From their earliest manifestations, comic art characters have travelled the globe and beyond. Whether realist or fantastical, drawn to educate or to amuse, comics have used their considerable and unique expressive power to depict journeys, both physically and mentally, to “elsewhere”. As the medium has evolved worldwide into one attracting both an adult and a juvenile audience, this relationship to the voyage has diversified, as recently-developed trends such as “graphic journalism” attest. This conference will focus on the relationship of the sequential art form to the voyage and study representations of travel across the history of the medium up to the present day. The conference intends to consider the notion of “voyage” in a broad sense, to include related notions concerned both with geographical movement – such as migration, exile or deployment – and with the psychic journey.

With this inclusive framework in mind the organising committee for the joint International Graphic Novel and Comics conference and International Bande Dessinée Society (IBDS) conference welcome abstracts on all areas of scholarship relating to comics, the graphic novel, and bande dessinée.

Abstracts of 150-200 words in advance of a 20-minute paper, as well as questions and expressions of interest, should be sent to:
voyagesconference@gmail.com or c.macleod@ulip.lon.ac.uk

Deadline: 31st December 2014

Further information
http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ibds/?page_id=589