The First USW Cardiff: Comics Symposium (1^st and 2^nd June 2018) was interested in creator’s perspectives. It explored comics and creativity.

Following this symposium, The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship invites papers for a special collection examining the practice of creating comics, and the particulars of storytelling in comics.

Colleagues who presented at the Symposium are invited to expand the work of their original presentation into submissions of 4000-6000 words.

Please submit articles of 4000-6000 words, plus an abstract of 300 words, a maximum of 5 good-resolution image files, a short 100-word biography and six keywords directly via The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship online submission portal by 1^stOctober 2018.

This call however is open to all comics practitioners and scholars, including those who may not have presented at The First USW Cardiff: Comics Symposium, as its intention is to both complement and expand the remit of the original Symposium.

The original call asked: does changing a panel change the story? How might a medium’s materiality affect its construction and reception?

Pudovkin stated that “In order to write a scenario suitable for filming, one must know the methods by which the spectator can be influenced from the screen” (Pudovkin 1949: 1), and referring to adaption Weaver suggests this is“the act of translating a story from one medium to another. To do so, you must be cognizant of the needs and storytelling techniques of each medium.” (Weaver 2012: 83). This special collection addresses these needs from the point of view of the creators involved in the production and creation of comics and extends the conversations begun at the symposium.

Authors are encouraged to keep endnotes to an absolute minimum, such as in cases where crucial clarifying information needs to be conveyed.

Submissions should provide analysis/interpretation of specific examples of comics work as well as image files of the discussed examples.

Submission and manuscript guidance can be found on the comics grid submission site: https://www.comicsgrid.com/about/submissions/

All authors must ensure their submissions:

• follow the journal’s submissions guidelines
• be sure to discuss the particulars of the medium as well as the message, including relevant image files corresponding to the passages discussed in the manuscript
• show an understanding of comics scholarship, history, and theory appropriate to the substance of the manuscript.

The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship is a researcher-led, peer-reviewed, open-access journal published by the Open Library of Humanities.

Unlike many open-access publishers, the Open Library of Humanities does not charge any author fees. This does not mean that we do not have costs. Instead, our costs are paid by an international library consortium.

Authors whose work is accepted for publication retain their copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal. This is the journal’s default license. Authors  preferring to publish their work under an alternative Creative Commons License, should indicate this in the Comments for the Editor box in the online submission form, providing reasons for the request.

Any special enquiries relating to this issue, please send them through to the collection editors:

Brian Fagence (brian.fagence@southwales.ac.uk) and Geraint D’Arcy (geraint.darcy@southwales.ac.uk)

References

• Pudovkin, V., I. (2007) Film technique and film acting: the cinema writings of V. I. Pudovkin. New York: Bonanza.
• Weaver, Tyler (2012) Comics for Film, Games, and Animation: Using Comics to Construct your Transmedia Storyworld. Abingdon, Oxon: Focal Press.