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Announcement of the winners of the Martin Schüwer-Publication Prize 2024

We are delighted to announce the winners of the sixth Martin Schüwer-Publication Prize for Outstanding Comics Research 2024!

This year, the comic essay From Giotto to Drnaso: The Common Well of Pictorial Schema in ‘High’ Art and ‘Low’ Comics by Bruce Mutard has been awarded the Martin Schüwer Prize. The essay was published in the volume Seeing Comics Through Art History: Alternative Approaches to the Form in the Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels series edited by Ian Horton and Maggie Gray.

On behalf of ComFor and the AG Comicforschung (Committee for Comics Studies of the Society for Media Studies GfM), this year’s jury would like to congratulate Bruce Mutard on his exciting contribution and is delighted to award him the Martin Schüwer Publication Prize for Outstanding Comics Research 2024!

Laudatio for Bruce Mutard:

With his paper on the ever-contested relationship between comics and art history, Bruce Mutard takes the title he has chosen literally. The question itself is not necessarily new. However, the form he found is extraordinary. His academic paper is a comic that reflects on art styles through art history by showing them directly on the page. It stands out because it aims to provide a detailed reflection of iconography and the visual resemblance between classic arts and comics on the level of form.

Mutard tells us a story about the representation of art through time by including classical paintings in the scenery and panels full of artworks, as well as repeatedly switching the drawing style. However, the visual information is not only part of the story the comic tells, it is also part of the academic side of the article. Mutard provides full transparency in meticulous notes and references to different sources and artists who inspired his style choices—breaking new ground on how to include visual information into an academic argument.

Mutard’s paper is a significant contribution to the controversial debate on the roots of comics within the history of the arts. The answer to this question is as apt as simple. The question is not whether historical works of art are themselves comics, which is a well-introduced strategy for a retrospectively applied identification of any sort of art that (seemingly) refers to modes of sequentiality as comics. In this perspective, there is eventually nothing beyond the comic form; hence, comics have always existed. That way, the comic medium can be understood as the end of a long-lasting teleological development in art history.

Contrary to this assumption, Mutard suggests a much more coherent and subtle response to that question. According to him, the decisive question is whether comics could have existed at the respective historical point in time. Hence, the question is not simply one of resemblance, like the sequentiality on the Column of Trajan or the Bayeux Tapestry, but that of cultural preconditions. Which cultural setting makes comics possible? And, particularly, on which cultural techniques do comics depend? Mutard finds a historical link in Susan Vogel’s concept of the “Western Eye,” developed for Vogel’s work on the Western perception of African Baule art. Mutard’s essay applies Vogel’s concept strictly and straightforwardly, which produces inspiring results. Overall, this marks the essay as an essential contribution to the understanding of the comic medium, which will, theoretically as much as methodologically, certainly inspire the further development of comics studies.

Honorable Mention:

In addition to the main prize, the jury also awarded an honorable mention this year. This goes to Helene Bongers for her essay Depictions of women in Catherine Meurisse’s ‘Modern Olympia’: A bande dessinée as feminist art history. The article was published in 2023 in the thematic issue “La bande dessinée au féminin : tendances, thèmes, styles” of the journallendemains. Études comparées sur la France (47. Jahrgang, Nr. 185) and is available on Academia.edu.

Laudatio for Helene Bongers:

Helene Bongers besticht in ihrem Artikel „Frauendarstellungen in Catherine Meurisses ‚Moderne Olympia‘: Eine bande dessinée als feministische Kunst-Geschichte“ durch eine präzise Sprache und theoretische Weite bei gleichzeitig differenzierter Analyse am Comic. Der Artikel untersucht, wie in „Moderne Olympia“ Frauen und weibliche Körper dargestellt und angeschaut, welche kunsthistorischen Tropen aufgegriffen und welche zurückgewiesen werden. Dabei arbeitet Bongers die feministische Perspektive des Comics auf zwei kanonische Kunstwerke aus dem Musée d’Orsay in Paris heraus und bindet die gesellschaftliche und kunsthistorische Rezeption der Kunstwerke mit ein, welche durch Sexismus und Rassismus geprägt sind. Damit wählt Bongers einen intersektionalen Zugang zum Werk, dem eine differenzierte und eingehende kunsthistorische Analyse zugrunde liegt.

The laudations for both award-winning contributions were read out during the award ceremony at the 19the ComFor-Annual Conference (October 23-25, 2024) in Groningen.

This year’s Schüwer Prize jury:

Jörn Ahrens
Anna Beckmann
Barbara M. Eggert
Iris Haist 
Vanessa Ossa 

“Das kleine Handbuch der Comicreportage” published

Das kleine Handbuch der Comicreportage

Augusto Paim
Christian A. Bachmann Verlag
September 2024
112 pages
ISBN 978-3-96234-092-6

Following from Augusto Paim’s dissertation published in 2022, Die Comicreportage: Journalistische Erzählung in Comicform (also with Bachmann), this ‘spin-off’ offers a kind of practical guide to journalistic approaches in comic form.

Blurbs:
“Eingängig, berührend und einfühlsam: Die Comicreportage ist eine neue und faszinierende Form der journalistischen Arbeit. An konkreten Beispielen und mit vielen Tipps aus der Praxis führt Augusto Paim in die Comicreportage ein. Schritt für Schritt erklärt er, wie sie entsteht und was bei der Arbeit zu beachten ist. Dabei wendet er sich nicht nur an die Schreibenden, sondern denkt auch immer an die Zeichnung. Drei komplette Comicreportagen machen die Erläuterungen noch anschaulicher.”

Publisher’s page

“What Was, Is, Will Be Comic Studies – to Us?” (ComFor’s 18th Annual Conference Proceedings)

Christina Meyer, Vanessa Ossa & Lukas R.A. Wilde (eds.):
Was war, ist, wird Comicforschung – für uns? 10 Jahre ComFor e.V. als eingetragener Verein

Gesellschaft für Comicforschung (ComFor),
1. ed., Oktober 2024
240 pages, 109 figures
open access
ISBN 978-3-9826707-0-6
DOI  10.17605/OSF.IO/PDWFH

 

 

Edited by Christina Meyer, Vanessa Ossa, and Lukas R.A. Wilde, with contributions by Daniel Stein, Jaqueline Berndt, Stephan Packard, Andreas Veits, Myriam Macé, Daniela Kuschel, Arnold Bärtschi, Lukas R.A. Wilde, Martin Wambsganß, Dietrich Grünewald, Barbara M. Eggert, Ralf Palandt, Christine Vogt, and Iris Haist.

See the Conference Program of the 18th Annual ComFor-Conference (2023)

The (German) Society for Comic Studies (ComFor) has been established on February 11, 2005, in Koblenz. Its purpose was and still is the promotion and networking of interdisciplinary research on the medium of comics in German-speaking countries, on German-language comics and other forms of graphic narrative, on works originating from German-speaking countries or translated into German and, more generally, all scholarship on comics at German, Austrian and Swiss universities and other educational institutions. On April 11, 2014, ComFor was reconstituted as “ComFor e.V.” at Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main. In 2024 we, i.e. the members of ComFor, can therefore look back on the tenth anniversary as a legally registered association. With currently about 167 active members from various countries (from Italy, Austria, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the US, amongst other) and different subject areas and disciplines such as Literary Studies, Art History, Media Studies, Sociology, Japanese Studies, and many more, the society has grown since 2014 to one of the largest, internationally recognized institutions of interdisciplinary comics research. Over these past ten years, the field has become very diversified, professionalized, and evolved. Comics Studies often utilizes the strengths of these institutionally barely anchored, but, all the more, lively interdisciplinary and international fields in order to focus – and reflect – on the diversity of the specific perspectives involved.

To mark the tenth anniversary of our society as a registered organization, we have dedicated ourselves to a critical (self-)reflection of this period of comic research. The preparatory 18th ComFor annual conference, which was intended as a kind of ‚think tank‘ for the members of our society, took place from December 11–13, 2023 at the Waldschlösschen Academy Foundation, Gleichen, which is near Göttingen. Such reflections must necessarily remain highly selective and deliberately avoid any claim to completeness or representativeness. “What Was, Is, Will Be Comic Studies – to Us?” is therefore not meant exclusionary, in the sense of a linguistically, geographically, or nationally constructed ‘we,’ but addresses quite literally the members of our Society for Comics Research, with their personal, often interdisciplinary, meandering research biographies, interests, and focal points.

The first part of our collection, “Reflection Papers,” offers three spotlights from esteemed colleagues who have been working in the field for several decades and who were asked for their personal reflections on their individual ‘research biography’ – with freely chosen focal points. The main section, “Current Research Perspectives,” offers insights into contemporary questions, topics, and concerns that are motivating newer members and early career scholars of our society in particular within their current research projects. The next section “Focus on Comic Exhibitions” sheds light on the often-neglected issue of comic book exhibitions and their means of communication. Our anthology is rounded off by 80 pages of documentation from the republished ComFor-ComicForum.org-columns, published between 2014 and 2023, a total of 36 texts by 9 authors, which record and narrate the past ten years.

Download Full Publication (40 MB)

Continue Reading: Table of Contents and Individual Contributions

comfor_comicforschung new on Instagram

The ComFor editorial team is pleased to expand the digital presence of the Society for Comics Studies (ComFor) and now also be represented on Instagram as comfor_comicforschung. Supervised by Laura Glötter, the ComFor Instagram account will be filled with appealing and relevant content from the world of comics and comics research. ComFor is intensifying its social media activities in a fruitful cooperation with the Committee for Comics Studies of (GfM), represented by Barbara M. Eggert. This collaboration, which just began at the GfM annual conference, promises a multifaceted and informative presence on Instagram. The team has developed a varied concept that offers new insights into various aspects of comics research and culture every Sunday:

“Frisch erschienen”: Presentations of new comics studies publications
“Comic Fact”: Concise insights into the world of comics
“Comic Empfehlung”: Curated reading recommendations (suggestions welcome and can be sent by email to redaktion@comicgesellschaft.de!)
“Panelplausch”: Interactive exchange with the community

The initiative aims to promote dialogue between comics researchers, enthusiasts, and the interested public, while at the same time communicating current developments in comics research. We cordially invite anyone interested to follow our Instagram presence and actively participate in an exciting discourse about comics.

Hybrid lecture series “Learning about the Shoah through Narrative Art and Visual Storytelling”

Termin:
2024 10 08 18-20 Uhr - 2025 01 28

In the winter semester starting next week, Daniel Stein is organizing a lecture series in Siegen together with Jens Aspelmeier and Jana Mikota on the topic of “Learning about the Shoah through Narrative Art and Visual Storytelling – Transnational Remembrance in Graphic Literature”. It will focus on comics and graphic literature, but also on children’s books. Other ComFor members such as Ole Frahm and Ralf Palandt will also be giving talks. All sessions take place on Tuesdays from 6-8 pm. If you are interested in attending individual sessions or the entire lecture series digitally, you are highly welcome to do so by registering through e-mail at mikota (ät) germanistik.uni-siegen.de.

To the lecture series page

“Comics | Histories” published in open access as the first volume of the new series

Comics | HistoriesComics | Histories: Texts, Methods, Resources

Jessica Bauwens-Sugimoto, Felix Giesa, Christina Meyer (eds.)
Rombach
September 2024
259 pages
eBook ISBN 978-3-98858-056-6 (Open Access)
Print ISBN 978-3-98858-055-9

The first volume of Rombach’s new comic studies research series “Comics | Histories” has just been published under the same cover title, edited by Jessica Bauwens-Sugimoto, Felix Giesa, and Christina Meyer. The publication with a total of 10 articles in the sections “Re-Reading Punch Magazine”, “(Re-)Productions”, “War [in] Comics”, and “Periodization, Canonization, Digitization” can now be ordered free of charge as an open access download.

Blurbs:

“This edited study is the first book in a new series of publications which aims to revise the wide spectrum of what are now regarded as comics (including caricatures, cartoons, graphic novels, etc.), broadening the view of Comics Studies, not only retrospectively but also prospectively at a time when modern media identities are dissolving. While there are already significant numbers of publications that foreground representations of history in comics, our edited study (and the new series) seeks to highlight contributions to history by comics in particular. In addition to that, the book (and the series) aims to address comics from a transnational, yet culturally situated, perspective, without privileging national histories of the medium in the narrower sense, i.e., as confined to the North American, Franco-Belgian or Japanese publication markets. The contributions to this first book in the series not only address questions relating to practices of canonisation, periodisation and digitisation, but also provide historical perspectives on a variety of humorous magazines and newspapers and deal with issues relating to adapting and revising comics in different parts of the world and in different cultures. The contributors to this book include a number of international scholars working in different areas and disciplines, such as literary and cultural studies, me-dia studies, history, children’s and youth literature research, computational studies and digital humani-ties. The book is divided into four parts, entitled ‘Re-Reading Punch Magazines’, ‘(Re-)Productions’, ‘War [in] Comics’ and ‘Periodization, Canonization, Digitization’ respectively. The editors of the book hope that the collection of (ongoing) research projects will spark readers’ curiosity and ignite their ambition to ex-plore comics|histories in multifarious ways. The newly launched series is looking for future projects that will also focus on the historiography of Comics Studies, in other words, inter- and transdisciplinary research on comics as objects of analysis in themselves. Multidisciplinary assessments of the field and its practices in terms of research and publishing and author- and editorship promise new insights into processes of knowledge formation, as well as the power relations involved.”

Publisher’s page

Collection “Comics & Intersektionalität” published as vol. 3 of Comicstudien (De Gruyter)

Comics und IntersektionalitätComics & Intersektionalität

Anna Beckmann, Kalina Kupczyńska, Marie Schröer, and Véronique Sina (eds.)
De Gruyter
September 2024
337 pages
eBook ISBN 9783110799385
gebunden ISBN 9783110799293

Volume 3 of De Gruyter’s new Comic Studies series has just been published under the title “Comics & Intersectionality” [Comics & Intersectionality], fortunately also directly as open access. The editors are Anna Beckmann, Kalina Kupczyńska, Marie Schröer, and Véronique Sina. The contributors include also many other ComFor members such as Daniel Stein, Sylvia Kesper-Biermann, Ole Frahm, Marina Rauchenbacher, Katharina Serles, Dorothee Marx, Annemarie Klimke, and Katharina Hülsmann.

Blurbs:
“This volume expands on existing approaches in German-language comics studies by taking a deliberate intersectional perspective. The thematic core of the volume is a scholarly, interdisciplinary exploration of various forms of multidimensional discrimination and exclusion in the comic medium..”

Publisher’s page

19th ComFor-annual conference 2024: „Graphic Medicine“ in Groningen

Termin:
2024 10 23 14:30 Uhr - 2024 10 25

From October 23-25, 2024, the 19th annual conference of the Society for Comics Studies (ComFor) will take place at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. The event is organized by Janina Wildfeuer and Barbara Postema. Keynote speakers are Elisabeth El Refaie (Cardiff University), Irmela Krüger-Fürhoff (Freie Universität Berlin) and Erin La Cour (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam).

“Initiated in 2007, the area of study called ‘Graphic Medicine’ has developed into an impressive field of research that is today broadly understood as “the intersection of the medium of comics and the discourse of healthcare” (Czerwiec et al. 2015). As a discipline, it understands itself as an ‘emerging area of interdisciplinary academic study’ including both theoretical and methodological developments from several disciplines connected to comics studies as well as practical insights and applications from medical practitioners in the healthcare context.

 The conference would like to bring these theoretical and methodological developments as well as practical insights and applications together and offer a fruitful place for discussion and critical evaluation of the discipline and its most recent developments and insights. We aim at opening the conference again for an international context with topics such as: Graphic Medicine for Scholarship, Graphic Storytelling and Medical Narrative; Graphic Pathography; Iconography of Illness; practical applications of Graphic Medicine.

Weiterlesen: Tagungsprogramm

Journal Monitor 18: New Publications on Comic Books

The Journal Monitor is a subcategory of the regular Monitor. It is an irregularly published overview of issues of international journals on comics studies as well as special issues on corresponding topics. The introductory texts and/or tables of contents come from the respective websites.
Do you have suggestions or information on new releases that have been overlooked and should be introduced on our website? Please let us know via email: redaktion@comicgesellschaft.de.
See previous Monitor posts.


Comicalités:
Dessins d’enfance dans la bande dessinée

Cover des Journalsonline, open access
Website

  • Benoît Crucifix et Maaheen Ahmed: “Logiques d’interaction entre le dessin d’enfant et la bande dessinée”
  • Dragana Radanović, Roel Vande Winkel, Nancy Vansieleghem: “You Draw Like a Child! Interrogating Aetonormative Tendencies in Imitations of Children’s Drawings in Graphic Narratives”
  • Carol Tilley: “The Open Road for Boys Cartooning Contests: A Prosopography”
  • Aleksandar Zograf: “Dečije Novine. From School Magazine to Major Comics Publisher”
  • Breixo Harguindey: “Les premiers psychopédagogues et la bande dessinée. L’expérience de Hanns Guck-in-Die-Luft aux États-Unis et en Allemagne”
  • Véronique Blanchard et Mathias Gardet: “« Dessinez votre vie en 6-8 cases ». La bande dessinée expertisée par la justice des enfants (1945-1960)”
  • Xavier Girard: “Norbert Moutier, Collection Aventures. L’enfance et la sérialité à l’œuvre”
  • Johanna Schipper: “Venir aux mondes : mes premières héroïnes de bande dessinée”
  • Maël Rannou: “Bande-dessiner avant de savoir lire, une exploration d’archives personnelles”

 

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics  15.4

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  • Dimitris Asimakoulas: “Your translated memory or mine? Re-membering graphic novels in performed audio descriptions for The Cartoon Museum, London”
  • Fadhlan Muchlas Abrori, Theodosia Prodromou, Mara Alagic, Reka Livits, Houssam Kasti, Zsolt Lavicza, Branko Anđić: “Integrating mathematics and science to explain socioscientific issues in educational comics for elementary school students”
  • Eleftheria Karagianni: “On the distinction between creative and non-creative labour and on making comics in Guy Delisle’s graphic memoirs. From “travelogues” to “laborlogs”
  • Melissa Eriko Poulsen: “Life is a long exorcism: horror as mixed race resistance in Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda’s Monstress
  • Patrycja Pichnicka-Trivedi: “Imagining Eastern Europe – representations of Eastern Europe in 21st century French Vampire bandes dessinées”
  • Zohreh Baghban, Susan Poursanati: “Respect the power of the beast: an ecocritical analysis into interspecies relationships in Shaun Tan’s Tales from the Inner City
  • Sathyaraj Venkatesan, Maureen Burdock: “Politics of extractivism, grassroot justice and crude
  • Fátima Susana Mota Roboredo Amante: “In her hands: navigating [sexual] identity and gender roles in a Portuguese graphic novel for young adults by Joana Estrela”

 

European Comic Art 17.1

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  • Per Esben Svelstad: “The Graphic Novel as Mediation of the Anthropocene: Allegory, Ignorability, and Pedagogy in Javi Rey’s Adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People
  • Robert Rozema: “Not With but Instead: A New Framework for Teaching Graphic Adaptations in Secondary Contexts”
  • Callum D. Smith: “Low Art, ‘Skits’, and ‘Pot-boilers’?: Re-examining the Political Caricatures of Thomas Rowlandson, 1780–1827”
  • Pierre Fresnault-Deruelle and translated by Ann Miller: “The Posed and the Transposed: Wilhelm Schulz’s Guardian Angel

 

ImageTexT 15.1

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Website

  • Weihsin Gui: “Covidity and Comics: Graphic Medicine from Singapore”
  • Amy Matthewson: “George Du Maurier’s Visual Degeneration: Chinamaniacs and China in the British Imagination”
  • Sohini Naiya, Smriti Singh: “Deciphering the Forest: A Journey from an Intellectual Concern to a Lived Experience”
  • Jenny Robb: “Preserving the Legacy of Black Press Cartoonists”

 

Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society 8.1

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Website

  • Marcos Gonsalez: “In Defense of the Effete Superhero: Theorizing the First Queer Latinx Superhero, Extraño/Gregorio de la Vega”
  • Jake Zawlacki: “Unintended Consequences: Spawn as “Superman Black””
  • Derek Lee: “Is Psylocke Asian? The Racial Fantasy and Ambiguity of an Uncanny Oriental”
  • Chris Gavaler: “Formal Metacomics: Practice as Theory”

 

Comics and Culture 8

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  • Mel Gibson: “Of Saints and Scientists: Biographies of famous women in the periodical Girl
  • Barbara Friedlander: “The Accidental Profession”
  • Lily Gould: “The Perfect Pastiche: Lily Renée and Fiction House’s Comic Book Women, 1942-1948”
  • Ioana Atanassova: “Women in Manga: Artists, Portrayal, Themes, Style, and Cultural Heritage”
  • Tiffany Babb: “Media as Memoir in Kate Beaton’s Ducks

 

Sane  2.8

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  • Matt Reingold: “Illustrating Thoughts & Feelings: Student-Produced Political Cartoons About Israel”
  • Genç Osman İlhan, Maide Şin: “Reflections of “Use of Comics in Social Studies Education” Course: The Opinion and Experiences of Teachers”
  • Stewart Brower, Toni Hoberecht, Zane Ratcliffe, Bethie Seay: “Developing and Sustaining a Graphic Scholarship Collection for Academic Libraries”
  • Andrea Tosti: “From Panels to Shelves: The Evolving Intersection of Comics And Italian Libraries. History, Issues, Perspectives”

 

Studies in Comics  14.1

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  • Giorgio Busi Rizzi, Lorenzo Di Paola, Nicoletta Mandolini: “Comics Strike Back! Digital Forms, Digital Practices, Digital Audiences”
  • Lorenzo Di Paola, Mario Tirino: “A cyberpunk symphony of dystopian nightmares: Towards an archaeology of early digital comics”
  • Giorgio Busi Rizzi, Lorenzo Di Paola: “Remediation processes and reading protocols: A genealogy of digital comics”
  • Lukas R. A. Wilde: “Webcomics as mediation”
  • Margarita Molina Fernández: “Understanding digital comics for creation: From conception to reception”
  • Daniel Merlin Goodbrey: “From digital display to printed page: An exploration of the use of digital comic adaptations and hybridizations in print comic formats”
  • Marco d’Alessandro: “Continuity: Inside the frame and behind the screen”
  • Lisa Maya Quaianni Manuzzato: “Promoting comics in digital landscapes: Comics artists as content creators”
  • Gaëlle Kovaliv: “Internet, the Paradise Lost of comics? Observations on the constraints behind publishing webcomics, based on interviews with francophone authors”
  • Nicolle Lamerichs, Vanessa Ossa : “Fandom, algorithm, prompting: Reconsidering webcomics”

 

Images du travail, travail des images:
Bandes dessinées et romans graphiques au travail

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    • Jean-Paul Géhin, Françoise F. Laot, Pierre Nocérino: “De l’œuf et de la poule : le travail mis au jour par le récit dessiné… et inversement ”
    • Sylvain Aquatias et Alain François: “Les débuts professionnels des auteurs et des autrices de bande dessinée”
    • Maëlys Tirehote-Corbin et Léandre Ackermann: “Une lecture critique de l’histoire de la bande dessinée entre invisibilisation et exclusion : le cas des autrices en France”
    • Marc Loriol: “La bande dessinée comme moyen de saisir le geste ouvrier à l’usine”
    • Nicolas Verschueren: “Les « petits dessins » de Persepolis : images du travail dans la fabrique de l’animation”
    • Isabelle Rivoal, Marc Armspach: “L’atelier de Marko. Énergie, intention, ambiance et technique(s) : un dessinateur de bande dessinée à l’œuvre”
    • Claire Marc, Verena Richardier: “Mettre en dessins le travail scientifique”

 

The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship  14

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  • Diego Labra: “Caught Between Manga and the Graphic Novel: Two Cartoonists’ Trajectories in Contemporary Argentinian “National Comics””
  • Jordi Giner-Monfort: “The Bureau of Applied Social Research and Comics Studies in the 1940s”
  • Nicolas Verstappen: “U Ba Kyi’s Neo-Traditionalist Comics Style: At The Crossroads of Myanmar’s Buddhism, Arts and Colonial History”
  • Zuzana Fonioková: “Identity Construction in Graphic Life Narratives by Aline Kominsky Crumb and Katie Green”

“Innovative Methods on Multimodal Comics Research” published in Journal of Semiotics

Zeitschrift für Semiotik, September 2024, Band 45, Heft 1-2/2023Zeitschrift für Semiotik/Journal of Semiotics
September 2024, vol. 45, no. 1-2/2023, 209 pages.
EUR 65,00
ISBN 978-3-95809-680-6

ComFor-members Stephan Packard and Janina Wildfeuer have just published an English special issue on “Innovative Methods in Multimodal Comics Research” in Journal of Semiotics. Online access is planned for Summer 2025.

Summary:

“This special issue on innovative methods in multimodal comics research brings together linguistic as well as inter- and transdisciplinary contributions engaging with the semiotic and multimodal wealth of comics, graphic novels, and other forms of visual narratives. The contributions connect to recent research with new challenges and solutions and engage in dialogue across various approaches to the multimodality of comics. In our introduction to the issue, we want to address this ‘multimodality of comics’ further and give some explanatory notes on our understanding of this concept and the development of the field of research connected to it.”

Articles:

Janina Wildfeuer and Stephan Packard: “Innovative Methods in Multimodal Comics Research: Introduction”

John A. Bateman: “Multimodal Semiotics for the Analysis of Comics and Graphic Novels”

Lauren Edlin and Joshua Reiss: “Measuring Inter-Subjective Agreement on Units and Attributions in Comics with Annotation Experiments”

Miloš Tasic: “Visualising an Oral Epic: Lobacev’s Comic Book Tsar Dušan’s Wedding”

Lukas R.A. Wilde: “Unreliable Iconicity, or: Accounting for the Cartoonish Pictures of Comics in Multimodal Reasoning”

Stephan Packard: “Multimodal Cohesion in Panel Graphs: A Pragmaticist Approach to the Gap Between Comics Grammar and Aesthetics”

Publisher’s page