helpful theoretical modes for reading these works individually and collectively?

This interdisciplinary conference will put academics and cartoonists in dialogue with one another to discuss comics by and about Jewish women. The day of panel presentations will conclude with a cartoonist roundtable open to the public. Confirmed participants include cartoonists Miriam Katin and Leela Corman, photographic artist Professor Joanne Leonard (University of Michigan), Dr Heike Bauer (Birkbeck College, University of London), Dr. David Brauner (University of Reading), and Professor Laurence Roth (Susquehanna University). The symposium is being presented in conjunction with Yeshiva University Museum’s exhibition, Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women, which is on display from September 25, 2011 - April 8, 2012. For more information, go to www.forward.com/graphic-details/

Proposals for papers or panel presentations should be emailed by Sunday, October 23, 2011 to GraphicDetailsSymposium@gmail.com. Please include up to a 500-word proposal, as well as a short bio of the presenter. Images are welcome to supplement submissions. Here are some suggested paper or panel topics:

The “Jewish Body” and its transformations in comics
Jewish comic storytelling and the traditions of Jewish literature
Confession, memoir, and autobiographical literature
Gender identification in changing social and artistic discourses
Comic book writing about Israel and Palestine
Depictions of marriage, partnerships, and interfaith relationships
Portraying Judaism and religion in graphic detail
Mothers, daughters, and other family dynamics reflected in graphic storytelling
Heroes and villains

This conference is being organized by Sarah Lightman (University of Glasgow), Tahneer Oksman (CUNY Graduate Center), and Amy Feinstein, Ph.D. (Independent Scholar). Our sponsors include the Yeshiva University Museum, the Jewish Daily Forward, McFarland, the Stirling Maxwell Center at University of Glasgow, and the Center for Jewish Studies and the PhD Program in English at CUNY’s Graduate Center. Unfortunately there are no grants available.

CFP: Rocky Mountain Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels, June 13-15, 2012

2011-09-09T16:58:00.000-04:00

As announced on the Comics Scholars Discussion List...

CFP:

Rocky Mountain Conference

on Comics and Graphic Novels

June 13-15, 2012

Rocky Mountain Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels, June 13-15, 2012, is a new literary conference devoted solely to the scholarly study and teaching of the sequential arts. What sets this conference apart from others is its unique mission to combine an educational classroom initiative with the benefits of theoretical and critical discourse. RMCCGN is being held in conjunction with the newly-emerging Denver Comic Con at the top-rated Colorado Convention Center, June 15-17 2012. All profits from both events directly benefit Comic Book Classroom, a nonprofit free after-school program for children, whose focus is raising literacy through comic books and graphic storytelling.

The conference is designed to bring together a wide range of theoretical, pedagogical, and disciplinary perspectives, and is open to both undergraduate and graduate students, as well as academic, independent, and fan scholars. Any topics in the field of comics and graphic novels are welcome.

We seek proposals of 200-300 words for talks of 15-20 minutes in length and should be sent along with a brief, 100-word biography to Christina Angel at christina@comicbookclassroom.org. Deadline for submission is January 15, 2012 and notification of acceptance or rejection will be emailed by or before March 1, 2012.

Please visit our websites: www.comicbookclassroom.org and www.denvercomiccon.com for more information about these events.

Exciting guest announcements are coming soon – stay tuned!

Favorites: The Book of Leviathan by Peter Blegvad, with bonus links

2011-07-28T23:40:00.000-04:00

In an earlier post I talked about FAVORITES, the new review zine by editor Craig Fischer and Team Cul de Sac, which is a benefit for research into a cure for Parkinson's disease. Here's my humble contribution to this great book.

The Book of Leviathan - Peter Blegvad
reviewed by Gene Kannenberg, Jr.

I don’t think that I could name one, single “favorite” comic of mine - my criteria (if I could articulate them) change as I do, sometimes daily. So when I was invited to contribute an essay to this zine, my brain’s first action was to freeze. What to choose? Who? But soon came the realization that there was one book I tended to show people whenever they asked me to name a great comic they might not have heard of before: The Book of Leviathan by Peter Blegvad.

Originally published in London’s The Independent on Sunday newspaper, “Leviathan” concerns Levi, a faceless, bald baby (descendant of Henry, cousin of Charlie Brown) who, toy rabbit in hand, encounters the world (or is it worlds?) with his cat companion. To call the strip “the adventures” of young Levi and Cat might stretch the term “adventure” a bit, even though they do take some fantastic journeys--including, in one memorable sequence, to Hell. Their travels are just as often linguistic or philosophical as they are ambulatory. Sometimes, they’re even all three (see “So, it’s finally come to this”). Blegvad’s artwork varies in style depending upon the subject matter and needs of the joke (and “Leviathan” is full of jokes). From watercolor to collage to lush linework, the art is always clever in its own right. Themes run the gamut from the fears of new parents to “what is the opposite of bunny?” In short, it’s a comic strip about synesthesia, ontology, and milk.

From high philosophy to the lowest puns, the book is a sheer delight all around. Levi himself would more succinctly sum up his cartoon life with the single word “Dep.” After reading The Book of Leviathan, I’m confident that you would agree with him.

###

Note: Here are some other contributions to FAVORITES, as posted by their authors. As I find more, I'll add them to this list. However, this is still just a taste of the full glory that is FAVORITES. Order your copy today!

“Psalm” by John Porcellino - by Derik A. Badman
On Jaime Hernandez's The Death Of Speedy - by Tom Spurgeon
Walt Simonson and Archie Goodwin’s Manhunter - by Ben Towle

Interview with Me at The Gatekeepers Post

2011-07-27T20:48:00.001-04:00

I was recently contacted by The Gatekeepers Post ("the leading social media book publishing community on the web") to do an author interview, and I happily obliged. You can read my thoughts on writing, ebooks, social media, and more here. Thanks to editor Jeff Rivera for the invite!

"Favorites: A Benefit Zine for Team Cul de Sac" Now Available for Mail-Order!

2011-07-20T11:38:00.000-04:00

Here's the low-down on FAVORITES, a new review 'zine from Team Cul de Sac and editor Craig Fischer. I'm honored to have been invited to contribute an essay to it:

FAVORITES [is] a home-grown zine where notable comics critics, artists and bloggers write their individual answers to a single question: “What is my favorite comic, and why?”
The contributors are an all-star line-up: Derik Badman, Noah Berlatsky, Alex Boney, David Bordwell, Matthew J. Brady, Scott Bukatman, Johanna Draper Carlson, Isaac Cates, Rob Clough, Corey Creekmur, Andrew Farago, Shaenon Garrity, Dustin Harbin, Charles Hatfield, Jeet Heer, Gene Kannenberg Jr., Abhay Khosla, Susan Kirtley, Sean Kleefeld, Costa Koutsoutis, Andrew Mansell, Robert Stanley Martin, Chris Mautner, Joe McCulloch, Ana Merino, Mike Rhode, Jim Rugg, Frank Santoro, Chris Schweizer, Caroline Small, Tom Spurgeon, Ben Towle and Matthias Wivel.
FAVORITES is 40 pages long[.] The cost is $5.00 plus $1.25 shipping and handling. (All the money that isn’t spent on envelopes and postage will go to Team Cul de Sac, and research into a cure for Parkinson’s disease.) Thank you for your support!

I've got my copy, and it's a beauty. There's a real range of comics represented, from proper graphic novels to obscure single-issue mainstream comic books. (My contribution concerns the great LEVIATHAN by Peter Blegvad.) Order your copy of FAVORITES here, learn about some great comics, and help support research into a cure for Parkinson's disease.

Image Credit: Cover illustration for FAVORITES, by Cul de Sac's own Richard Thompson.

CFP: The Comics Get Medieval at PCA (Dec. 1; April 11-14)

2011-07-18T21:52:00.000-04:00

UPDATED CFP
THE COMICS GET MEDIEVAL 2012:
A CELEBRATION OF MEDIEVAL-THEMED COMICS IN COMMEMORATION OF THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF PRINCE VALIANT
CALL FOR PAPERS (PCA: BOSTON, MA 4/11-14/12)
SPECIAL SESSIONS OF THE COMICS & COMIC ART AREA
ORGANIZED BY MICHAEL A. TORREGROSSA AND JASON TONDRO
PROPOSALS DUE TO ORGANIZERS BY 1 DECEMBER 2011

Celebrating our sixth year in 2012, proposals are now being considered for inclusion at “The Comics Get Medieval 2012,” a series of panels and roundtables sponsored by The Virtual Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages and to be hosted by the Comics & Comic Art Area of the Popular Culture Association (PCA) for the 2012 Joint Conference of the National Popular Culture and American Culture Associations to be held from 11-14 April 2012 in Boston, Massachusetts.

The goal of these sessions is to foster communication between medievalists, comics scholars, and specialists in popular culture studies in general. The organizers define “medieval comics” as any aspect of the comics medium (panel cartoons, comic strips, comics books, comics albums, band dessinée, graphic novels, manga, webcomics, comics to film/film to comics, etc.) that feature medieval themes either in stories set during the Middle Ages or in stories presenting some element of the medieval in the post-medieval era. We are also interested in papers looking at medieval comics from a pedagogical perspective.

Completed papers should be delivered in 15-20 minutes (depending on the number of presenters). All proposals will also be considered for inclusion in an essay collection to be edited by the panel organizers in the summer of 2012. (Individuals only interested in submitting for the collection should also send proposals by 1 December 2011 deadline and indicate their preference in the email.)

In addition, a select list of potential topics and a bibliographic guide to medieval comics will appear as part of THE MEDIEVAL COMICS PROJECT web site available at http://MedievalComicsProject.org and THE ARTHUR OF THE COMICS website available at http://Arthur-of-the-Comics.org, both organized by the Virtual Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages.

No later that 1 December 2011, interested individuals (who must be members of PCA or ACA or join for 2012) should submit full contact information (name, address, phone/cell, and email), titles, and abstracts of 300-500 words to the sessions’ organizers, who will then forward them to area chair. Address all inquiries and proposals to the organizers at the following address: Medieval.Comics.Project@gmail.com and include “Comics Get Medieval 2012” in the subject line.

CFP: "The Decorated Page" of Medieval Images and Graphic Novels

2011-07-15T19:55:00.000-04:00

Ooooh, this is very much up my alley! I'd love to be able to attend this...

"The Decorated Page" of Medieval Images and Graphic Novels:

"Sequential Theory" in dialogue with medieval art

International Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, Michigan

10-13 May 2012

We can follow the history of the “Decorated Page” from illuminated medieval manuscripts to the graphic novel, but what if we skip the pesky intervening years from one to the other? That is, what can the theories and analysis of medieval manuscripts, wall paintings or other medieval visual mediums tell us about how we read the graphic novel, and how might the theories behind contemporary graphic novel analysis help us read medieval illustrations and art?

Standing on the shoulders of traditional analysis of medieval images, the use of the visual theories that support analysis of the graphic novel is a way of engaging the images in a postmodern (post medieval) way. Interpreting a manuscript image is probably the most common use, but we can see the potential of “sequential imagery” analysis being used on wall paintings, sculpture, frescoes, friezes and icons.

We invite papers on a wide range of issues and fields, but the dialogue must be between graphic novel theory/practice and medieval art. Proposals should be 300+ words and must clearly indicate the significance, line of argument, principal texts and relation to existing scholarship (if possible). Email the proposal in the body of the message, a 50 word bio note, and a completed Participant Information form (http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html#PIF) to Dominique Hoche at dominique.hoche@westliberty.edu or dominique.hoche@gmail.com . Due September 15, 2011.

For general information about the 2012 Medieval Congress, visit: http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/

CFP: The Comics Get Medieval at Kalamazoo (Sept. 1; May 10-13)

2011-07-15T09:10:00.000-04:00

CALL FOR PAPERS

THE COMICS GET MEDIEVAL AT KALAMAZOO: NEW PERSPECTIVES FOR INCORPORATING COMICS INTO MEDIEVAL STUDIES TEACHING AND RESEARCH
A ROUNDTABLE FOR THE 47TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON MEDIEVAL STUDIES
(WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY, KALAMAZOO, MI) FROM 10-13 MAY 2012

SPONSORED BY THE VIRTUAL SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF POPULAR CULTURE AND THE MIDDLE AGES

PROPOSALS BY 1 SEPTEMBER 2011

(EARLY SUBMISSION RECOMMENDED)

This session has been proposed in an effort to continue and expand upon the conversations initiated in our previous sessions at the Congress (in 2004 and 2008) on the potential uses of the comics in Medieval Studies teaching and research. In prior sessions, we have touched upon both the variety and vitality of the corpus of medieval-themed comics, medievalisms that have been in existence since at least the early part of the twentieth century and that continue to flourish in both the comics (in all its varied forms) and comics-related media, like adaptations into film and television, to this day. A number of characters and series celebrate significant anniversaries in 2012 (for example, Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant will be 75; Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby’s Thor 50; Roy Thomas and John Buscema’s Dane Whitman, the modern-day Black Knight, 45; Dik Browne’s Hägar the Horrible and Kirby’s Etrigan 40; and Mike W. Barr and Brian Bolland’s CAMELOT 3000 30), and we believe this is an ideal time to revisit this material at the Congress, a venue that has long been amiable to the furtherance of discussion of and debate on—goals we have adopted—representations of the medieval in popular culture.

Unlike other forms of medievalism, like film and Tolkieniana, that receive multiple sessions at conferences, like the Congress, each year, medieval-themed comics remain neglected and in need of much further research. Despite the vitality of these long-running series and other comics with medieval themes, the corpus of medieval comics as a whole has largely been ignored (though with a few notable exceptions) by medievalists except as curiosities, a pattern replicated largely in other academic disciplines. However, due to the interdisciplinary nature of Medieval Studies, our field (especially given the welcomeness many medievalists have for medievalisms) is ideally suited to tap into the high potentiality of the corpus for both teaching about the medieval to audiences of all ages, from children to adults, and, like other forms of medievalism, for understanding, through the processes of adaptation and appropriation, the contemporary reception of the medieval in popular culture. The general neglect of the corpus suggests that most medievalists are wary of studying these types of texts, and, in an effort to combat this apparent distrust, we endeavor in this session to create an environment where medievalists, perhaps familiar with some of more celebrated texts, can learn more about these works of popular medievalism. It is our intent that the papers presented at this roundtable will offer new possibilities to access this corpus so we may all come to a greater appreciation of its contents and contexts.

PLEASE SUBMIT PROPOSALS OF 500 WORDS OR LESS, PARTICIPANT INFORMATION FORM (AVAILABLE AT http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html), AND A COPY OF YOUR CV TO THE ORGANIZERS AT Popular.Culture.and.the.Middle.Ages@gmail.com
PLEASE INCLUDE “KALAMAZOO COMICS PROPOSAL” IN THE SUBJECT LINE

FOR FURTHER DETAILS ABOUT MEDIEVAL-THEMED COMICS, WE INVITE YOU TO VISIT OUR WEBSITES AT Arthur-of-the-Comics.org AND MedievalComicsProject.org

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE VIRTUAL SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF POPULAR CULTURE AND THE MIDDLE AGES, PLEASE ACCESS OUR BLOG AT http://PopularCultureandtheMiddleAges.blogspot.com/

iPad App Review - Johnny Cash: I (Can Almost) See a Darkness

2011-07-11T21:34:00.001-04:00

JOHNNY CASH: I SEE A DARKNESS (SOUNDTRACK EDITION) - HD
by Reinhard Kleist
Ave!Comics
$5.99

Full Disclosure: The music of Johnny Cash is in my blood. His songs were my lullabies - and I don't mean that figuratively. When I was little, my parents kept a turntable in my room and a stack of their Cash 45s on the spindle. I'd go to sleep listening to the hits and, if I stayed up late enough, the b-sides. In my memory, these songs still have the vinyl pops and hisses in them, and I know them all note for note.

Needless to say, when I learned about Reinhard Kleist's graphic novel JOHNNY CASH: I SEE A DARKNESS, I was excited. And when I discovered that it was available for the iPad, I jumped on it. I'd been reading and enjoying some free comics (like those from comiXology, and Throwaway Horse's Ulysses "Seen") on my iPad, so I figured that my first actual digital comics purchase was only a matter of time. The fact that DARKNESS for the iPad was a "soundtrack edition" (it plays portions of relevant songs as you read the graphic novel, if they're in your iTunes library) just seemed too cool to pass up.

Story-wise, I SEE A DARKNESS follows the young Johnny Cash up through the concert at Folsom Prison, with a brief coda from the end of his life, at a recording session with producer Rick Rubin. It'll all be a bit familiar to anyone who's seen the WALK THE LINE biopic starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon; much of the plot emphases in both tellings are identical. But DARKNESS focuses almost exclusively on Cash himself - June Carter's role, while pivotal and important, remains rather small. This is definitely a "warts-and-all" presentation of Cash, with his pill-popping and stubbornness central to his portrayal. (I admit, there were times in reading DARKNESS where I did not much like my hero.)

Cash's life story is balanced by two other narrative strands. First is that of Glen Sherley, a Folsom inmate who's obsessed with Cash and who has written a song that he hopes Cash will sing. The second strand is actually a series of occasional song adaptations, all starring variations on Johnny Cash as the various protagonists. These adaptations help to build the mythology behind Cash, just as the main narrative helps to ground his life in reality, and that balance helps make the book sing.

A final word about the story-telling: Kleist's renderings are beautiful. His Johnny Cash is particularly impressive, always recognizable no matter what age he is supposed to be. More than just photographically realistic, the images live and breathe. This is fine cartooning.

While overall I was impressed with the book as a graphic novel, as an iPad app it leaves much to be desired. First, the "soundtrack" option simply doesn't work very well. The song snippets don't always play when they're supposed to - they usually only played a while after the relevant portion of the narrative had already passed. This problem was accentuated when re-entering the app after using another app (I did not manage to read the entire book in one sitting) - not only did the songs seem to get progressively later, but once the app even lost my place entirely, and I had to re-find my page (there is no bookmark feature that I could find).

But music is only an add-on, one that's peripheral to the reading experience. More importantly, the book itself has a serious display problem. You really only can read it in the "animated frame," or panel-by-panel view. The "full page" view, bizarrely, uses only a portion of the screen, not its entirety, as you can see below:

The lettering in the book is on the small side to begin with, so when the page is presented at this miniscule size, the lettering is pretty much indecipherable. You can pinch the image to make it fill the screen, but (1) you'd need to pinch and hold on every single page, since as soon as you stop pinching, the image reverts to its original size, and (2) the resolution is such that, when you enlarge the images, they get blurry and hard to read. I cannot understand why an app designed for the iPad fails to make use of the entire screen. And even in the panel-by-panel view, there's lots of wasted screen real estate.

The app also seems generally unstable. Occasionally during the animated frame presentation, usually when it was showing a full-page panel, the display would get stuck in a loop, zooming in and out and back again. And several times the app simply crashed for no apparent reason.

If I had it to do over again, I would have spent the extra money and purchased the printed book instead of the iPad app. The innovation of having relevant music play as you read doesn't work as well as it should, and the lack of a real full-screen reading experience is a definite disappointment. JOHNNY CASH: I SEE A DARKNESS is a book that deserves a better presentation.

CFP: Appropriating, Interpreting, and Transforming Comic Books

2011-06-30T10:41:00.000-04:00

FYI.

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) will publish a special issue devoted to comics and comic fandom in 2013. TWC seeks theoretically informed essays that explore how dedicated fans as well as the broader public have appropriated, interpreted, re-invented and transformed comic books and comic book characters to define visions of themselves, their groups, and their relation to broader society, both national and global. The deadline for submission is 1 April 2012.

Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) is a Gold Open Access international peer-reviewed journal published by the Organization for Transformative Works that publishes articles about popular media, fan communities, and transformative works, broadly conceived. TWC's aim is twofold: to provide a publishing outlet that welcomes fan-related topics, and to promote dialogue between the academic community and the fan community.

For the full CFP, visit the website at
http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/announcement/view/20

Joint International Conference of Graphic Novels, Bandes dessinées and Comics 2011 (UK)

2011-06-27T20:55:00.001-04:00

A conference announcement of definite interest; I dearly wish I were able to attend! Click here for the conference website.

Joint International Conference of Graphic Novels, Bandes dessinées and Comics 2011

The comic strip, having been viewed as a lower form of art for decades, is increasingly being recognised as a phenomenon worthy of academic study. We are therefore proud to be hosting a major academic conference on comics, bandes dessinées and graphic novels at MMU from 5-8 July 2011.
We have had a fantastic response to our Call for Papers from people all over the world. This has enabled us to put on one of the very rare four day events of its kind , at what we hope is a reasonable price.

Given the response, we shall have two sets of parallel sessions running all day. The first two days will concentrate on Anglophone comics and manga. The second two days centre on European comics.

The keynote speakers are :

the American artist Melinda Gebbie
the English Artist and Writer, Hunt Emerson
the French artist Edmond Baudoin
Professor Pierre Fresnault-Deruelle from the Sorbonne University, Paris.

Other speakers include established experts such as Bart Beaty, Martin Barker and Ann Miller. However, we also pleased to welcome younger scholars and postgraduates.

The main themes of this conference are space and time in comics and audiences and readership. We also have panels on much else, including comics and gender, architecture and Francophone Africa. It is hoped that this conference will be a major landmark in the international study of comics.

The conference is being organised with the support of:

the Alliance Française de Manchester
Institute of Humanities & Social Science Research at MMU
Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design (MIRIAD)

and under the aegis of scholarly peer-reviewed journals :

European Comic Art
Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics
Studies in Comics

Papers given at conference will be considered for publication in one of these journals.

Comics Get Medieval 2012 Call for Papers

2011-05-17T19:10:00.000-04:00

THE COMICS GET MEDIEVAL 2012:
A CELEBRATION OF MEDIEVAL-THEMED COMICS IN
COMMEMORATION OF THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF PRINCE VALIANT
CALL FOR PAPERS (PCA: BOSTON, MA 4/4-7/12)
SPECIAL SESSIONS OF THE COMICS & COMIC ART AREA
ORGANIZED BY MICHAEL A. TORREGROSSA AND JASON TONDRO
PROPOSALS DUE TO ORGANIZERS BY 1 DECEMBER 2011

Celebrating our sixth year in 2012, proposals are now being considered for inclusion at “The Comics Get Medieval 2012,” a series of panels and roundtables sponsored by The Virtual Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages and to be hosted by the Comics & Comic Art Area of the Popular Culture Association (PCA) for the 2012 Joint Conference of the National Popular Culture and American Culture Associations to be held from 4-7 April 2012 in Boston, Massachusetts.

The goal of these sessions is to foster communication between medievalists, comics scholars, and specialists in popular culture studies in general. The organizers define “medieval comics” as any aspect of the comics medium (panel cartoons, comic strips, comics books, comics albums, band dessinée, graphic novels, manga, webcomics, comics to film/film to comics, etc.) that feature medieval themes either in stories set during the Middle Ages or in stories presenting some element of the medieval in the post-medieval era. We are also interested in papers looking at medieval comics from a pedagogical perspective.

Completed papers should be delivered in 15-20 minutes (depending on the number of presenters).

All proposals will also be considered for inclusion in an essay collection to be edited by the panel organizers beginning in late 2011/early 2012. (Individuals only interested in submitting for the collection should also send proposals by 1 December 2011 deadline and indicate their preference in the email.)

In addition, a select list of potential topics and a bibliographic guide to medieval comics will appear as part of THE MEDIEVAL COMICS PROJECT web site available at http://MedievalComicsProject.org and THE ARTHUR OF THE COMICS website available at http://Arthur-of-the-Comics.org, both organized by the Virtual Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages.

No later that 1 December 2011, interested individuals (who must be members of PCA or ACA or join for 2012) should submit full contact information (name, address, phone/cell, and email), titles, and abstracts of 300-500 words to the sessions’ organizers, who will then forward them to area chair.

Address all inquiries and proposals to the organizers at the following address:

Medieval.Comics.Project@gmail.com and include “Comics Get Medieval 2012” in the subject line.

John A. Lent Scholarship in Comics Studies Deadline Approaching

2011-05-14T21:43:00.000-04:00

JOHN A. LENT SCHOLARSHIP

IN COMICS STUDIES

DEADLINE APPROACHING

The International Comic Arts Forum (ICAF) is proud to hold each year the John A. Lent Scholarship in Comics Studies competition. The Lent Scholarship, named for pioneering teacher and researcher Dr. John Lent, is offered to encourage student research into comic art. ICAF awards the Lent Scholarship to a current student who has authored, or is in the process of authoring, a substantial research-based writing project about comics. (Preference is given to master’s theses and doctoral dissertations, but all students of comics are encouraged to apply.)

The Scholarship is subject to the condition that the recipient present a half-hour talk, based on her or his research, during ICAF, held this year September 29 - October 1 at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT. The award consists of up to US$500 in kind to offset the cost of travel to and/or accommodations at the conference. A commemorative letter and plaque are also awarded. No cash is awarded.

Applicants must be students, or must show acceptance into an academic program, at the time of application. For example, applicants for ICAF 2011 would have to show proof of student status for the academic year 2010-2011, or proof that they have been accepted into an academic program beginning in academic year 2011-2012.

The Scholarship competition is adjudicated by a three-person committee chosen from among the members of ICAF’s Executive Committee. Applications should consist of the following written materials, sent electronically in PDF form:

A self-contained excerpt from the project in question, not to exceed twenty (20) double-spaced pages of typescript.
A brief cover letter, introducing the applicant and explaining the nature of the project.
The applicant’s professional resume.
A brief letter of reference, on school letterhead, from a teacher or academic advisor (preferably thesis director), establishing the applicant’s student status and speaking to her/his qualifications as a researcher and presenter.

PLEASE NOTE that applications for the Lent Scholarship are handled entirely separately from ICAF’s general Call for Proposals. Students who submit abstracts to the general CFP are welcome to apply separately for the Lent Award.

The deadline for the next Lent Scholarship is June 10, 2011. Please send application materials via email to José Alaniz (josealaniz23@gmail.com) of the ICAF Executive Committee.

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!!

For more on this year's ICAF conference, see http://www.internationalcomicartsforum.org/2011-conference-info.html .

The 2nd conference on Comics and Politics- Comics, Censorship and Freedom of Expression / Ben-Gurion university, Beer-Sheva & the Comics' museum, Holon [Israel] 05/16-17

2011-05-04T16:06:00.000-04:00

This conference was just announced on the Comics Scholars Discussion List. For information, see the website: http://www.europebgu.org.il/?p=297

CFP: The Far Right and Visual Politics (coll. vol.), 31.10.11

2011-04-29T14:03:00.000-04:00

Call for Chapters
The Far Right and Visual Politics
Editor: Fabian Virchow

(University of Applied Sciences Duesseldorf, Germany)
Deadline for proposals: 31 October 2011
Deadline for article: 15 June 2012

Expose
Although far right movements and political parties in the first half of the 20th century have paid great attention to their visual performance this dimension has not gained much of researchers’ interest for the post WW II period. This volume aims at investigating the use far right protagonists make of images and drawings as a crucial resource for the symbolic definition of political events and as a means to express their world view.

Post WW II far right movements and parties have displayed and disseminated myriads of visual material amongst which Youtube videos are some of the most recent expressions. Visual imagery has for decades been used to illustrate and support written statements (e.g. on leaflets) or has been combined with relatively short verbal messages (e.g. stickers and posters). Photographs and video foo-tage, drawings and cartoons are loaded with political and psychological potential; far right protagonists might refer to a powerful visual register in order to evoke implicit or explicit associations they expect to be supportive for far right politics.

The edited volume aims at presenting various approaches to this complex and multifaceted dimen-sion of far right politics and at combining both the breadth and the depth of research and exhibition in the various disciplines concerning this issue. Following a multi-disciplinary approach, contributions from media studies, sociology, political science, history, ethnography, visual sciences, critical dis-course analysis, and rhetoric are highly welcomed. Submissions should highlight original thought and critical thinking dealing with, for example, but not limited to the following themes:

visualizing of far right leaders/leadership
visualizing of race relations
visualizing of gender roles and gender relations
use of stickers and posters and their graphical composition
design of banners at demonstrations
use and composition of (images in) video-clips
creation and outline of comic strip characters
creation of graffiti and murals
visual registers far right protagonists refer to
visual images of the far right in the main stream media

Review Procedures and Authors’ Guidelines
All contributions will be refereed by at least two international reviewers in a double-blind review process. Upon acceptance of your proposal, you should prepare your chapter of 8,000-10,000 words or 60,000-70,000 characters including abstract, tables, listings and references. Guidelines for preparing your paper will be sent to you upon acceptance of your proposal.

Publication
This book will be published by Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften (VS) (www.vs-verlag.de). VS is part of the Springer Science+Business Media Group (www.springer.com) and is one of the leading German-speaking publishers in the field of social sciences. VS is currently expanding its range of English-speaking titles. The book will be published in the book series »Edition Rechtsextremismus« (»Edition Right-Wing Extremism«) edited by Fabian Virchow and Alexander Häusler who are affiliated to the Research Unit on Right-Wing Extremism at the University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf, Germany.

Inquiries and Submissions
Authors are invited to submit a chapter proposal until October 31, 2011, clearly explaining the mission and concerns of his/her proposed chapter. The chapter proposal (circa 1,200 words or 8,400 characters) should comprise a (preliminary) title, author/s, the basic idea, theoretical assumptions, methodology approach, the empirical material and most relevant references.

Pleasesend your submission together with a short CV as a pdf-file and as a word-file e-mail attachment with [FR-VP proposal] or [FR-VP inquiry] in the subject line. Virus-infected and unreadable files will not be considered.

Proposals are to be sent to

Prof. Dr. Fabian Virchow
fabian.virchow@fh-duesseldorf.de
Head of Research Unit on Right-Wing Extremism at the University of Applied Sciences, Duesseldorf
Düsseldorf/Germany/27-04-2011

CFP: Comics and Popular Arts Conference - Dragon*Con (May 15; Sept. 2-5)

2011-04-27T12:41:00.000-04:00

Call for Participation / Call for Abstracts
Institute for Comics Studies
Comic Book Convention Conference Series
4th ANNUAL

COMICS & POPULAR ARTS CONFERENCE

at DRAGON*CON
Atlanta, Georgia September 2-5, 2011

The Institute for Comic Studies and Dragon*Con present their fourth annual academic conference for the studies of comics and the popular arts. The conference will take place at Dragon*Con, the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the US. For more info on Dragon*Con, visit http://dragoncon.org

Please submit a proposal that engages in substantial scholarly examinations of comic books, manga, graphic novels, anime, science/speculative fiction, fantasy, or other parts of popular culture. A broad range of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives is being sought, including literary and art criticism, philosophy, linguistics, history, and communication. Proposals may range from discussions of the nature of the comics medium, analyses of particular works and authors, discussions of the visual language of comics and manga, comics and pop culture in the classroom, cross-cultural and cross-medium comparisons, and more. We're open to any topics relevant to the study of comics and the popular arts.

More information, including programs and topics from previous years can be found at the conference website:

http://utdallas.edu/~mattbrown/DragonCon.html

This conference at Dragon*Con represents the Institute for Comics Studies' mission to promote the study, understanding, and cultural legitimacy of comics and to support the discussion and dissemination of this study and understanding via public venues.

DEADLINE: May 15, 2010

Please submit your proposals at:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dFlZTU5JVDFYMW1PWWVoT183LVF3N3c6MQ

Send any questions to: thehangedman@gmail.com
Participants must register for the convention. Information can be found here:

http://dragoncon.org/members.php#DC_Memb

Prospective participants are welcome to submit a guest application to Dragon*Con in advance at the following address:

http://dragoncon.org/dc_guest_app.php

Acceptance to the academic conference is no guarantee of "guest" status at the convention. In the past, no presenters have received guest status simply for participating in the conference. Dragon*Con is a fan convention and only gives VIP status to celebrity guests. Most presenters and creators pay their own way to the convention.

Conference Coordinator: Matthew J. Brown, UT Dallas
Conference Co-coordinator: R. Scott Nokes, Troy University
Programming Chair: Damien Williams, Needcoffee.com

CFP: Schoolgirls and Mobilesuits 2011: Culture and Direction (Jun 1; Sept 29-Oct 2)

2011-04-20T20:34:00.000-04:00

The 11th Annual Schoolgirls and Mobilesuits (SGMS) Workshop Presents:

The 1st Annual Mechademia Conference

SGMS 2011: Culture and Direction

September 29th-October 2nd, 2011

Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD)

Submission Information:

Abstracts of no more than 200 words for presentations of 20 minutes are due by 1 June 2011 via email to <sgms@mcad.edu>. Please include institutional affiliation, if applicable. Authors will be notified by 15 July 2011. Presentations may be selected for publication in the Mechademia book series.

2011 Featured Speakers:

Dr. Marc Hairston

Research Scientist, William B. Hanson Center for Space Science

The University of Texas at Dallas

Dr. Thomas LaMarre

Professor of East Asian Studies

Associate in Art History and Communications Studies

McGill University

Dr. Sharalyn Orbaugh

Professor of Asian Studies and Women’s Studies, University of British Columbia Former Visiting Professor, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto

Schoolgirls and Mobilesuits (SGMS) is an internationally-recognized, three-day workshop that explores and celebrates anime and manga. Through its unique merger of academic and fan audiences, SGMS engages both anime’s and manga’s creative and cultural implications and practices.

The 11th Annual SGMS Workshop marks the beginning of our second decade with a combination of festivities, including the Otaku bazaar, the Full Fashion Panic fashion show (i.e., part of Minnesota Fashion Week), as well as anime and J-drama screenings. Since its inception in 2001, the annual SGMS Workshop has emerged as the cutting-age venue for discussions about and presentations on the global proliferation of Japanese manga and anime. Workshop topics have included foci on a wide-array of issues in manga and anime production and reception, from creative processes, cultural formations, and aesthetic implications, to fan fascination with and audience wonder at the remarkably broad range of objects and practices.

As the SGMS Workshop evolved, it spawned the critically acclaimed Mechademia book series, published by the University of Minnesota Press. The heart and soul of Mechademia is found in the work of SGMS: Its invited speakers as well as the growing wave of young scholars and creators.

This year, the SGMS Workshop announces its first annual Mechademia Conference focused on scholarly work on manga and anime. Institutionally-affiliated as well as independent scholars are encouraged to submit individual or panel proposals related to the conference theme of “Creation and Direction.” Scholars at any level, including graduate students and undergraduates, are encouraged to apply. Authors of selected proposals will be invited to present at SGMS’s Mechademia Conference, potentially as part of the popular “Mechademia Emerging Scholars” panels. Presentations may be selected for publication in the Mechademia book series.

The theme, “Culture and Direction,” provides for a play of ambiguous “directions,” and the Mechademia Conference organizers welcome paper or panel submissions on any of the following themes, as well as on related themes not directly indicated:

• Analyses of specific artifacts, creators, or directors

• Future directions of manga and anime

• New technologies and influences, such as keitai novels

• Historical directions of mange and anime

• Cultural implications of manga and anime

• New directions in fan cultures

• Structural directions in historical and contemporary work

• Old and new narrative and visual directions in manga and anime

• Emerging topics in manga and anime

Submissions: Abstracts of no more than 200 words for presentations of 20 minutes are due by 1 June 2011 via email to <liberal_arts@mcad.edu>. Abstracts can be for individual speakers or for prearranged panels of 3-4 speakers (i.e., if proposing a prearranged panel, include a 200 word abstract for each paper as well as a 200 word abstract for the panel in its entirety). Please indicate “Mechademia Conference Submission” in the email subject line. Accepted authors will be notified by 15 July 2011. Panelists accepted for the conference must confirm and pay the conference registration fee by 15 August 2011.

Conference Registration: Conference registration is available online at <http://mcad.edu/sgms>. Conference registration includes entrance to all SGMS events, festivities, and refreshments. The conference registration fee of $85 for presenters, and $100 in advance or on site for non-presenters. The student registration fee is $50 (i.e., MCAD students pay a reduced registration fee of $25). A valid student identification is required for the reduced student rate. Panelists accepted for the conference must confirm their intent to present, and pay the conference registration fee, by 15 August 2011. Non-presenters can register online in advance, or on-site during the conference.

Accommodations: The conference organizers have reserved rooms at a reduced rate at the Millennium Hotel in downtown Minneapolis and in close proximity to the campus of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Confirmed SGMS 2011 Invited Speakers:

Dr. Thomas LaMarre is Professor of East Asian Studies and Associate in Art History and Communications Studies at McGill University. His books include Shadows on the Screen: Tanizaki Jun’ichirô on Cinema and Oriental Aesthetics (2005); Uncovering Heian Japan: An Archaeology of Sensation and Inscription (2000); Impacts of Modernity (co-edited with Kang Nae-hui, 2003), a book on anime and media entitled Difference in Motion. LaMarre works on the editorial boards of positions, Traces, transtextes/transcultures, and is an Associate Editor for Mechademia. His latest book is The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation (University of Minnesota Press, 2009).

Dr. Marc Hairston is a Research Scientist at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he investigates space weather and the study of the Earth’s upper atmosphere, its magnetic field, and the aurora using satellite data from NASA and the Air Force. He has written numerous articles for Animerica, and is a long time favorite speaker at SGMS. As part of the public outreach to middle and high school science students, Hairston developed the comic character “Cindi,” an android space girl. Cindi has starred in two manga-styled comic books, and is part of the only manga series paid for by NASA. In 1999, Hairston and Dr. Pamela Gossin co-taught the first mainstream literature course at a U.S. college that included anime and manga as part of its required texts. Hairston serves currently as editorial board member and reviewer for Mechademia.

Dr. Sharalyn Orbaugh is Professor with appointments in both Asian Studies and Women’s Studies at the University of British Columbia. She is former Visiting Professor at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. Her publications include among many others “Sex and the Single Cyborg: Japanese Popular Culture Experiments in Subjectivity," currently under review at the University of Minnesota Press; guest editing a special issue on manga for the U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal; and “Creativity and Constraint in Amateur Manga Production” and “Busty Battlin’ Babes: the Evolution of the Shôjo in 1990s Visual Culture” in Gender and Power in the Japanese Visual Field (Hawai’i University Press, 2003) .

Past SGMS Workshop participants have inclued ABe Yoshitoshi, Tomoko Taniguchi, Sean Michael Wilson, Paul Benjamin, Helen McCarthy, Maki Isaka, Susan Napier, Patrick Drazen, Christopher Bolton, Thomas LaMarre, Sharon Kinsella, Masami Toku, Antonia Levi, Gilles Poitras, Brent Allison, Brian Ruh, Marc Hairston, Udon, Tania del Rio, Theresa Winge, Trina Robbins, Peter Paik, Crispin Freeman, C.B. Cebulski, Jeremy Ross, Wendy Siuyi Wong, Tim Lehman, Dennis Lo, Christopher Schons, Robert Ten Pas, Phil Anderson, Ke Jiang, Erik Lervold, Jeana Jorgensen, Lea Hernandez, Frenchy Lunning, Samantha Rei, and Verssen Werks.

Call for Workshops: Zine Librarians (un)Conference (no deadline listed; July 8-9)

2011-04-20T14:17:00.000-04:00

From http://zines.barnard.edu/zluc/2011/call-for-presentations

Call for Workshops:

Zine Librarians (un)Conference, ZL(u)C 2011

Milwaukee, Wisconsin July 8-9, 2011

Calling all zine collectors, information activists, underground bibliographers and barefoot librarians! We’re seeking librarians of all stripes to lead a workshop or discussion at the 2nd bi-annual (un)conference of zine librarians!

We are interested in hosting informational skillshares that might include hands-on activities, or showcase what your library has accomplished. Your workshop could describe a task, approach, or scheme that would be of interest to fellow zine librarians. We are open to new ways of approaching zine librarianship, whether your collection is housed in an institutional, public, or community library or archive.

Workshops will be scheduled into the rest of the events that will occur on July 8 and 9, 2011 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Facilitated discussions and other events will also be worked into the schedule of events by participants at the conference, in the style of bar camp and other unconferences.

Scheduled events will include a zine reading (the culmination of the Orderly Disorder: Librarian Zinesters in Circulation Tour and tours of local zine libraries, including the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Special Collections and the Queer Zine Archive Project.

The first Zine Librarians (un)Conference was held in Seattle, Washington in March 2009 at Zine Archive and Publishing Project (ZAPP), to great success. A mini zine librarians conference was held last summer at the Portland Zine Symposium. The second bi-annual (un)conference is to be held July 8-9, 2011 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For more information, or to propose a workshop, visit http://mkezluc.wikispaces.com

Join the Zine Librarians discussion list to discuss!

CFP: Audiences and Readership (May 1; Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics)

2011-04-18T20:37:00.000-04:00

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics

Special Issue Call for Papers

Audiences and Readership

Final Deadline: 1 May

At the Graphic Novels and Comics Conference 2010, a major issue identified by the plenary panel as crucial for future directions regarding comics research was that of audiences and readership. Martin Barker, who pioneered and championed comics research when it was unfashionable, reinforced this issue when reviewing the conference in the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics noting, ‘it is striking to me…that no-one is currently following through to ask any of the questions we can and should, about readers, collectors, reviewers, circuits of reception, or even the longer-term shifting public status of comics.’ Whilst there has been some excellent work researching comics audiences and readership, this is currently, as Martin suggests, a largely neglected area. In summarising work in this area, Barker’s works on ideology (1989) readers (1993, 1997) and censorship (1984) examine the ways audiences consume such texts. Gibson’s work on female comics readers (2003a&b) demonstrates the ways comics influence identity construction and the transgressive reading practices of some female fans. She has also written on historical children’s comic collecting in Britain (2008) and tentatively begun work on British manga audiences (2007). In addition, Wright’s work on the development of the comics industry and distribution practices shows how audiences are influenced by but also influence comics creation and production (2001). However, as Martin suggested there is scope for many more sustained explorations of comics audiences and readership.

This issue aims to open up debates in comics audiences and readership. Accordingly we are looking for papers about (but not confined to) the following areas surrounding audiences and readership:

• Fandom, niche markets and subcultures

• Censorship

• Globalization, localities

• Readership.

Read the full call for papers for more information: http://bit.ly/Audiences

CFP: Time, Sequence & Technology: Book Art in the 21st Century (CBAA; June 1)

2011-04-16T21:05:00.000-04:00

Time, Sequence & Technology:

Book Art in the 21st Century

We invite papers on on the use of time and sequence in the form and content of both contemporary and historical books, including explorations of the boundaries of what a book can be, or may become, in today's digital landscape. Issues of materiality, concept, theory and criticism in studio practice, curatorial practice, book history and pedagogy are all welcome. We also invite papers that focus on various technologies used in the studio practices of printing and assembling of books, from traditional methods through cutting edge digital design and production.

Proposals for panel presentations by groups who wish to explore a specific topic in a more organized fashion are also welcome. All presenters need to be members of CBAA by the date of their conference registrations.

College Book Art Association is a non-profit organization committed to the teaching of book art at the college and university level. The Association strives to support education about book art, and is also concerned with both the practice and analysis of the medium. It welcomes as members everyone involved in such teaching and all others who have similar goals and interests. The association aims to engage in a continuing reappraisal of the nature and meaning of the teaching of book art.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
Proposal submissions must be submitted via the online submission manager <http://cbaa.submishmash.com/Submit/4380/Submission
Your proposal may come in the form of either a pdf, or a word document. Please do not include name or contact information on the proposal itself as all submissions will be subject to blind review. Detailed submission instructions can be downloaded here <http://www.collegebookart.org/Resources/CBAA%20Conferences/2012/Instructions%20for%20Uploading%20Your%20CALL%20FOR%20PAPER%20Submission.pdf

Individual proposals: Proposal should take the form of a 200-250 word abstract for a 20-minute talk or artist presentation. Accepted proposals will be grouped into panels of talks with compatible themes or approaches.

Pre-formed Panel proposals: Pre-formed panels should have a designated moderator and 3 presenters giving 20 minute talks or 3-4 presenters for a roundtable discussion. The proposal should take the form of a 200-250 word overview from the moderator plus individual
200-250 word abstracts from each of the participants. All abstracts must be submitted in one PDF or Word document.

Student Proposals: <http://www.collegebookart.org/Default.aspx?pageId=952104 Students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels are encouraged to submit proposals for individual presentations or pre-formed panels by following the guidelines for individual or pre-formed panels above. In addition, student members have the option of submitting a proposal for the student panel of Lightning Talks (see below). While students are welcome to submit proposals for both an individual presentation and a lightning talk, only one proposal will be accepted for inclusion in the conference. Student members will need to submit a copy of their current student dated I.D. or a letter from their institution stating that they are currently enrolled in order to be eligible to be on the student panel.

In an effort to promote original scholarship in the field of academic book art, abstracts submitted to CBAA should not be concurrently submitted for consideration to another conference.

SUBMISSION DEADLINES:

Abstracts must be received no later than June 1st, 2011. Submissions received after this date
will not be considered for acceptance.

June 1, 2011: Deadline for submission of proposals

August 1, 2011: Notification of acceptance or rejection of proposals

September 1, 2011: Deadline for confirmation of acceptance by presenters.

CONTACT

Julie Chen, CBAA 2012 Conference Programs Chair
Email:jchen@mills.edu

CFP: Anime and Manga Studies Symposium (May 20; July 1-4)

2011-04-13T12:06:00.000-04:00

Call for Papers / Call for Speakers:
Anime Expo

Anime and Manga Studies Symposium
(July 1 – July 4, Los Angeles, CA)
DEADLINE: May 20, 2011

The continuing popularity of Japanese comics and animation outside Japan has been a topic of interest to scholars across a wide range of disciplines, fields and approaches. However, much of the English-language research and writing on anime and manga has taken place on an ad-hoc basis, and until recently, there has been relatively little sense of a persistent community of anime/manga scholars.

Capitalizing on the growing prominence of scholarly approaches to Japanese popular culture, Anime Expo, the largest and most popular gathering for fans of Japanese visual culture in the U.S. will be hosting a track of themed sessions exploring how anime and manga can have a place in scholarly discussion. AX 2011 will be held from July 1 to July 4 at the Los Angeles Convention Center (Los Angeles, CA).

The track will present a unique opportunity for scholars at all levels to share their research and thinking directly with a general, non-academic audience while also interacting with other academic speakers from across a range of disciplines. It will consist of three themed roundtable discussions and three sessions for individual papers.

Roundtable discussions

Roundtable session 1:
Theoretical perspectives on Japanese visual culture

The complex, complicated world of Japanese animation and comics yields itself to many different approaches. Fairly straight-forward close readings, modes of analysis based in particular schools of thought, examinations of the roles of authors and creators, producers, distributors and the global audience all have a part in anime and manga studies

How do anime/manga studies fit into existing theoretical approaches to studying visual
culture?
What is the relationship between particular theoretical approaches and the kinds of questions that anime/manga scholars can ask?
Are some modes of inquiry in anime/manga studies overused – and are there others that are underutilized?
Does anime/manga studies in the U.S. differ markedly from how these topics are approached in Japan and elsewhere in the world?

Roundtable session 2:
Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli: Anime's contribution to world cinema

Hayao Miyazaki is likely the only anime creator to have achieved a measure of real worldwide recognition and acclaim. In many people’s minds, his films are essentially synonymous with Japanese animation as a whole. Not coincidentally, Miyazaki is also the anime director whose work has been examined the most thoroughly and intensively by Western film, media and animation scholars.

Common themes, issues and tropes in the works of Hayao Miyazaki: Their meanings
and purposes
Why has Studio Ghibli achieved such an extraordinary degree of global success?
Miyazaki and commentary on relationships between the natural and human worlds in contemporary Japan?
“Anime because of, or in spite of Ghibli”: What is the relationship between Studio Ghibli and the rest of the Japanese animation industry?

Roundtable session 3:
Teaching, writing and thinking about anime/manga: New directions, new opportunities.

Japanese animation and comics have been common in American high school classes and college programs throughout the last decade, if not more. “Teaching” anime and manga has unique challenges, but also a potentially wide range of results and goals. For its own part, anime and manga studies is an emerging field that must win a place for itself in a disciplinary landscape that is already crowded with fields, directions, and approaches.

How to introduce anime and manga into the classroom at all levels, from high school to graduate
“Studying anime” vs. “anime studies”: Does the field need a label, and what does the
label mean?
Where does “anime studies” take place: Existing, new and prospective areas of research in Japanese visual culture?
Where to next? The real and possible goals of scholarly approaches to Japanese visual culture

The topics listed under each of the roundtable session titles are suggested, not exhaustive, and other approaches and views are welcome!

Individual papers

Speakers are invited to submit proposals for individual 20-minute paper presentations on any topic related to Japanese comics and animation, the anime/manga industry both in Japan and worldwide, and the global anime and manga fandom.

Some of the possible themes and topics can include:

Close readings of particular individual anime and manga texts
Specific reasons for the global popularity of anime and manga
Relationships between anime/manga and other Japanese film and literature
Japanese animation and comics in historical perspective: anime and manga before Tezuka
The role of the creator and director (and individual creators/directors) in the development of anime and manga
Anime/manga promotion, marketing, international licensing and distribution, translation and sales
The activities of anime/manga fans: Fanfiction, cosplay, anime music videos, website development, etc.
A global conversation with Japanese popular culture – Western uses of anime and manga (Animatrix, Batman, Iron Man, Supernatural, etc.)
Beyond anime and manga as we know them: Experimental and non-mainstream Japanese animation and comics
Popular culture responds to reality: The Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and future directions in Japanese visual culture

To participate in one of the panel discussions, or to present an individual paper, please contact Mikhail Koulikov [contact information follows] with your name, and CV. Please provide a brief, 250-word explanation of your viewpoint as a panelist or an abstract for your paper.

All entries must be received by May 18. All speakers will receive complimentary admission to Anime Expo.

- Mikhail Koulikov - mkoulikov@gmail.com

Producer, AX Anime and Manga Studies Symposium
Editor, Online Bibliography of Anime and Manga Research
Co-Moderator, Anime and Manga Research Circle Mailing List

CFP: Northeast PCA - Comics & GN Area (Jun. 1; Nov. 11-12)

2011-04-12T21:50:00.000-04:00

The Northeast Popular/American Culture Association (NEPCA) is pleased to issue a call for papers for its fall conference. NEPCA invites proposals on a wide array of topics pertaining to popular and American culture, broadly construed.

The 2010 NEPCA conference will take place Friday November 11 and Saturday November 12, 2011 on the campus of Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, CT.

Since 1974 NEPCA has invited scholars from New England and New York to be part of an expanding intellectual community. Our annual conferences strive to obtain a balance of graduate students, independent scholars, and full-time faculty members. They are designed to be nurturing conferences where works in progress share intellectual space with established scholarship. NEPCA conferences are also affordable for all.

Email one copy of your proposal (maximum 250 words) and a one page vita to David Program Chair Don Gagnon (gagnond@wcsu.edu). A second copy may also be emailed to the appropriate area chair (Comics and Graphic Novels Area Chair: Lance Eaton lance.eaton@gmail.com). Area chairs and other conference information can be found on the NEPCA Website: http://users.wpi.edu/~jphanlan/NEPCA.html The deadline for submissions is June 1, 2011.

Now Available Online: Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890-1945

2011-04-11T16:19:00.000-04:00

Scholar Ian Gordon has generously placed the entire contents of his book Comic Strips and Consumer Culture, 1890-1945 online for free. Go to Ian's page on Academia.edu to view the book, and sign in to download a PDF of the entire contents. Thank you, Ian!!!

Where I'm At: BEAR-Con, SUNY Potsdam

2011-03-26T10:57:00.000-04:00

This weekend I'm proud to be a special guest of SUNY Potsdam's first (annual, we hope) BEAR-Con. I made the drive up to Potsdam, NY yesterday and enjoyed a bit of the con last night, finally getting to meet organizer Chris Tatro in person, after lots of email correspondence. What is BEAR-Con? Glad you asked!

Bear-Con is a wonderful opportunity to express your fun-loving side. It is a convention that will have many events including card games, board games, video games, table-top games, anime, comic books, science fiction, science fact, discussions on a variety of topics, guest speakers, musicians and much, much more.

I'll be giving two talks today. One is a short presentation I've given before, "Strange Magic: Marvel's 'Dr. Strange' from Comics to Culture"; the other is a new, longer talk, that I've been planning for a while, "Secret Origins of the Graphic Novel." I'll also be on a panel with SUNY Potsdam's Dr. Jim Donahue (my academic liason to the con, with whom I went to grad school back in the day) on "Great Graphic Novels You Should Be Reading." I gave a brief interview to the student newspaper prior to my appearance, which you can read here. I'm looking forward to the con!

CFP: The American ImageText (UK) (March 31; June 18-19)

2011-03-12T19:55:00.000-05:00

University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, June 18-19, 2011
Deadline: Mar 31, 2011

Extended call for papers:

The American Imagetext

'To fasten words again to visible things':

the American imagetext

A two day conference held by the American Studies department at the University of East Anglia

Keynote speakers:
WJT Mitchell:
'The Historical Uncanny: Phantoms, Doubles, and Repetition in the War on Terror'

Miles Orvell:
'The Talking Picture: Speech, Silence, and Ventriloquism in the Discourse of Photography'

When Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that 'America is a poem in our eyes', he was partly expressing the transcendental belief that words and images share a unique and 'radical correspondence' that might enable the poet 'to fasten words again to visible things.' Walt Whitman answered Emerson's call for such a poet, cementing the special relationship that still exists in America between the written word and visual image.

The burgeoning discipline of visual studies is perfectly placed to take the exploration of this relationship in new directions. However, there is at present a tendency in such studies to neglect the roots of language in pictures, and to overlook the importance of visual/textual relations to the expression of American character, culture and identity. Whilst the growth of visual studies is an exciting development, 'visual literacy' remains a nebulous and confusing term, and as a field of academic study, tends not to generate readings outside a tried and trusted sociological and ideological framework. There is a pressing need for scholarship in image - text relations to be made more various, more theoretically adventurous and more culturally and historically penetrating, and for scholarship to place the study of contiguous images and texts in a much deeper cultural history of visual/verbal responses to film and theatre, to landscape and the built environment, to the visual and plastic arts, to contemporary considerations of mixed media texts, illustrated texts, illuminated manuscripts, and more.

This conference invites speakers to consider the product and practice of the interrelations of image and word across disciplines, and in a specifically American context. We encourage a theoretical approach that considers, for example, any aspect of science, historiography, theology, iconology, art history, multicultural and transnational study, film and media studies, poetry scholarship, cognitive psychology.

Please send a one-page abstract for a 20-minute paper that may address, but not be restricted to, any of the following:

Naming and captioning
Reading the visual and verbal
The photographic essay or book
Graphic design; the graphic novel
Lettrism, Hypertexts - fiction and poetry, concrete poetry
Environments and spaces of reception and display- eg the gallery, the museum, the classroom, the church, the home
Ekphrasis
Philosophy
Anthropology and archaeology
Literary use of the physical or imagined image
The use of verbal signs in the visual arts
Verbal and visual ontology
Illustrated texts - fiction or non-fiction
Illuminated manuscripts
Artists' notebooks / scrapbooks
Performance and installation art
Iconography and iconology involving word and image
Image and text in digital media
Image and text in the visual arts, including theatre, film, photography and television
The manifesto as imagetext
Newspapers and broadsides
Street art and graffiti

Please send abstracts to Dr Catherine Gander and Dr Sarah Garland at americanimagetext@gmail.com by March 31st 2011.

Panel suggestions are also welcome. Conference participants may be encouraged to expand and revise their papers for submission to an edited collection of essays.

Registration forms are now available at
http://www.uea.ac.uk/ams/eventsnews/amsevents/americanimagetext

CFP: Society for Comic Studies (Germany) (Mar. 31; Nov. 11-12)

2011-02-27T18:00:00.000-05:00

Gesellschaft für Comicforschung
(Society for Comic Studies – ComFor)
6th Annual Academic Conference
Comics Reporters – Documentary Comics – Comic Biographies
November 11-12, 2011 – University of Passau

Call for Papers in English (pdf):
<http://www.comicgesellschaft.de/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/CfPComFor2011_E.pdf>

Conference website (German):

<http://www.comicgesellschaft.de/?page_id=1406>

CFP: How Seattle Changed Comics (MLA) (March 12; Jan 5-8)

2011-02-26T19:47:00.000-05:00

How Seattle Changed Comics

Call for Papers for a proposed panel at the Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention, 5-8 Jan. 2012, Seattle, Washington.

Sponsored by the MLA Discussion Group on Comics and Graphic Narratives.

Deadline for submissions: 12 March 2011.

http://graphicnarratives.org/2011/02/25/cfp-how-seattle-changed-comics/

The proposed panel would explore how Seattle and its institutions—seminal publisher Fantagraphics; The Comics Journal; independent and minicomix scenes—have transformed contemporary comics and the cultures surrounding it.

Discussion: Seattle is arguably the city that has shaped US comics the most over the past thirty years. The influence of independent publisher Fantagraphics is enormous: Fantagraphics has disseminated the work of many of the world’s most famous contemporary cartoonists, discovering and nurturing young innovative creators in addition to printing established figures in the field. On top of producing, in recent years, key reprint collections by Charles Schulz (Peanuts), E.C. Segar (Popeye) and George Herriman (Krazy Kat), among others, Fantagraphics has championed artists including Crumb, Kominsky-Crumb, Bagge, Burns, Clowes, the Hernandez Bros., Sacco, Tyler, Ware, and Woodring. Fantagraphics also publishes the one-of-a-kind magazine The Comics Journal, the trade venue established in 1976 that through its reviews and interviews showcases the complexity of comics as an art form and filled a deep void in contemporary critical discourse about comics. Further, Seattle is the home of many cartoonists (e.g. Jim Woodring), the setting for many famous comics (e.g. Charles Burns’s Black Hole and Lynda Barry’s Ernie Pook’s Comeek), and a vibrant hub for minicomics, both now and in years past. We welcome papers that propose to study the multifaceted influence on comics of Seattle, its artists, and its institutions.

Possible topics include though are not limited to:

Alternative comics: How did the Seattle comics scene help create, in the wake of the underground comics movement, what became known as alternative comics?
Critical discourse: What kind of critical discourse does The Comics Journal circulate—and how has it contributed to contemporary academic and mainstream journalistic writing on comics?
Serialization: How did the comic book serial as published by Fantagraphics—for instance Clowes’s Eightball, Bagge’s Hate, or the Hernandez Bros.’s Love & Rockets—shape the field of comics?
Reprints: Some have argued that reprints are the wave of the future for comics publishing. How have reprint editions by Fantagraphics and others influenced our sense of the scope of comics?
Formats: How has the vital minicomics scene in Seattle been in conversation with other formats of comics, and what is the future of this form? How might the history of comics in Seattle shed light on the future of comics publishing?
Locale: How has Seattle been represented in comics such as Charles Burns’ masterpiece Black Hole? What versions of Seattle are circulated in comics? Why has Seattle produced so many famous cartoonists? How has Seattle played a role in the larger Pacific Northwest comics culture?

Send 500-word abstracts in .doc or .pdf form to Derek Royal: derek [at] derekroyal [dot] com. Again, the deadline for submissions is 12 March 2011. Submitters will receive notification of results by no later than April 1.

Please note that this CFP is for a proposed, not a guaranteed, session at MLA 2012, meaning that it is contingent on approval by the MLA Program Committee (which will make its decisions after April 1). All prospective presenters must be current MLA members by no later than 7 April 2011.

CFP: Feminism in the Worlds of Neil Gaiman (collection; April 1)

2011-02-24T20:39:00.000-05:00

Call for Essays:

Death, Desire, Fury, and Delirium:

Feminism in the Worlds of Neil Gaiman

Edited by Tara Prescott and Aaron Drucker

Broadly lauded as a landmark writer in comics and fantasy fiction for his depiction of powerful and independent female characters, Neil Gaiman’s uses of feminist tropes and ideologies deserves further exploration. This collection due to be published in early 2012 looks carefully at the broad spectrum of Gaiman’s work and how he interacts with “feminism” through his oeuvre.

The editors of a critical anthology discussing the work of Gaiman in any medium -- including the comics, films, novels, and stories -- and how he assesses, criticizes, valorizes, and revises expectations of feminism, the feminine, and the place and purpose of women in narrative.

Critical analysis of any work by Gaiman will be considered so long as the subject of the article focuses on our topical interest.

Please send 200-300 word abstracts by 01 April 2011 to:

Tara Prescott and Aaron Drucker gaimanandfeminism@gmail.com

If selected, final papers of 4,000 – 6,500 words (including endnotes and references) will be due 01 July 2011. No exceptions. Please note the submission of an essay does NOT necessarily mean publication in the volume. The editors are striving to put together as tight a collection as possible with many diverse viewpoints covering all aspects of Gaiman’s work as it addresses and problematizes contemporary notions of feminism.

Authors are also expected to follow the editor’s style guide and be willing to have their work edited.

For further details, please see the web page for the collection at:
http://web.me.com/penandpaper/gaimanandfeminism

CFP: International Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels (Madrid) (May 31; Nov. 10-11)

2011-02-24T20:06:00.001-05:00

International Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels

“Sites of Visual and Textual Innovation”

Alcalá de Henares, Madrid

November 10th-12th, 2011

The Instituto Franklin – UAH organizes an international conference on comics and graphic novels.

The main objective of the conference is to bring together the largest number of specialists and researchers of comics (graphic novels, manga, BD, etc) in order to reflect on the study of this area.

The theme is “Sites of visual and textual innovation” and it welcomes papers on (but not limited to):

The origins of comics,
Avant-garde and experimental works
Biography and autobiography.

The languages of the conference will be English and Spanish.

Abstracts of approximately 250-500 words can be submitted to graphicnovel@institutofranklin.net . Deadline for acceptance: May, 31st 2011.

Conference will take place at Universidad de Alcalá in Spain.

For further information please visit: http://www.institutofranklin.net/en/congresos/congresos/congresos-futuros/1st-international-graphic-novel-conference/1st-international-g

ORGANIZED BY:
Instituto Franklin - Universidad de Alcalá

Query: "Zzz" for Snoring?

2011-02-21T21:50:00.000-05:00

A friend forwarded this query to me to pass along. If you have any suggestions, please send them directly to James Harbeck via his email address.
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2011 22:44:58 -0500
From: James Harbeck
Subject: zzz?

If I were to want to trace the history of the use of ZZZ for snoring in cartoons, what would be my best way of doing that? I have to assume that there's something better than dumpster-diving old comic books (wherever they even may be found), but I'm not entirely sure where to start looking.

Thanks!

James Harbeck

CFP: Female Superheroes and Media Cultures (Australia) (April 11; August 12-13)

2011-02-21T11:38:00.000-05:00

TIGHTS AND TIARAS:

FEMALE SUPERHEROES AND MEDIA CULTURES

12-13 August 2011

Monash University, Melbourne

Sponsored by: The Centre for the Book, Monash University

In 2010, the 600th issue of Wonder Woman celebrated the Amazonian superhero’s longevity in print media. To mark the occasion, the issue reinvented the superhero’s iconic costume to make it less revealing, introducing dark trousers and a blue, starred jacket. This shift to more practical, less sexualised wear arguably reflects changing attitudes about gender and the growing female presence in the comics industry. Nonetheless, the change prompted some controversy online amongst fan communities, again highlighting the problematic history of the representation of women as powerful figures.

‘Tights and Tiaras: Female Superheroes and Media Cultures’ is a one and a half day interrogation of the construct of the ‘superhero’ as female and more generally of the representation of powerful female figures in fantasy and science fiction. Looking at a range of print and visual media, papers will explore the range of female characters in superhero narratives, the material history of the female superhero, and how visual and textual constructs of female heroes - and anti-heroes - have been re-imagined, re-invented and re-packaged over time.

Possible topics include:

The representation of female superheroes in print and visual media – in comics, comix, graphic novels, novels, short stories, fan fiction, film, television, and other media forms
Distribution of narratives and images of female superheroes across multiple genres and media platforms
The female hero quest
Deconstructing the superhero trope – studies in feminism, patriotism, politics, race, satire, comedy, and so on
Constructs of the female supervillain
Superhero fashions, including costumes, cosplay and sartorial signifiers
Female collaboration in comics
Female comics artists: historical and contemporary
Female comics audiences and fan communities
Analysis of the institutional, commercial and licensing histories of
female superhero properties
The construction of powerful women in fantasy and science fiction genres

Please submit abstracts of no more than 250 words, accompanied by a brief bio, by emailed attachment to Dr Rebecca-Anne Do Rozario (Rebecca.DoRozario@monash.edu). The deadline for abstracts is 11 April, 2011.

CFP: The Material History of Spider-Man (MLA) (Mar. 5; Jan 5-8)

2011-02-12T18:05:00.000-05:00

CFP: The Material History of Spider-Man:

A 50th Anniversary Observance

Call for Papers for a panel at the Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention, 5-8 Jan. 2012, Seattle. This panel will be sponsored by the MLA Discussion Group on Comics and Graphic Narratives (http://graphicnarratives.org)

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Spider-Man’s first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15, this session seeks to examine the histories imbricated in this iconic figure. From his Cold War origins in 1962, to his emergence as a symbol of the counterculture, to his commemoration of indelible moments in 21st-century America (e.g., Amazing Spider-Man #477—the 9/11 issue, or Amazing Spider-Man #583—the Obama issue), Spider-Man’s continuing narrative traces/haunts/aligns with US cultural history in provocative ways. This session seeks to understand what is revealed when one follows these relationships through the proliferation of texts — dozens of different comic book series, several television shows, a number of young adult novels, multiple films and videogames, and myriad other adaptations, including a pending Broadway musical — produced over the fifty-year development of this American icon.

Possible areas of inquiry may include, but are certainly not limited to:

Cold War technology and the origins of Spider-ManThe liberal consensus and the masked hero
Spider-Man and the counterculture
Archives and artifacts: Spider-man and the multimedia trace
Spider-Man on campus
The various Spider-Man comic books as barometers of contemporary culture
Spider-Man and 9/11
The “Civil War” crossover series and the War on Terror
The cultural significance of Spider-Man adapted into other media
Spider-Man in the age of Obama

Send 500-word abstracts in .doc or .pdf form to Derek Royal: derek at derekroyal-dot-com. The deadline for submissions is 5 March 2011. Submitters will receive notification of results by no later than April 1.

Please note that all prospective presenters must be current MLA members by no later than 7 April 2011.

This CFP can also be viewed at the website for the MLA Discussion Group on Comics and Graphic Narratives (http://graphicnarratives.org).

CFP: “Why Comics Are and Are Not Picture Books” (MLA) (Mar 5; Jan 5-8)

2011-02-02T10:38:00.000-05:00

Call for Proposals:

“Why Comics Are and Are Not

Picture Books”

Modern Language Association (MLA) Annual Convention,

5-8 Jan. 2012, Seattle, Washington

A proposed panel jointly sponsored by the MLA Children’s Literature Division and the MLA Comics and Graphic Narratives Discussion Group

This panel will explore the possible relationships between comics and picture books, two imagetext genres implicated in children’s literacy learning which, despite overlapping formally and aesthetically, nonetheless stand apart socially and culturally. The potential application of picture book theory to comics, and, conversely, comics theory to picture books, promises to challenge this apartness—that is, to call into question the generic distinctiveness of the two forms. In that spirit, this panel invites participation from multiple perspectives, including but not limited to genre theory, education, history, formalism, aesthetics, semiotics, and ideological criticism.

Discussion:

Scholars of the picture book (e.g., Nodelman, Nikolajeva and Scott, and op de Beeck) have gestured toward, in some cases briefly addressed, the aesthetics and reading demands of comics. By the same token, comics theorists (see e.g. McCloud’s Understanding Comics and Varnum and Gibbons’ anthology The Language of Comics: Word and Image) have in effect suggested, if not yet pursued, formal likenesses between the genres. Yet the critical dialogue between the genres remains muted. This panel will seek to enliven that dialogue by posing questions such as:

· What formal resources and aesthetic strategies do comics and picture books share? Do they tend to deploy those resources and use those strategies differently?

· What similar or different demands do the two genres make of readers?

· How does the typical experience—if indeed we may posit a typical experience—of reading one genre differ from that of reading the other? For instance, how conducive are comics to what Ellen Spitz calls conversational reading, that is, reading shared by adult and child?

· How do both comics and picture books participate in discourses and projects related to literacy learning and cultural literacy? For example, the possible role of comics in reading instruction has garnered much interest in recent studies (see e.g. Cary 2004; Carter 2007; Frey and Fisher 2008; Thompson 2008)—how might this development be regarded culturally and critically? How might comics differ from or resemble picture books in their classroom use?

The creative dialogue between the two genres has intensified: consider for example comics-oriented picture books by David Wiesner, Art Spiegelman, Eleanor Davis, Posy Simmonds, Peter Sís, Mo Willems, or Marcia Williams; continued interest in classics such as Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen or Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman; and recent genre-blurring texts such as Shaun Tan’s The Arrival or Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret. This proposed session would encourage a critical conversation to match: diverse, energetic, and timely.

Several factors make this an opportune and even urgent topic for MLA 2012, including the many artists who have worked in both genres; the genres’ shared aesthetic and narrative resources, and the relevance of image/text theories to both; the new prominence of comics in both children’s book publishing and reading instruction; and the current struggle of the picture book market to respond to social, educational, economic, and technological change. In addition, this topic well suits MLA 2012’s location in Seattle (a bastion of comics and graphic novels) and its Presidential theme, Language, Literature, Learning, which emphasizes the role of reading in cognitive growth, educational attainment, and critical thinking. These issues are of great concern in the emerging discourse on children’s comics reading, and have always been central to picture book scholarship.

Send abstracts of roughly 500 words in Word or PDF form to Charles Hatfield at charles.hatfield@gmail.com. The deadline for submissions is 5 March 2011. Submitters will receive notification of results by April 1.

Please note that this CFP is for a proposed, not a guaranteed, session at MLA 2012, meaning that it is contingent on approval by the MLA Program Committee (which will make its decisions after April 1). All prospective presenters must be current MLA members by no later than 7 April 2011.

This CFP can also be viewed at http://graphicnarratives.org/2011/02/02/cfp-why-comics-are-and-are-not-picture-books-mla-2012/ .

Query: Linguistic Contributions of Batman

2011-01-24T11:40:00.001-05:00

Here's a query I received from a friend (Hi, Amy!). If you have any citations to pass along, please do so directly to the email address below...

Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2011 08:20:48 -0500
From: "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro@YALE.EDU>
Subject: Linguistic Contributions of Batman

For an article I am writing on the impact of Batman on the English language, I would welcome suggestions of words, phrases, catchphrases, quotations, snowclones, and other linguistic memes originated or popularized by the Batman comic books, TV show, and movies.

Fred Shapiro

Update, 1/25: Dr. Shapiro writes further:
Thanks for the excellent responses to my query about Batman's linguistic contributions. I am hoping some comics mavens can help with me with a followup question. The Batman TV show of the 1960s was famous for its fight-scene onomatopoeic words like biff, bam, and pow. Were these words taken from usage in the specific Batman comic books, or were they general comic-book expressions employed by the Batman TV writers for their campiness?

Call for Panelists - Colloquiums: Comics in the Classroom and Innovations in Comics

2011-01-24T11:27:00.000-05:00

Call for Panelists

Colloquiums: Comics in the Classroom and Innovations in Comics

Phoenix Comicon invites proposals for our second annual colloquium series on innovations that will impact the comics—how they are consumed, collected, and taught. The conference programming will extend over two days, covering the following themes:

Comics in the classroom (May 27):

We are seeking presentations and demonstrations that discuss the benefits and challenges of teaching comics and integrating comics into existing curricula. Possible topics might include:

Challenges and benefits of integrating comics in existing college curricula
Comics in the K-12 classroom
Teaching comics with technology
Online learning strategies to teach comics and visual rhetoric

Innovations in comic art (May 28):

We are seeking presentations and demonstrations of innovative techniques relating to the comics field, including the production of comics. Possible topics might include:

Critical approaches to and innovations in web comics
The shift from traditional illustration methods to digital methods.
Interactive comics and “motion comics”
Challenges of blending mediums (comics to video games, manga to anime, etc)

Respondents are encouraged to expand on these lists in shaping their proposals. Presenters will be asked to make a short presentation, followed by a moderated panel round table and a Q and A session with the audience. Presentations integrating audio and visuals are recommended. Please submit a short abstract of your proposed contribution to Dr. Kathleen Dunley at Kathleen.dunley@riosalado.edu by March 20, 2011. Please note any A/V needs along with your proposal. Proposals will go through a peer review process and those accepted will be notified via email.

More information on the Phoenix Comicon, including lodging information, can be found at our website: http://www.phoenixcomicon.com/.

Women's Manga Beyond Japan (21 – 23 February, 2011)

2011-01-21T12:51:00.000-05:00

Women's Manga Beyond Japan:

Contemporary Comics as Cultural Crossroads in Asia

Date: 21 – 23 February, 2011

Venue: Seminar Room A & B, AS7,

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore

Free Admission (Registration required)

CO-SPONSORS:

National University of Singapore (Japanese Studies Departure)

Japan Foundation

Women’s MANGA Research Project (Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) No. 21320044 “Research in Women's Manga: Subjectivity, Globalization, and the Possibilities for Expression”)

In the last two decades, manga has become a global medium, a transcultural phenomenon which has spread all over the world. There are many reasons why manga has generated such massive international interest. One can be found in the gender-related practices and discourses it gives rise to. Previously prevailing forms of comics, such as American and Franco-Belgian productions, were mainly targeted at male readers, while manga appeals to girls and women as well, both as creators and readers. Manga for girls and women occupy a particular position: the manga style become a favorite means of young women's expression worldwide, and women dominate the realm of fan creations recently; furthermore, girls' and women's comics contribute significantly to exploring gender and sexualities, not limited to heterosexual femininity.

Inviting John. A. Lent as a keynote speaker, a forerunner who has contributed to unite comics, comics artists, and comics scholars all over the world, and focusing on female artists and their works in Asia from both scholarly and artistic perspectives, we would like to examine the ongoing conceptualization of manga, which has perhaps proved more inspiring to female readers and authors than any previous form of comics anywhere in the world.

We hope our international and transcultural approach to women as subjects of sequential art and manga, a new style of visual narrative, will suggest likely points of common interest for various cultures and readers far beyond Japan. The symposium approaches “women's manga/comics” in an inter- as well as transcultural way in order to explore common scholarly interests related to sequential art in general and manga in particular.

Registration

To register, please email your name, dates/panels you would like to attend and contact details to: sheila.tang@nus.edu.sg.

CFP: International Comic Arts Forum 2011 (9/29-10/1)

2011-01-20T18:48:00.000-05:00

The 15th Anniversary

International Comic Arts Forum:

ICAF 2011
September 29-October 1, 2011
The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont
<http://www.internationalcomicartsforum.org>

ICAF, the International Comic Arts Forum, invites scholarly paper proposals for its fifteenth anniversary meeting, to be held at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont, from Thursday, September 29, through Saturday, October 1, 2011.

The deadline to submit proposals is March 18, 2011. (Scroll down for proposal guidelines and submission information.)

ICAF welcomes original proposals from diverse disciplines and theoretical perspectives on any aspect of comics or cartooning, particularly studies that reflect an international perspective. Studies of aesthetics, production, distribution, reception, and social, ideological, and historical significance are all equally welcome, as are studies that address larger theoretical issues linked to comics or cartooning, for example in image/text studies or new media theory. Proposals that focus on bandes dessinées or manga are encouraged.

In recognition of the fifteenth meeting of ICAF, we are hoping to schedule a special panel on larger issues pertaining to the teaching and study of comics. We are therefore particularly interested in papers that address the study of comics as an academic discipline by itself and within other disciplines. This can be focused either in terms of pedagogy (the challenges and pitfalls of how we bring the study of comics into the classroom) or scholarship (the opportunities for and liabilities of doing research in comics in the modern academy, and the concerns about methodology). There will also be a special panel on the representation of History and Alternative Histories in Comics.

The Center for Cartoon Studies <http://www.cartoonstudies.org> is served by the Lebanon NH Municipal Airport. Coach service is also available through Dartmouth Coach from New York City and Logan International Airport in Boston MA.

PROPOSAL GUIDELINES: For its refereed presentations, ICAF prefers argumentative, thesis-driven papers that are clearly linked to larger critical, artistic, or cultural issues; we strive to avoid presentations that are merely summative or survey-like in character. We can accept only original papers that have not been presented or accepted for publication elsewhere. Presenters should assume an audience versed in comics and the fundamentals of comics studies. Where possible, papers should be illustrated by relevant images. Presentations must be timed to finish within the strict limit of twenty (20) minutes. Proposals should not exceed 300 words.

REVIEW PROCESS: All proposals will be subject to blind review by the ICAF Executive Committee. The final number of papers accepted will depend on the needs of the conference program. Due to high interest in the conference, in recent years ICAF has typically been able to accept only one third to one half of the proposals it has received.

AUDIOVISUAL EQUIPMENT: ICAF's preferred format for the display of images is MS PowerPoint. Regretfully, we cannot accommodate non-digital media such as transparencies, slides, or VHS tapes. Presenters should bring their PowerPoint or other electronic files on a USB key.

SEND ABSTRACTS (with complete contact information) by March 18, 2011, to C. W. Marshall, ICAF Academic Program Director, via email at: toph@exchange.ubc.ca

Receipt of all proposals will be acknowledged. Applicants should expect to receive confirmation of acceptance or rejection by April 18, 2011.

Tales from the Green Scrapbook #5: TV Guide on Spider-Man Special Effects

2011-01-16T18:59:00.000-05:00

Being another in our occasional series of scans of items I taped into a green notebook when I was a child...

Journey with me back to 1978. A simpler time than now, when television signals traveled through the airwaves, not cables, but when cables were high-tech special effects gear. Journey, then, to a location shot for The Amazing Spider-Man television show: The Empire State Building, and view the death-defying harness work of Spider-double Fred Waugh. That's right, kids; no green screens or digital compositing. Just a man, a building, and a harness that must have chafed like the dickens. Now that is a special effect.

Source: This time I've got it! TV Guide, September 2, 1978.

CFP: POPCAANZ (New Zealand) (Jan 30; June 29-July 1)

2011-01-15T21:00:00.000-05:00

POPCAANZ

2nd Annual International Conference

June 29-July 1, 2011

The Langham Hotel, Auckland, New Zealand

Call for Papers - deadline for submissions: January 30, 2011

The Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand (Popcaanz) is devoted to the scholarly understanding of everyday cultures. It is concerned with the study of the social practices and the cultural meanings that are produced and are circulated through the processes and practices of everyday life. We invite academics, professionals, cultural practitioners and those with a scholarly interest in popular culture to send a 150 word abstract to the area chairs listed below.

Anime and Manga (Craig.Norris@utas.edu.au)
Business and Popular Culture (s.kelly@business.uq.edu.au)
Disabilities and Popular Culture (d.mcdonald@uq.edu.au)
Fashion (Vicki.Karaminas@uts.edu.au)
Film and TV (rebecca.beirne@newcastle.edu.au)
Food Studies (t.risson@uq.edu.au)
Graphic Novels and Comics (paul.mountfort@aut.ac.nz)
Music (Edward.montano@mq.edu.au)
Popular Biography and Life Writing (Giselle.Bastin@flinders.edu.au)
Popular Design (derham@unimelb.edu.au and prudenceblack@gmail.com)
Popular Fiction (t.johnsonwoods@uq.edu.au)
Popular History (hsuming.teo@mq.edu.au)
Science (b.lott@qut.edu.au)
Sports (c.wical@uq.edu.au)
Toys and Games (JBAINBRIDGE@groupwise.swin.edu.au and juliette.peers@rmit.edu.au)
Visual Arts (adam.geczy@sydney.edu.au)

If you have an idea for a panel please submit to President t.johnsonwoods@uq.edu.au. We also welcome papers exploring ALL other aspects of popular culture.

The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture is the association's official publication. Please submit articles of between 4,000 and 6,000 words to the editors: Toni Johnson-Woods t.johnsonwoods@uq.edu.au or Vicki Karaminas Vicki.Karaminas@uts.edu.au For all other queries contact marketing@intellectbooks.com

For further details please see popcaanz.com

Tales from the Green Scrapbook #4: Conan the Barbarian Newspaper Strip

2011-01-09T20:47:00.000-05:00

Being another in our ridiculously occasional series of scans of items I taped into a green notebook when I was a child...

I was never the world's biggest fan of Conan, either the comics or the original novels. But in September of 1978, when the Conan the Barbarian newspaper comic strip debuted in the Milwaukee Journal (and many other newspapers across the land), I dutifully fulfilled my comic-book-nerd duty and saved the article announcing the strip for posterity.

Not being a huge fan, I consequently don't have too much to say about the article now. It reads mostly well to me today, a switch from some of the previous entries I've posted here under the "Tales from the Green Scrapbook" rubric. It hits the high points I knew about, and it hypes Roy Thomas' writing and, to a lesser extent, Jon Buscema's artwork, to the proper degrees.

So all that's left for me to do is to apologize for (1) not noting the actual publication date when the article was published, and (2) cramming things together and making it all so hard to read. Still, I hope you enjoy it for what it is, a time capsule into a bygone era when an adventure comic strip could be launched in the newspapers and have the faintest hope of being popular. (Not that Conan particularly was all that popular as a strip; I'm not sure how long it lasted, but it couldn't have been for too long.)

CFP: Comics and Conflicts (UK) (Mar 31; Aug 19-20)

2011-01-05T21:04:00.000-05:00

Roehampton University in association with Comica Festival

and Panel Borders on Resonance FM present the 2011 Conference

Comics and Conflicts

August 19th & 20th,

Imperial War Museum, London

Roehampton University Department of English and Creative Writing in association with the Imperial War Museum and Comica Festival welcome papers that explore the ways in which comics around the world represent and articulate the experience and impact of war and conflict. The Conference is aimed at scholars, practitioners, and enthusiasts.

Topics may include:

Depictions of Conflict in comics created for children
Representations of trauma in comic books, graphic novels, manga & other forms of international comics.
Visual representations of conflict in such places as Afghanistan, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Korea, The Middle East, Northern Ireland, and Vietnam.
Journalism, biography, and memoir in comics on conflict
Focus on key practitioners such as Guibert, Kubert, Mills, Sacco, Satrapi, Spiegelman, Tardi & Trudeau
Comics as a space to depict/critique national ideology.
Comics as tools of propaganda, both of the state and of protest organisations.

Keynote Speakers:

Pat Mills, writer of Charley’s War
Martin Barker and Roger Sabin on Doonesbury

Special Guest Practitioners :

Garth Ennis, writer of Troubled Souls and War Story
Jacques Tardi and Jean-Pierre Verney (tbc). Tardi has won every French cartooning award including the Grand Prize of Angoulême, and has created over 30 graphic novels in a wide variety of genres, including World War I story Putain de guerre. He is currently working on another World War I volume

About the Organisers:

Alex Fitch presents Panel Borders, the UK's only weekly broadcast radio show about comics, Thursdays on Resonance FM, the Arts Council Radio station in London. Resonance's remit is to celebrate London’s vast cultural diversity and creativity and is a two time winner of the Radio Academy’s Nations & Regions Award for London.
Ariel Kahn is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Roehampton University, and teaches comics theory and practice on both BA and MA. He contributed to The Jewish Graphic novel (ed Baskind, Omer-Sherman) and writes regularly for IJOCA and other publications.
Paul Gravett is a London-based freelance journalist, curator, lecturer, writer and broadcaster, who has worked in comics publishing and promotion since 1981. He has curated numerous exhibitions of comic art in Britain and in Europe, including 'God Save The Comics!' a survey of British comic art at the National Comics and Image Centre in Angoulême, France and the first exhibit devoted to the writer Alan Moore and his collaborators at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Charleroi, Belgium. Since 2003, Paul has been the director of Comica, London's International Comics Festival at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. He writes about comics for The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, The Comics Journal, Comic Art, Comics International, Third Text, 9eme Art and many others.

Venue:The Imperial War Museum established in 1920, is unique in its coverage of conflicts, especially those involving Britain and the Commonwealth, from the First World War to the present day. It seeks to provide for, and to encourage, the study and understanding of the history of modern conflict and ‘war-time experience’. It is proud to be regarded as one London’s essential sights.

Updates:
For up-to-date information on the event, including details on the keynote speakers, special guests and registration, visit the conference page at the Comica Festival website: www.comicafestival.com

Email abstracts of 250 words, with a brief author biography, to:
a.kahn@roehampton.ac.uk

Please include Comics and Conflicts 2011 in the subject heading.

Deadline for submissions is March 31, 2011.

SANE Journal 1.1 On-Line

2010-12-15T12:45:00.000-05:00

SANE (Sequential Art Narrative in Education) Journal vol. 1 issue 1 is now available on-line. Titled "Comics in the Contact Zone," it includes articles and features on X-Men, Thor, Citizen 13660, Pride of Baghdad, Magneto: Testament, Teaching Graphic Novels, and more. Congrats to all involved!

CFP: Comics & Medicine: The Sequential Art of Illness (February 28; June 9-11)

2010-12-15T11:31:00.000-05:00

Comics & Medicine: The Sequential Art of Illness
9-11 June 2011
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Chicago, Illinois

This second international interdisciplinary conference* aims to explore the past, present, and possible future of comics in the context of the healthcare experience. Programs in medical humanities have long touted the benefits of reading literature and studying visual art in the medical setting, but the use of comics in healthcare practice and education is relatively new. The melding of text and image has much to offer all members of the healthcare team, including patients and families. As such, a subgenre of graphic narrative known as graphic medicine is emerging as a field of interest to both scholars and creators of comics.

We invite proposals for scholarly papers (15 minutes), poster presentations, and panel discussions (60 minutes), focused on medicine and comics in any form (e.g., graphic novels, comic strips, graphic pathographies, manga, and/or web comics) on the following—and related—topics:
• graphic pathographies of illness and disability
• the use of comics in medical education
• the use of comics in patient care
• the interface of graphic medicine and other visual arts in popular culture
• ethical implications for using comics to educate the public
• ethical implications of patient representation in comics by healthcare providers
• trends in international use of comics in healthcare settings
• the role of comics in provider/patient communication
• comics as a virtual support group for patients and caregivers
• the use of comics in bioethics discussions and education

We also welcome workshops (120 minutes) by creators of comics on the process, rationale, methods, and general theories behind the use of comics to explore medical themes. These are intended to be “hands‐on” interactive workshops for participants who wish to obtain particular skills with regard to the creation or teaching about comics in the medical context.

We envision this gathering as a collaboration among humanities scholars, comics scholars, comics creators, healthcare professionals, and comics enthusiasts. Confirmed keynote speakers thus far include David Small, author of “Stitches” and Phoebe Gloeckner, author of “A Childs Life” and “Diary of a Teenage Girl.”

300 word proposals should be submitted by Friday, 28 February 2011 to submissions@graphicmedicine.org.

Proposals may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information
and in this order:
• author(s)
• affiliation
• email address
• title of abstract
• body of abstract

Please identify your presentation preference:
• oral presentation
• poster presentation
• panel discussion
• workshop

While we cannot guarantee that presenters will receive their first choice, we will attempt to honor people’s preferences, and we will acknowledge the receipt of all proposals submitted. Abstracts will be peer-reviewed by an interdisciplinary selection committee. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be completed by 14 March 2011.

This event is co‐sponsored by the Medical Humanities and Bioethics Program at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, the Department of Humanities at Penn State College of Medicine, and the Science, Technology and Society Program of Penn State University, and is supported by a grant from the Charles Schulz Foundation.

*Information about the 2010 conference, “Comics and Medicine: Medical Narrative in Graphic Novels,” in London, England can be found at www.graphicmedicine.org.

Announcement: Membership of the International Bande Dessinée Society and European Comic Art

2010-12-15T11:18:00.000-05:00

From Liverpool University Press.

Membership of the

International Bande Dessinée Society

and European Comic Art

The IBDS (International Bande Dessinée Society) is a forum for scholarly exchange on all aspects of the bande dessinée, or French-language comic strip. It welcomes all critical approaches, be they historical, sociological, political, literary, linguistic or other.

The Society largely, but not exclusively, draws its membership from English-speaking countries, thereby offering an alternative viewpoint to that of the thriving French-language BD community. The Society was officially founded in 2001, again following a conference in Glasgow, and its work has continued at further conferences in Leicester, Manchester and London.

In 2011, members of the IBDS can again receive the journal European Comic Art as part of a special membership package.

Published by Liverpool University Press twice a year, European Comic Art was the first English-language scholarly publication devoted to the study of European-language graphic novels, comic strips, comic books and caricature.

The journal is hosted online by Metapress: http://liverpool.metapress.com/content/121625/

Membership fees for 2011 are £25, please contact Clare Hooper at the below address to update your membership.

CLARE HOOPER

JOURNALS PUBLISHING MANAGER, LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS

4 Cambridge Street, Liverpool, L69 7ZU, UK Tel. +44-[0]151-794-3135, Fax +44-[0]151-794-2235

E: clare.hooper@liverpool.ac.uk W: www.liverpool-unipress.co.uk

Follow Liverpool University Press on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LivUniPress

Download LUP’s new Spring 2011 catalogue from our website:

http://www.liverpool-unipress.co.uk/documents/LUPSPRING2011.pdf

CFP: Independent Comics Worldwide. Drawing a Line / Establishing Connections (University of Liege, Belgium) (March 15; November 16-18)

2010-12-13T18:38:00.000-05:00

INDEPENDENT

COMICS WORLDWIDE

DRAWING A LINE /

ESTABLISHING CONNECTIONS

SUMMARY

The comics research group ACME (University of Liege) is pleased to present their forthcoming conference entitled “Independent Comics Worldwide. Drawing a Line / Establishing Connections”. Held at the University of Liege, Belgium, from Wed 16 to Fri 18 November 2011, the conference seeks to discuss comics (including graphic novels) from all over the world in their most innovative, subversive or dissident manifestations by focusing on the publishing structures – independent or claiming to be – hosting them.

DISCUSSION

As a consequence of the rationalizing of means in the publishing business, in concert with the emergence of new participants in the sector (heavy industry, communication groups, investment banks), a more profit-oriented mentality has severely changed the principles governing the production and distribution of cultural goods in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The demand for economic guarantees now underpins harsher editorial gatekeeping practices and has created a threshold for works that are deemed less likely to bring in the financial revenues the publisher counts upon.

Reacting against such economic strategies, new structures have surfaced in order to challenge the existing system. Whether they are called “independent”, “alternative”, “underground” or “avant-garde”, these initiatives share a common goal in their activities. They are dedicated to the development of an original catalogue, in which thematic and aesthetic otherness is considered a plus. Moreover, they firmly believe in the “small is beautiful” approach to publishing. Following the examples set by painting, cinema and music, the publishing business, in its broadest sense, thus seems to have reached a point of self-contradiction.

Part and parcel of the publishing industry, comics have likewise undergone the effects of the janus-headed couple commercialization/rebellion and the fracturing of allegiance it entails. In the Franco-Belgian scene of the 1990s, a wave of independent publishing houses such as L’Association, Cornelius, Amok, Fréon, ego comme x or Les Requins Marteaux, defended the possibility of a “different” kind of comics. Assuredly, these publishing structures had their precursors, one thinks for instance of Futuropolis, les Éditions du Fromage, Audie or Artefact and their attempts at contravening a status quo established by an order all too intent on defending its own premises. Unprecedented in the 1990s was the emergence of a group of self-conscious publishers whose raison d’être was, and still is, a willingness to counterbalance the massive industrialization of comics. This group — or should we call it a generation — drew a line under standardized business practice, under traditions and codes of mainstream comics, but also established its own connections with chosen predecessors, local peers or similar enterprises abroad.

Straddling all frontiers, similar reactions against the norm have emerged elsewhere. The underground movement that developed in the U.S. at the end of the 1960s, for example, has given rise to important publishers such as Kitchen Sink Press or (a little later) Fantagraphics Books. From the 1980s onwards, these publishers were home to “alternative” comics. The authors of these comics went on to become key figures of the “graphic novel”. But apart from new authors, this new kind of publishers also reprinted and rehabilitated chosen predecessors. Moreover, professional self-publishing and a vivid scene of “minicomics” — either xeroxed or published online — have extended the field of possibilities for American cartoonists who wanted to make comics without resorting to the ubiquitous studio system.

Without denying the particularities of each geographic area, it can nevertheless be affirmed that the independent movement in comics is currently a worldwide phenomenon, in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium, in Italy or Switzerland and, outside Europe as well, in Asia, America or even South Africa.

Inspired by this creative rebirth, the conference “Independent Comics Worldwide. Drawing a Line / Establishing Connections” seeks to discuss comics and graphic novels from all over the world in their most innovative, subversive or dissident manifestations by focusing on the publishing structures – independent or claiming to be – hosting them.

A first panel of the conference will discuss the concepts that are called upon to make sense of this new aesthetic vitality in comics. However interchangeable they may seem to be, the terms “independent”, “alternative” “underground” or “avant-garde” (often set in contradistinction with “mainstream” or the French “BD”) are not devoid of connotations or prejudices in certain types of discourse. Unravelling the complexities of this terminological profusion and the agenda behind its uses becomes therefore an urgent task.

A second panel will analyse the stylistic and thematic similarities and contrasts that can be observed among countries and regions, as well as independents in distinct publishing houses. On a formal level, possible points of comparison include the increased page count, the preference for black and white and/or for pictorial or minimalist drawing styles, and so on. On a thematic level, the tendency towards introspection, the exploration of unfamiliar types of realism, the inclination towards political activism or towards gender-related themes are possible angles from which to approach the production of both authors and publishing houses.

A third panel will tackle the socioeconomic and political aspects of independent comics worldwide. Possible topics are the nature of the independent character in relation, for instance, to a powerful industry, an insecure market or an intrusive authority, the diversity of technical methods used by the publishing structures (production, distribution and commercialization), the appreciation of and support for these structures by public institutions (if any), the collaborative efforts made by these structures (if any), the possibilities of contacts abroad (translation or others: rights markets, festivals, informal contacts) or the ways to legitimize and collect their aesthetic experimentations (targeted anthologies, book fairs and festivals or thematic exhibitions).

Please e-mail anonymous abstracts of about 300 words (in English or French) to acme2011@ulg.ac.be before March 15th, 2011. Please send one file (MS Word or pdf) with the abstract on one page and the contact details on another.
Notification of acceptance: May 1st, 2011.
Conference languages: English and French.

CFP: Michigan State Univ Comics Forum (Dec. 1; Jan. 21-22)

2010-11-26T18:23:00.000-05:00

The Michigan State University Comics Forum is an annual event that brings together scholars, creators, and fans in order to explore and celebrate the medium of comics, graphic storytelling, and sequential art. This year’s event is scheduled to take place January 21-22 at the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities on the campus of Michigan State University.

Nate Powell (Swallow Me Whole; Eisner Award winner for Best Graphic Novel, LA Times Book Prize Finalist, and Ignatz Award winner) will be the keynote speaker on Friday (Jan. 21). Saturday (Jan. 22 ) will feature panel discussions and an artists alley.

We seek proposals for 15-20 minute presentations during the panel discussions. Comic book and graphic novel related presentations from a broad range of disciplines will be considered. Proposals are due December 1.

For more information visit comicsforum.msu.edu.

Please submit proposals to Joseph Darowski at darowski@msu.edu.

New Listserv for Academic Comics Librarians: COMIX-ACADLIBS

2010-11-22T21:36:00.000-05:00

Here's a great new resource for the ever-expanding group of academic libraries which house comics collections. Go, PN6700! --Gene--

Columbia University is now hosting the COMIX-ACADLIBS listserv:

https://lists.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/comix-acadlibs

The goal is to create a network of academic librarians selecting and maintaining comics and graphic novels collections, whether archivally or in general circulating collections. The list will serve as an alternative to GNLIB-L, which is primarily for school and public librarians, and COMIX-SCHOLARS, which is primarily for academics working in comics studies.

Please let the librarians in your institutions know about this and urge them to sign-up at the URL above.

CFP: General Call/Manga Pioneers PCA/ACA April 20-23 2011 San Antonio

2010-11-18T20:34:00.000-05:00

CFP: Anime and Manga

Conference: PCA/ACA 2011 National Conference

Place: San Antonio, TX

Dates: April 20-23, 2011

www.pcaaca.org

This is the national meeting of the Popular Culture Association and the American Culture Association. This submission is under the area “Asian Popular Culture.”

Submission Deadline: December 5, 2010.

This is a general call for papers on any aspect of anime/manga with any ideological approach. Preference will be given to topics that can be reasonably covered in a fifteen minute paper. (See also specific CFP to follow).

If you have any questions, please contact me at the e-mail below. Submissions should be sent in the form of a 150-word abstract outlining what you would like to discuss. Include contact information and a CV.

Submit by December 5, 2010
to Wendy Goldberg
e-mail: wdgoldbe@olemiss.edu

CFP: Manga Pioneers

Panel one: In celebration of Fantagraphic’s recent publication of a collection of short stories by Moto Hagio (A Drunken Dream and Other Stories) this panel asks for papers that explore manga by the “Fabulous 49ers” (or Year 24 Group). Only a few works have been published in English, including Keiko Takemiya’s To Terra and Andromeda Stories -- both by Vertical Inc. Though not available in English, another seminal work is Ryoko Ikeda’s Rose of Versailles. Presenters may take a variety of approaches, including an exploration of these mangaka’s influences on other writers and artists.

Panel two: In contrast to the lack of English editions of the 49ers works, Osamu Tezuka’s legacy continue to grow with Vertical publishing a variety of his texts: including Buddha, MW, Dororo, and recently Ayako (forthcoming, November 2010) and The Book of Human Insects (forthcoming, July 2011). This panel asks for papers that focus on works by the “God of Manga” and may take a variety of approaches.

Submissions should be sent in the form of a 150 word abstract outlining what you would like to discuss. Include contact information and a CV.

Submit by December 5, 2010
to Wendy Goldberg
e-mail: wdgoldbe@olemiss.edu

CFP: New England Comic Arts in the Classroom (Dec. 15; March 26)

2010-11-08T15:59:00.000-05:00

New England Comic Arts in the Classroom

Rhode Island College, March 26, 2011

Call for Proposals

The New England Comic Arts in the Classroom Conference invites you to submit a proposal for a paper presentation, lesson demonstration, workshop or panel discussion relevant to the use and/or study of comic arts in educational settings.

This conference, sponsored by Rhode Island College, the Rhode Island College English and Art Departments, and the Rhode Island Writing Project, is designed to bring together comic art teachers, scholars and professionals who wish to engage in serious study of the comic art medium in an educational forum. We seek proposals from a broad range of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives, and welcome the participation of academic and independent teachers and scholars. We also welcome professionals from all areas of the comics industry, including creators, editors, publishers, retailers, and distributors.

Proposals should focus on educational contexts, theories and methods for using graphic novels, visual storytelling and/or sequential art in educational settings. Conference presentation sessions will be 55 minutes, and, in the spirit of engaging your audience no matter what your format, we ask that you make sure to leave time in your session for questions and answers. Proposals from K-16 practicing teachers are strongly encouraged.

NECAC 2011 proposals are due to michaelg@necac.net by December 15, 2010.

Proposals should include:

The type of presentation (paper presentation, lesson demonstration, panel discussion or workshop).
A brief description (50 words or less) of the presentation or workshop for the conference program.
A summary (500 words or less) of the workshop, including rationale/theoretical grounding, practical application, and the benefit to participants.
The name(s), contact information, and affiliation of presenter(s).

New Narrative IV: Image and Spectacle (March 15; May 4-6)

2010-11-07T21:16:00.000-05:00

New Narrative IV: Image and Spectacle

University of Toronto 4-6 May 2011

Keynote speaker: Diane Obomsawin (author of Kaspar)

Human beings make display worlds to others in performances that engage and generate images. The spectacle of performance leads to many kinds of reflection—from performativity to epistemology, from theories of history to literary and aesthetic theory, from cultural criticism to palaeography. It extends ultimately to examining the role of reflection (speculation) and criticism of images and their worlds.

We are again soliciting papers on a wide range of issues that fall generally under the rubric of “image and spectacle.” The focus of the New Narrative has been graphic novels, comic art, and related visual media; but we also welcome papers from a variety of fields: English, Philosophy, History, Art, Film, Cultural Studies, and Political Science (among others). Essays may engage the following (incomplete) list:

representation and photography
web design and on-line comix
historical repertoires of images
Guy Debord and the spectacle
images in archives
political manipulations of images
the speculative and the spectacular
bande dessinée & European comix
illustrations in (literary) novels
illustrated and multi-media works

Proposals should be 400-500 words and must clearly indicate significance, the line of argument, principal texts considered, and relation to existing scholarship (or originality). One email copy of the proposal, and a 50 word bio note must be included, as an attachment in MS Word (in .doc or .rtf, not .docx).

Deadline for proposals is 15 March 2011 (responses by 31 March 2011)

Questions? Submissions? Email me!
Dr Andrew Lesk, Department of English, University of Toronto
E-mail: andrew.lesk@utoronto.ca

A full colour version of this CFP will be posted soon.

Feel free to distribute widely.

Prior year conferences are at http://andrewlesk.com/conferences.html

(The Toronto Comics Arts Festival takes place on May 7 and 8. See http://Torontocomics.com)

Journal of Graphic Novels & Comics, Volume 1 Issue 1 2010 - Read it For Free

2010-11-05T12:32:00.000-04:00

The first issue of the Journal of Graphic Novels & Comics has been published, and you can read PDFs of all of the articles and reviews online for free. Get 'em while they're hot!

Looking for Scholars to Write Encyclopedia Entries

2010-10-15T13:21:00.000-04:00

Stephen Weiner is looking for comics scholars! Here are the particulars. (Be sure to reply to him, not to this blog.)

I'm looking for scholars to write entries in a 3 volume encyclopedia set forthcoming from Salem Press. There are 3 kids of entries:
Subject overviews(an example might be "Violence in Graphic Novels"). These run 1500-2000 words.
Character entries (an example might be "Hellboy"). These run 250 words.
Biographical entries (an example might be "Alison Bechdel"). These entries run approximately 500 words.
Please forward your name and interest to me (SWeiner@minlib.net). Salem Press will be in touch with candidates during November.

CFP: PCA Comic Art and Comics (11/30; April 20-23)

2010-10-01T17:31:00.000-04:00

PCA

comic art & comics

***Call For Papers ***

Comics: Graphic Novels, Strips, Panels, Films,

and Everything in Between

The Comic Art & Comics Area of the Popular Culture Association invites all comics scholars to participate in the annual meeting of the Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association to be held April 20-23, 2011, in San Antonio, Texas. Details of the conference can be found at the conference website.

The Comic Art & Comics Area of the Popular Culture Association offers a chance for scholars from across the country to share their research and exchange ideas on the growing field of comics scholarship. Graduate students and those without current academic affiliation are also welcome. Papers on all aspects of the medium are invited. Past papers have covered mainstream comic books, graphic novels, underground comics, cartoons, comic strips, comics and film, international comics, writers, artists, teaching comics, and writing and publishing comics scholarship.

This call asks for individual paper proposals or submissions for entire panels. If you are submitting a panel, please make sure to note the members of your panel. In addition to general papers, if a presenter would like to propose a special panel or roundtable discussion, please e-mail the chair so she can forward the request to the mailing list.

Papers should be delivered in 15-20 minutes. The PCA limits presenters to one paper given at the conference, so if you are interested in presenting a paper in the Comic Art & Comics Area, do not submit a paper to another area. Participants are eligible for the annual Inge Award for Comics Scholarship, awarded to the top paper presented in the Comic Art & Comics Area of the PCA.

Scholars interested in presenting a paper at the national conference should send a 100-200 word abstract and a short introductory bio by November 30, 2010, to the area chair. If sending via e-mail, please send as a doc file, pdf, or rtf.

Via e-mail: Nicole Freim - nfreim@charter.net

Via mail:
Nicole Freim
Riverside Community College
1798 Main Street
Riverside, CA 92501

For more information, please visit the PCA web site: http://www.pcaaca.org

CFP: Gender and Superheroes (Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics; January 1)

2010-09-26T10:40:00.000-04:00

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics

Special Issue: Gender and Superheroes

Editors: David Huxley and Joan Ormrod

Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

Consulting Editor: Roger Sabin

The superhero genre dominates the comics industry with representations of hypermuscular action men or sexy women wearing costumes that show off their near naked bodies. There are examples of more diverse approaches to both creating and analysing these figures but they remain, as yet, in the minority. Much of this work is produced by mainly male creators for similarly constructed audiences. Whilst that does not limit the possibilities of the superhero, to date there has been little substantial work in superheroes and gender beyond Trina Robbins work on women superheroes and Ndalianis’s edited collection of essays on heroism in which a few essays touch upon superheroes. This area, however, is of great interest to academia as evidenced by a significant proportion of papers submitted to the journal in recent months. We are, therefore, proposing a special issue in which this topic can be examined in a more sustained manner. Submissions are invited of papers 5000-7000 words by January 1, 2011 relating but not limited to the following topics:

Representation

Representing gender: masculinity, femininity, gay, transvestite superheroes – transgression or queer readings
The superhero/ine body
Superheroes in other nations – eg: British, Indian or Latin American superheroes and how they hail transnational and national identities
Representing superheroes in comics – eg: Love and Rockets, Kim Dietch’s The Cat
Revisioning of the character – for instance, the reworking of Catwoman

Theoretical Issues

Feminist theory and gendered identities – Judith Butler
Gaze and psychoanalytic
Class and the superhero

Audiences

Manga superheroes and their audiences
Girls reading superheroes
Fanboys and specific heroes
Fan production – slash fiction, changing gendered identities

History and Industry

Online comics – fan production or industrial production
Tracing specific characters within an industrial context
Creators’ representations of gender – eg: Alan Moore, Promethea, Grant Morrison, The Invisibles

SUBMISSION DETAILS
We’ll be happy to address any queries about the issue if you email either Dave Huxley d.huxley@mmu.ac.uk or Joan Ormrod j.ormrod@mmu.ac.uk.

If you are submitting an article please remember to check our format guidelines and obtain agreement from copyright holders for any images you plan to use. If you have queries about this then visit the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics website for clarification. We can publish black and white or colour images.

www.tandf.co.uk/journals/rcom

CFP: Sequential Art, Graphic Novels, and Comics in Education (edited collection; Jan 15)

2010-09-19T17:14:00.000-04:00

CFP:

Sequential Art, Graphic Novels,

and Comics in Education

Edited by
Robert G. Weiner and Carrye Syma

Texas Tech University Library

In recent years the use of graphic novels, comics, and sequential art in education has exploded. This is due not only to the boom in superhero movies that are based on comic book characters, but also to the wide literary range that graphic novels now have. There are now literally hundreds of college and university courses all over the world that are using graphic novels in their curriculum. The days when comics were just seen as children’s trash, with no redeeming literary or educational value, are hopefully behind us.

Contrary to the idea that comics “dumb” down material, it takes both sides of the brain to read and interpret sequential art stories: the right side to interpret the pictures and the left side to understand the narrative text. Our goal with this collection is to provide the educator and scholar with a collection of essays that show how graphic novels and comics are being used in the classroom today, as well as some historical pieces that detail how the educational fields often have and have had a “rocky” relationship with the use of comics in educational settings. We want both theoretical and practical essays showing how sequential art can be and is being used to teach and illustrate concepts and ideas. We are especially keen on pieces related to higher education, military and government uses of comics to educate, but all aspects of comics and education are under consideration. In addition, we would like to have educators from a wide spectrum of the educational fields from K-12, to undergraduate and graduate educational levels. Those using sequential art in adult education and pre-school are encouraged.

Some possible questions/ideas that could be addressed include:

The Military’s use of comics to teach.
Graphic Novels and comics in library science education.
How relationships can be understood through the use of graphic novels in human science education.
Teaching mathematical concepts using graphic narrative.
Grade school use of comics.
Middle school use of comics.
High school use of sequential art (say something like Maus to teach the Holocaust).
Comics and Film to teach about blockbuster cinema.
Philosophical issues raised by graphic novels (The Watchmen in a philosophy class about ethics).
Biological and scientific concepts using graphic novels.
The use of mainstream superhero stories in the classroom.
Superman, Batman, Spider-Man to further understand the concept of the hero Mythology (i.e., Odysseys, Hercules etc.).
Graphic Novels and history, how effective a tool is the graphic novel in teaching a historical concept?
Sequential art in teaching foreign language or English as a second language.
Comics in literacy and adult education programs.
Graduate courses using graphic novels.
The History of sequential art in education.
Medical education using comics.

Please send 200 word abstracts by January 15th 2011 to Rob Weiner Rob.weiner@ttu.edu

Final papers will be due February 28th 2011. No exceptions. Please note the submission of an essay does NOT necessarily mean publication in the volume. Essays will be going through a rigorous peer review process and we have asked a number of scholars to serve in this capacity. We are striving to put together as an excellent collection with diverse viewpoints covering all aspects of comics and education. Authors are also expected to follow the editor’s style guide and be willing to have their work edited.

Thank you

Carry Syma
Texas Tech University Library

Rob Weiner
Texas Tech University Library

CFP: Comic Books and American Cultural History (collection; 12/20)

2010-09-01T20:01:00.000-04:00

Call for Papers:

Comic Books and

American Cultural History

Essays are currently being solicited for Comic Books and American Cultural History, a new anthology that will examine the ways in which comic books can be used to help us understand the history of the United States. Each essay of this proposed book will focus on a particular comic book, story/story arc, or graphic novel as a tool for analyzing some aspect of its original cultural and historical context. The essays in this anthology will not focus on the history of comic books per se, but rather on the history of the United States, with comic books being used as primary texts to support specific interpretations of American history. Because of this emphasis on the connections between comic books and America’s past, Comic Books and American Cultural History will prove to be a useful book for comics scholars, historians, and history teachers who want to integrate more popular culture into their courses.

The field of comics studies has seen a proliferation of book-length works in the last twenty years, but few of those books have examined American cultural history. For example, Of Comics and Men, by Jean-Paul Gabilliet, includes a very thorough explanation of the production and distribution history of American comic books, but there is less analysis of the actual content of the comic books themselves. Bradford Wright’s Comic Book Nation does examine some specific stories, but his work is a survey and, as such, cannot go into much depth about any one historical moment. In Secret Identity Crisis, Matthew Costello’s focus on the Cold War allows him to analyze his sources deeply, but other events and comics that do not fit into his framework are sometimes ignored. Comic Books and American Cultural History seeks to build off of these important works while also expanding the scope of comics scholarship by bringing together analyses on a wider variety of topics than what is possible in any of these books. In this way, Comic Books and American Cultural History will be especially useful as a collection of case studies demonstrating the ways in which comic books can be useful primary sources for the study of American cultural history.

The essays in Comic Books and American Cultural History will examine many different comic books and many different topics in American history. Possible sources can range from the 1930s to the present, and the collection will include essays focusing on mainstream, underground, alternative, and independent comics. Historical topics might feature discussions of the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the Counterculture of the 1960s, and 9/11, all examined from a cultural history perspective. Essays about aspects of gender, class, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation will be especially encouraged. The more specific the essay, the better it will fit into this collection in that it will allow for greater depth than would be possible with a more broadly defined primary text and a more broadly defined historical connection.

Completed essays will be between 5,000 and 7,000 words long.

Please send 500 word abstracts, complete contact information, and brief biographies of authors (as Word documents) to:

Matthew Pustz
Economics, History, and Political Science Department
Fitchburg State University
Fitchburg, MA 01420
mpustz@fitchburgstate.edu

Abstracts are due December 20, 2010. Completed essays will be due the beginning of June 2011.

CFP: Sequential Art, Graphic Novels, and Comics in Education (collection; Jan. 15)

2010-08-24T16:32:00.000-04:00

Sequential Art, Graphic Novels,

and Comics in Education

Edited by Robert G. Weiner and Carrye Syma

Texas Tech University Library

The Military’s use of comics to teach.
Graphic Novels and comics in library science education.
How relationships can be understood through the use of graphic novels in human science education.
Teaching mathematical concepts using graphic narrative.
Grade school use of comics.
Middle school use of comics.
High school use of sequential art (say something like Maus to teach the Holocaust).
Comics and Film to teach about blockbuster cinema.
Philosophical issues raised by graphic novels (The Watchmen in a philosophy class about ethics).
Biological and scientific concepts using graphic novels.
The use of mainstream superhero stories in the classroom.
Superman, Batman, Spider-Man to further understand the concept of the hero Mythology (i.e., Odysseys, Hercules etc.).
Graphic Novels and history, how effective a tool is the graphic novel in teaching a historical concept?
Sequential art in teaching foreign language or English as a second language.
Comics in literacy and adult education programs.
Graduate courses using graphic novels.
The History of sequential art in education.
Medical education using comics.

Please send 200 word abstracts by January 15th 2011 to Rob Weiner Rob.weiner@ttu.edu

Final papers will be due February 28th 2011. No exceptions. Please note the submission of an essay does NOT necessarily mean publication in the volume. Essays will be going through a rigorous peer review process and we have asked a number of scholars to serve in this capacity. We are striving to put together as an excellent collection with diverse viewpoints covering all aspects of comics and education. Authors are also expected to follow the editor’s style guide and be willing to have their work edited.

Thank you

Carry Syma
Texas Tech University Library

Rob Weiner
Texas Tech University Library

CFP: Pulp Fiction as Genesis of Genius, PCA/ACA (Dec. 15; April 20-23)

2010-08-24T16:15:00.000-04:00

Of related interest...

Call for Proposals

Giving Birth to Greatness:

Pulp Fiction as Genesis of Genius

Pulp Studies Area

Popular Culture Association/

American Culture Association National Conference

San Antonio, TX

April 20-23, 2011

ABSTRACT: Although often viewed as a site for literary works with little value and short shelf lives, pulp fiction has in reality been a very effective mechanism for launching the careers of authors who would become literary giants, many of whom would move on to publish novel-length works that have become embedded in the canon of American and British fiction. In spite of its status among the literati as being of little worth, the pulps—particularly those of the early 20th century—have played an important role in shaping popular genres of modern fiction, including detective, adventure, spicy, science fiction, horror, and fantasy. Further, these working-class fictions, with their focus on action and adventure, gave voice to the hopes and fears of the common working man in a way that was often ignored by so-called “literary” fiction. Pulp magazines have also often been the site for the introduction of new—and often controversial—cultural issues, such as space travel, alien abduction, drug addiction, homosexuality, sado-masochism, crime, and pornography.

As we inaugurate our Pulp Studies area this year, we encourage sessions that somehow address the surprising role that the pulps have played in the careers of the authors, artists, editors, and publishers.
Suggested authors and topics:

Magazines: Amazing Stories, Weird Tales, Wonder Stories, Fight Stories, All-Story, Argosy, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Spicy Detective, Flying Aces, Black Mask, and Unknown, to name a few.
Editors and Owners: Street and Smith (Argosy), Farnsworth Wright (Weird Tales), Hugo Gernsback (Amazing Stories), Mencken and Nathan (Black Mask), John Campbell (Astounding).
Influential Writers: H.P. Lovecraft, A. E. Merritt, Robert E. Howard, C. L. Moore, Fritz Leiber, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Donald Wandrei, Clark Ashton Smith, and Henry Kuttner.
Influences on Pulp Writers: Robert Bloch, H. Rider Haggard, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jack London, and Edgar Rice Burroughs were all influences, along with literary and philosophical figures such as Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Friedrich Nietzsche, Edgar Allen Poe, and Herbert Spencer.
Popular Heroes: Conan of Cimmeria; Doc Savage; Solomon Kane; Buck Rogers; Northwest Smith; Jiril of Jiory; Zorro; Kull of Atlantis; El Borak; The Shadow; The Spider; Bran Mak Morn; Nick Carter; The Avenger; and Captain Future, among others.
Artists: Popular cover artists included Margaret Brundage (Weird Tales), Frank R. Paul (Amazing Stories), Virgil Finlay (Weird Tales), and Edd Cartier (The Shadow, Astounding).
Periods: The dime novels; Argosy and the ancestral pulps; Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, and the heyday of the pulps; John Campbell’s reforms; the 1950s; the decline of the pulps in the 50s and 60s; pulps in the age of the Internet.
Theme and Styles: Masculinity, femininity, and sex in the pulps; the ethos of plot and action; compact vs. purple prose; Social Darwinism; technocracy vs. naturalism; social roles; drugs and addiction; the aesthetic of violence; detective as hero; pornography and the cover girl; the savage as hero.
Reinvention of the Pulps: Pulps in film, television, comics, graphic novels and other forms are especially encouraged. Possible topics could include film interpretations such as Conan the Barbarian, comic book incarnations of pulp magazines and series; “new weird” reinventions of the pulps such as the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and The Watchmen; fan films; and newer productions, including the recently released Solomon Kane and the forthcoming Conan.

These are but suggestions for potential panels and presentations. Proposals on other topics are welcome.

Final Submission Deadline: December 15, 2009

When submitting your paper, abstract, proposal, or panel please include your name, affiliation, and email address. For those submitting a panel, include the name, affiliation, and email address for each participant and note who will be the principle contact and panel chair.
Abstracts should be approximately 250 words in length.
Indicate if presentation media is required. Projectors will be present in most locations, but presenters must supply their own computers.
A preliminary version of the schedule will usually be posted on our website in January. Due to the number of panels and participants, we are unable to accommodate individual scheduling requests. We encourage participants to come for the entire conference. The final version of the schedule will be distributed in hard copy at the conference with addendums if needed. For privacy reasons we do not publish email addresses in the online version of the program.
Only one paper is accepted from the same presenting author. All presenters, including invited panel speakers and session chairs, must register and pay the conference registration fee. If you need an early confirmation for visa or budgetary reasons, please indicate this in your submission.

Submit proposals to:
Justin Everett
University of the Sciences
600 S. 43rd St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Email: j.everet@usp.edu

OR:

Deirdre Pettipiece
West Chester University
Anderson Hall 119b
West Chester, PA 19383
Email: dpettipiece@wcupa.edu

Talking Tintin: Gene on the Radio This Thursday

2010-08-17T17:25:00.002-04:00

This Thursday, I'll be a guest (~~possibly the guest~~ along with Alex Buchet) on the Wisconsin Public Radio show Here on Earth, for an episode entitled "The Adventures of Tintin." That's right, the world-famous Belgian boy reporter gets his own hour-long radio show here in the States. Tune in from 3:00-4:00pm Central Time to get the low-down on the stories, the controversies, and more, in anticipation of next year's Steven Spielberg-directed adaptation. The show will also be available on-line as an MP3 podcast after the broadcast.

Contemporary Brazilian Literature Study Group's First Meeting of Graphic Novels Studies, September 2

2010-08-16T21:29:00.000-04:00

As reported on the Comics Scholars Discussion List, The Contemporary Brazilian Literature Study Group of the University of Brasilia, Brazil, is holding its first Meeting of Graphic Novels Studies on September 2nd. For more information, visit their website.

Latest Additions and Revisions to Our Bibliography

2010-08-15T13:05:00.000-04:00

Here are the latest new and revised ComicsResearch.org bibliography entries. As always, we've also been correcting old links and adding new ones throughout the website. If you have suggestions or would like to contribute reviews, please let us know.

The Amazing Transforming Superhero! Essays on the Revision of Characters in Comic Books, Film and Television. Edited by Terrence R. Wandtke. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007.

Bildgeschichten für Chinas Massen: Comic und Comicproduktion im 20 Jahrhundert. By Andreas Seifert. Böhlau, 2008.

Building Literacy Connections with Graphic Novels: Page by Page, Panel by Panel. James Bucky Carter, editor. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2007.

The Comic Book Curriculum: Using Comics to Enhance Learning and Life. By James Rourke. Libraries Unlimited, 2010.

The Comic Strip in America: A Bibliography, by David Manning White. Boston: Communications Research Center, Boston University, School of Public Relations and Communications, 1961.

Comics and the City: Urban Space in Print, Picture and Sequence. Ed. Jörn Ahrens and Arno Meteling. Continuum, 2010.

Foundation Course: Cartooning. By John Richardson. Cassell Illustrated, 2006.

Graphic Novels Beyond the Basics: Insights and Issues for Libraries. Martha Cornog and Timothy Perper, eds. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited - ABC-CLIO, 2009.

Our Hero: Superman on Earth. By Tom De Haven. Icons of America. New Haven: Yale UP, 2010.

CFP - Joint International Conference of Graphic Novels, Bandes Dessinées and Comics (Dec 1; July 5-8, 2011)

2010-08-06T11:02:00.000-04:00

Joint International Conference of Graphic Novels, Bandes Dessinées and Comics

July 5-8, 2011

Manchester Metropolitan University

Manchester, England

Graphic Novels and Comics July 5-6, 2011
The International Bande Dessinée Society July 7-8, 2011

The International Bande Dessinée Society and the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics are hosting a joint conference focusing mainly on two areas of research;

Space and time
Audiences and readership

Our policy is inclusive and we also welcome submissions from other areas of research such as:

Manga, African, Latin American, Asian, Eastern European, etc.
Connections between comics and other media

Abstracts of approximately 250 words should be in English and submitted to Matthew Screech , David Huxley , Joan Ormrod by December 1, 2010.

Papers will be considered for publication in Routledge’s Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics and Liverpool University Press’s European Comic Art.

Find out more about Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics at www.tandf.co.uk/journals/rcom

CFP: ImageTexT Special Issue Invisible Art: Lettering, Coloring, Publication Design and Other Invisible Elements of Comics (December 15)

2010-07-27T20:34:00.000-04:00

Being that I've published an essay on comics lettering myself, I'm particularly interested in this special issue...

ImageTexT Special Issue

Invisible Art:

Lettering, Coloring, Publication Design and Other Invisible Elements of Comics

Guest Editors, Zach Whalen and Aaron Kashtan

The noted comic book letterer Richard Starkings wrote: “It is with good reason that comic book lettering is largely an uncelebrated art. The paradox of good lettering is that the better it is, the less noticeable it becomes to the reader. Often the best lettering job is practically invisible to the reader.” Lettering has historically been invisible to most comics scholars as well, as have many other elements of the comics page and the comics text, including coloring, publication design, paper, and bookbinding. These “invisible” aspects of comics have typically been ignored in favor of more “visible” aspects, such as artwork and narrative. Therefore, this special issue will focus on those parameters of the comics page and text that help to frame comics images and narratives, without themselves drawing the reader's attention. This issue seeks to render visible what is invisible in comics: to inquire how the production of meaning in comics has shaped and been shaped by the invisible properties of the comics page.

Potential topics for essays may include but are not limited to:

Artistic materials, e.g. pencils, ink, pens, paper, graphics tablets, styluses
Comics lettering, including conventions thereof (e.g. capitalization, bold lettering)
Paratextual or nondiegetic imagery in comics, e.g. word balloons, panel borders, emanata
Comics coloring techniques, e.g. digital coloring
Publication design
Comics printing processes
Comics publishing formats
Effects of repackaging comics in different formats (e.g. single issues versus trade paperbacks)
Effects of digital production and distribution on any or all of the above
Cultural differences in, and effects of translation (including scanlation) on, any or all of the above
Legal and cultural aspects of comics paratext

Submissions should be critical and/or theoretical in nature, rather than purely historical. As ImageTexT is concerned with the formal study of image/text relations, we are most interested in submissions that give significant attention to how images function in relationship to text. We strongly prefer to receive submissions that make reference to specific images and include high-resolution artwork along with text.

Essay submissions should not exceed 10,000 words, including notes. Contributors should format submissions based on the MLA Style Manual, 3rd edition, and use endnotes. Authors will be responsible for securing copyright permission for all images used.

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to the special issue editors at akashtan@ufl.edu and zach.whalen@gmail.com.

The deadline for initial manuscript submission is December 15th, 2010.

CFP: Comics Forum Leeds Art Gallery (Aug 16; Nov 18-19)

2010-07-09T18:11:00.000-04:00

Comics Forum

Leeds Art Gallery

18th and 19th November 2010

Women in Comics II

1030-1700, 18/11/2010

Following the success of ‘Women in Comics’ held at The University of Cambridge in 2009, and the significant support of both practitioners and academics, we are delighted to be holding a second ‘Women in Comics’ Conference.

The purpose of the conference is to provide analysis and insight into a field of culture that has traditionally been the domain of men. With an increasing number of female artists, writers, scholars and publishers of comics, this conference looks to celebrate women’s contribution to comics, and strengthen and investigate feminine perspectives within and surrounding comic art and narrative.

What are women creating within comics? How is female readership changing and evolving? What is the interface between women in comics and gender studies?

Our guest speaker is comic artist Suzy Varty who published the very first all-woman comic book in the UK in 1977.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

Feminism and personal politics in comics
super-heroines
biographical and autobiographical comics
female comics authors/artists in history
manga
female characters
women in the alternative press
women in the comics industry

Suggestions for panels or individual presentations of 15 minutes are encouraged, and all genders are welcome to submit. Abstracts of 300 words should be submitted along with a short biography (100 words max.) to: Rikke Platz Cortsen rpc@hum.ku.dk and Catriona MacLeod c.macleod.1@research.gla.ac.uk. Please include the words ‘Women in Comics’ in your subject heading. Deadline for submissions is 16/8/2010.

Any general emails about the conference please email: Sarah Lightman s.lightman.1@research.gla.ac.uk

Theory and Practice:

A Conference on Comics

1030-1700, 19/11/2010

There are strong ties between the production and scholarship of comics, from the seminal works of Will Eisner in Comics and Sequential Art and Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics to the theoretically informed comics of Chris Ware (Jimmy Corrigan), Dan Clowes (Ghost World) and Seth (Wimbledon Green), among others. ‘Theory and Practice: A Conference on Comics’ will seek to investigate those ties, considering how comics both influence and are influenced by theoretical discourses of communication, aesthetics and narrative.

Subjects for discussion might include (but are not limited to):

The lives and works of comic creators who also theorise the form (or vice versa), e.g. Rodolphe Töpffer, Harry Morgan, Scott McCloud, Will Eisner, Benoît Peeters etc.
The roles played by theoretical discourse in the production of comics, or by the act of producing comics in the understanding of theory
The value of theory for practice and/or practice for theory in the field of comics
Understandings of comics that address the relative positions of the reader, the author, the artist etc. e.g. Philippe Marion’s discussion of the graphiateur
The concepts of breakdown and closure
Methodologies
The rise of practice-based research and its implications and/or applications for Comics Studies

Proposals of 250 words are invited for talks of 15-20 minutes in length, and should be emailed, along with a short biography (around 100 words) to Ian Hague (Department of History, University of Chichester) at I.Hague@chi.ac.uk.

Interview at Super I.T.C.H.

2010-07-02T14:22:00.000-04:00

Beth Davies-Stofka of Super I.T.C.H. (International Team of Comics Historians) interviewed me about comics (what else?), and the results are posted here. Read about Spider-Man, Peanuts, Winsor McCay, the Smokey Bear comic book, and more. Thanks for all of the too-kind words, Beth!

Studies in Comics and Cartoon Series from OSU

2010-06-12T20:17:00.000-04:00

Originally published here.

The Ohio State University Press proudly announces
the Studies in Comics and Cartoon Series

The Ohio State University Press is adding a new series to its literature and literary studies publications. Studies in Comics and Cartoons will be edited by Lucy Shelton Caswell and Jared Gardner. Comics studies is the epitome of a growing scholarly pursuit that is continually gaining both public and critical attention. Complicating the long-standing assumption that a fusion of image and text is not a serious work of either literature or art, academic institutions are giving comics and cartoons more attention than ever before. Despite a number of important individual books published by university presses in the field, this burgeoning area of study does not yet have its own series at any press. Ohio State University Press, with its affiliation to Ohio State's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum and focus on literary studies, is well-suited to publish such a series.

Lucy Shelton Caswell is the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum's founding Curator. Jared Gardner is Associate Professor in the Department of English.

Books published in Studies in Comics and Cartoons will focus exclusively on comics and graphic literature, highlighting their relation to literary studies. It will include monographs and edited collections that cover the history of comics and cartoons from the editorial cartoon and early sequential comics of the nineteenth century through webcomics of the twenty-first. Studies that focus on international comics will also be considered.

Inquiries should be directed to Sandy Crooms <sandy.crooms@osupress.org> at The Ohio State University Press.

CFP - Toys, Games, and Comics in Asia (no due date given; Dec 10-12)

2010-06-11T16:15:00.000-04:00

Toys, Games, and Comics in Asia:

Adaptation, Convergence, and Challenges

A Scholarly Conference

December 10-12

Over the last twenty years or so comic books and video games have been adapted in to movies. Novels have been adapted into comic books. Many of these products have been licensed as toys. Indeed two Singaporeans are actively engaged in such adaptations: Sonny Liew is working on a comic book version of Jane Austin’s novel Sense and Sensibility for Marvel Comics, and Eric Khoo is doing a film adaptation of Yoshihiro Tatsumi comic A Drifting Life. Increasing there are convergences between media forms and products. This conference held in conjunction with the Singapore Toys, Games and Comics Convention examines the issues involved in these developments from a scholarly perspective with a focus on Asia. We seek scholarly papers related to on a wide variety of issues (and from a wide number of academic disciplines) connected to Toys, Games and Comics, such as:

Adaptation
Branding
Collectors
Consumers
Cross Media platforms
Cultural Production
Fans
History
Intellectual Property (Copyright, Patents, and Trademark)
Marketing

Most conference sessions will be for approximately 90 minutes with a maximum of three papers each lasting twenty-minute and discussion time. Proposals for other types of sessions are also welcome.

Paper or session proposals should be sent to Associate Professor Ian Gordon: hisilg@nus.edu.sg.

Paper proposals should be in the form of a 200-500 word abstract of the paper, with name, contact details, and cv of presenter. Session proposals should include this information for three proposed presenters in the session. Organisers of the conference are Ian Gordon and Lim Cheng Tju.

The conference will be held in the Suntec City Convention Centre in downtown Singapore. All paper presenters will be registered for the Singapore Toys, Games and Comics Convention as professionals and receive free entry to the exhibition area.

The Singapore Toy, Games & Comic Convention (STGCC) is proudly brought to you by Reed Exhibitions – the world’s largest event organizer and the creators of New York Comic Con (NYCC) and the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2).

This CFP can also be found here: http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/hisilg/STGCC%20conference%20CFPs.pdf

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics - First Issue Now Available Free Online

2010-06-04T09:41:00.000-04:00

The first issue of Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics is now available online, including free online access to the following articles throughout 2010.

Editorial

David Huxley and Joan Ormrod

Articles

From Iky Mo to Lord Horror: representations of Jews in British comics

Paul Gravett

From fan appropriation to industry re-appropriation: the sexual identity of comic superheroes

Gareth Schott

'A fistful of dead roses…'. Comics as cultural resistance: Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta

Maggie Gray

The absence of black supervillains in mainstream comics

Phillip Lamarr Cunningham

Redrawing nationalism: Chester Brown's Louis Riel: a comic-strip biography

Andrew Lesk

Book Reviews

Che: a graphic biography, by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón

James Scorer

Of comics and men: a cultural history of American comic books, by Jean-Paul Gabilliet

Tony Venezia

Art Spiegelman: conversations, edited by Joseph Witek

Ranen Omer-Sherman

---

Find out more at www.tandf.co.uk/journals/rcom

CFP - For Love of the Fandom (June 1; Nov. 11-14)

2010-05-28T11:05:00.000-04:00

Note the imminent deadline.

Call for Papers

“For Love of the Fans:

Fandom, Comics and Film Adaptations”

2010 Film & History Conference:

Representations of Love in Film and Television

November 11-14, 2010

Hyatt Regency Milwaukee

www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory

Final Deadline: June 1, 2010

AREA: For Love of the Fans: Fandom, Comics and Adaptations

Since comic books began featuring letters to the editor in each issue, fan culture has been a pivotal and clear presence in comics. This presence and investment became even more potent as fandom culture began to reside in physical settings such as comic book shops and conventions. Fandom culture has become more present and powerful in the Internet age and while they were once solely the butt-end of jokes, they now garner the attention of producers, directors, and writers. Their love and investment in comics are now considered important by creators in generating promotion and excitement for films. Unlike the previous 50 years of comic adaptations, the last 20 years have seen significant efforts by producers to tie into fan expectations from as far back as the X-Men and Batman cartoon series of the 1990s up through the latest superhero-blockbuster.

This area welcomes multiple papers and panels that consider the following questions about comic fandom and television/film adaptation as well as additional topics in this vein:

How have studios used the fanbase to encourage or promote comic adaptations such as Watchmen?
In what ways have studios and directors relied on the fanbase to determine the direction of sequels or future seasons with regards to plot, villains, and character development in such franchises as X-Men, Spider-Man, Batman, Superman (including Smallville), Fantastic Four and the like?
What roles have the fans played in comic-film reboots such as Batman, Superman, the Incredible Hulk, the Punisher, and the supposedly forthcoming reboot of Fantastic Four franchise?
Does the role of same-universe strategies being explored by Marvel Comics with its release of Iron Man and the reboot of Incredible Hulk operate as a means to attracting fans?
In what ways have comic forums, such as Wizard Magazine or Comic Book Resources played in influencing the casting of particular actors and actresses for certain roles?
What’s to be made of the increasing and dominant presence of film studios at “comic events” such as San Diego’s ComicCon?
What role do famous fans (Kevin Smith, Nicholas Cage, et al) have in the construction of or success of comic book adaptations?
How do films target “in-crowd” moments for fans such as Stan Lee cameos in Marvel films or self-reflective comments about comics and superheroes by superhero films?
How has film and television represented comic fandom from the Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy to movies such as Fanboys, Comic Book Villains, and Chasing Amy or Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back?

Please send your 200-word proposal by e-mail to the area chair:

Lance Eaton, Area Chair

Emerson College

Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies

120 Boylston St.

Boston, MA 02116

Email: Lance_Eaton@emerson.edu (email submissions preferred)

Panel proposals for up to four presenters are also welcome, but each presenter must submit his or her own paper proposal. For updates and registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website (www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory).

CFP - 2010 Festival of Cartoon Art Pre-Conference (June 15; October 14)

2010-05-25T21:52:00.000-04:00

On October 14, 2010 the Billy Ireland Cartoon Research Library & Museum, in collaboration with Project Narrative and the Popular Culture Studies Program at Ohio State University, will host its second one-day symposium on “Humor, Play and Identity in Comics: Academic Perspectives." The gathering will serve as a prelude to the 2010 Festival of Cartoon Art, which runs from October 15-16. For the second time, the triennial Festival is sponsoring an academic pre-conference in recognition of the exciting developments in academic comics studies in recent years and the growing collaborations between comics creators and scholars. We are soliciting papers for three panels:

1. Humor, Play, and Identity in Comics
2. Perspectives from Narrative Theory
3. Krazy Kat at 100

The afternoon's events will conclude with a keynote address on George Herriman by Herriman biographer Michael Tisserand.

To be considered for the panels, please send a 250-500 word abstract and a one-page vita to Jared Gardner at gardner.236@osu.edu. The extended deadline for abstracts is June 15, 2010. Please contact Jared with any questions.

This year's Festival of Cartoon Art speakers and guests will include Matt Groening, Bill Griffith, Art Spiegelman, Roz Chast, Gene Luen Yang, James Sturm, Paul Levitz, Patrick McDonnell, Dan Piraro, Brendan Burford, Jan Eliot, Tom Gammill, Jen Sorensen, Dave Kellett, and Steve Breen. For more information about the 2010 Festival of Cartoon Art, see http://cartoons.osu.edu/final_2010/

PR - Drawing France: French Comics and the Republic, by Joel E. Vessels

2010-05-19T18:34:00.000-04:00

A press release I received today. I've met Joel Vessels, and I expect this book to be a must-read.

Drawing France:

French Comics and the Republic

By Joel E. Vessels

University Press of Mississippi

ISBN 978-1-60473-444-7, hardback $50

For Immediate Release

Rise of Bande Dessinée transformed French politics and history

In France, Belgium, and other Francophone countries, the comic strip - called bande dessinée (BD) in French - has long been considered a major art form capable of addressing cultural issues. Graphic narratives were deemed worthy of canonization and critical study for decades before the academy and the press embraced comics in the United States.

The place that BD holds in the culture today, however, belies the contentious political route the art form has had in France. In Drawing France: French Comics and the Republic (University Press of Mississippi) author Joel E. Vessels examines the trek of BD from its course of being considered a fomenter of rebellion, to an art suitable only for semi-literates, to an impediment to children’s education, and most recently to its use as a bellwether of social concerns in mainstream culture.

In the mid-1800s, alarmists feared political caricatures might incite the ire of an illiterate working class. To counter this notion, proponents yoked the art to a particular articulation of “Frenchness” based on literacy and reason. With the post-World War II economic upswing, French consumers saw BD as a way to navigate the changes brought by modernization.

After bande dessinée came to be understood as a compass for the masses, the government, especially François Mitterand’s administration, brought comics increasingly into “official” culture. In tracing this development, Vessels argues that BD are central to the formation of France’s self-image and a self-awareness of what it means to be French.

Drawing France is one of the first texts to directly examine the French government’s relationship to bande dessinée and popular visual culture to analyze the political identity of the modern nation-state.

Joel E. Vessels, Astoria, New York, is instructor of history at Nassau Community College. His work has appeared in International Journal of Comic Art and Contemporary French Civilization.

–30–

For more information contact Clint Kimberling, Publicist, ckimberling@mississippi.edu

Read more about Drawing France: French Comics and the Republic at http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/1296

CFP: Alan Moore Edited Collection, "Lost Loves" (July 15)

2010-05-19T18:01:00.000-04:00

Alan Moore Edited Collection CFP

Lost Loves: Why Men and Women Make It (or Don’t) in the Work of Alan Moore

With the publication of Lost Girls and 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom, the centrality of love and sex in Alan Moore’s work has become indisputable. Thus far, however, little scholarly attention has been paid to this facet of his work. This collection, provisionally titled Lost Loves: Why Men and Women Make It (or Don’t) in the Work of Alan Moore, aims to remedy that situation.

Sex and (possibly) love abound in Moore's novels and films. In V for Vendetta, Moore juxtaposes the love of the computerized state with the transient love of men and women. In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Watchmen, he poses difficult questions about the nature of (super)heroic love for others, and for democracy, nation, and empire. In sophisticated metapornographic works like Lost Girls and League, Moore (lovingly?) appropriates the work of others. Throughout his work, Moore is attuned to representation and to how representation demarcates the reality of those who love, and are “loved.”

Close analyses of Moore’s novels and “his” films, his appropriation of other works, his collaborations with illustrators, his artistic/spiritual relationship to his community, and his love-hate relationship with the film industry are of interest. A wide variety of disciplines (sociology, art, philosophy, etc.) and frameworks (feminist, disability studies, postcolonial, queer, Foucaultian, and psychoanalytic) are welcomed. Scholars might also consider addressing the topic in the context of posthumanism, Victorian repression, vampirism, hybridity, ecology, magic/spirituality, pornography, anarchy, and fandom and fan fiction. The collection defines “love” broadly so as to include ethical relation in general.

I have a number of essays on Moore’s dystopian texts (Watchmen, V for Vendetta) and on Lost Girls. I am particularly interested in locating more essays on Lost Girls and 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom, as well as From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Voice of the Fire, Swamp Thing, and his lesser known texts.

A book proposal is currently being circulated. Please email any queries; abstracts of 300 words should be emailed to Todd Comer, Defiance College, by July 15, 2010, for earliest consideration. Full or partial articles, if available, may also be included with your abstract. Email: tcomer@defiance.edu