We are currently co-editing a collection entitled Novel-Seeming-Goods: The Contemporary Novel as Network. One of the collection’s sections, “Seeming,” is concerned with the various relationships between the novel and its “others,” including the comic (as in the functions of the designator graphic novel, for example). For this section, we are looking for a paper that would explore comics novelizations or novels drawing directly on comics tropes. Such novels may include, but should not be limited to, Tom De Haven’s It’s Superman and the Dugan trilogy; Austin Grossman’s Soon I will be Invincible; Michael Chabon The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay; but also more immediately comics-related texts such as Elliott Maggin’s Kingdom Come novelization or other superhero novels, or novels whose graphic elements may be related helpfully to the comic. We are also interested in comics authors (such as Warren Ellis or Alan Moore) writing novels. Our goal in the collection is to describe the multifarious ways in which the novel, as form, idea, and product, acts on literary production in the contemporary, remains an important point of departure for other forms, or adapts to the pressures of those forms. While we will argue that this acting is best described through recourse to the idea of the “network,” we do not absolutely insist (though would prefer) on any contribution making this point.

We are also open to papers which, dealing with the nexus between comics and the novel in the “comics novel,” as it were, go beyond or offer a different focus than the one suggested, as long as the central idea (the novel that draws on the comic) is maintained.

Paper proposals are due around March 1st and should not be longer than 300 words, and be accompanied by a brief biographical statement. We will propose the collection to U.S. university presses first, but keep you in the loop at all times on our thinking and progress. Finished papers of about 7,500 words would be due towards the end of June, 2017. Please email me with any questions you may have about it, I’d be very happy to answer any inquiries, or say something about preliminary ideas if you have them. Contact me at lanzendo@uni-mainz.de. (Tim Lanzendörfer and Corinna Norrick-Rühl)