Comicgesellschaft

“Comparative Aspects in Comics Studies” – New ComFor-Conference Proceedings Published!

Posted on 2025 03 08, 08:47

Comparative Aspects in Comics Studies:
Translation, Localisation, Imitation, and Adaptation
Juliane Blank, Stephan Packard, and Christian A. Bachmann (eds.)
Christian A. Bachmann Verlag
März 2025
286 pages
36,00 EUR
ISBN 978-3-96234-087-2

Another new edited collection has just been published by Christian A. Bachmann, which ComFor has been looking forward to for a long time. It goes back to the 14th ComFor-Jahrestagung in Schwarzenbach an der Saale brings together not less than 12 essays reflecting translation, localisation, imitation, and adaptation in comics.

Blurbs:
“This volume reflects upon comparative aspects within the study of comics. It explores phenomena that cross boundaries between cultures, languages, economies, and media formats, paying special attention to translations, localisations, imitations, and adaptations that transport some aspects of one given material into a new shape or matter. Topics range from the direct translation of a given comic for a different audience through considerations of claims to translatability and untranslatability to naturalizing or alienating effects of translation, and on to emendations in cases of censorship or broader forms of media control, editorial interventions, revisions by original or new artists, as well as parodies and piracies. The interplay of aemulatio and imitatio, of purely imitative and rival imitation, gives way to the large field of media translation.”

Contributions:

Christian A. BACHMANN, Juliane BLANK, and Stephan PACKARD
Comparative Aspects of Comics Studies: Introduction

Lynn L. WOLFF
Self-Translation in Nora Krug’s Transcultural Graphic Memoir Belonging/Heimat

Yun-Jou CHEN
Popalania, the Perfect Country: Revisiting Bo Yang’s Taiwan Translation of Popeye Comic Strips (1967–1968)

Alexandra HENTSCHEL and Gerhard SEVERIN
Localizing Duckburg: How Translator Erika Fuchs Moved Duckburg to Post-War Germany

Romain BECKER
Possibilities and Strategies of Scanlations: How Fan-made Translations of Manga Contrast with Official Ones (and Inspire Them)

Nathalie MÄLZER
Comic Adaptations as Intersemiotic Translation: Asterix – Der Seher (1975)

Olga KOPYLOVA
Transformations of Style in Manga-To-Anime Adaptations: A Formal Analysis

Elisabeth KRIEBER
Queer Autographics on Broadway

Markus OPPOLZER
Van Gogh’s Pictorial After/life: A Look at Biopic as a Transmedial Genre

Dietrich GRÜNEWALD
The Art of Adaptation: Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray

Marina RAUCHENBACHER
Who (and Where) is *Alice*? Anke Feuchtenberger’s Feminist-Disruptive Identity Criticism

Keren ZDAFEE
Egyptianizing Mickey and Minnie?

Publisher’s Page

Call for Nominations: Martin Schüwer Publication Prize 2025

Posted on 2025 02 05, 08:42

Martin Schüwer Publication Prize for Excellence in Comics Studies

Call for Nominations:

Annual award for the best article by an early-career scholar, organized by the German Society for Comics Studies (ComFor) and the Committee for Comics Studies at the German Society for Media Studies (GfM)

The German Society for Comics Studies (ComFor) and the Committee for Comics Studies at the German Society for Media Studies (GfM) are announcing for the seventh time in 2025 the Martin Schüwer Publication Prize for Excellence in Comics Studies. The prize has been awarded annually since 2019. It supports scholars who, regardless of their actual age, do not yet hold a permanent academic position. By honoring outstanding publications in the field of interdisciplinary comics research, the award aims to create more visibility for comics-related research, promoting and communicating its importance to a wider public.

The prize is named after the late Martin Schüwer, a scholar of English Literature and Culture who specialized in comics studies and who, very unfortunately, died at a far too early age in 2013. His dissertation Wie Comics erzählen (2008), published 17 years ago, has unfolded new grounds for narratological comics research and has become a standard work in German-language comics studies. With this and his other works on comics as well as on the didactics of English literature, Martin Schüwer set valuable standards regarding the excellence, accessibility and range that publications in our fields can achieve. Both as a comics researcher and as a person, Schüwer had a distinct way of talking to people, characterized by his open-mindedness and a genuine interest in others. Talking to and with others, he aimed to advance comics studies. We dedicate the award to him and this very goal.

Submissions and Nominations:

Accepted for nomination are published articles of chapter length. They may have appeared in anthologies or journals, as chapters, or within longer monographs, but also as essays and other text forms of similar length. The submitted and nominated texts may have been written by one or more authors. All authors must not hold a permanent academic position at the time of nomination.

Contributions nominated for the Martin Schüwer Prize 2025 must be published in German or English between January 1, 2023, and December 31, 2024. Texts yet in print or only accepted for publication cannot be considered. Repeat submissions are not possible. Also excluded are complete monographs and unpublished qualifying publications. The editorship of anthologies or journal issues is not eligible for nomination, but individual contributions in these collections are.

Nominations are to include the recommended text as well as a short substantiation (300–500 words). Self-nominations are possible and welcome, but the jury would also particularly like to call for third-party nominations of impressive texts. Deadline for all submissions is April 30, 2025. Please send your nominations as one complete PDF to schuewer-preis@comicgesellschaft.de.

Prize and Award Ceremony:

The official announcement of the award winner will take place during the annual conference of the German Society for Media Studies (September 16–19, 2025, University of Paderborn). The award ceremony with an invited lecture by the award winner will take place at the annual conference of the German Society for Comic Studies (October 08–10, 2025, University of Hamburg). The laureate will also receive the prize money of 700 €, will not have to pay the membership fee of the German Society for Media Studies (GfM) for one year and will become an honorary member of ComFor for life.

Call for Nominations as Pdf

“Der Comic und das Populäre” – New ComFor-Conference Proceedings Published!

Posted on 2025 02 01, 15:51

Der Comic und das Populäre
Der Comic und das Populäre
Rolf Lohse and Joachim Trinkwitz (eds.)
Christian A. Bachmann Verlag
January 2025
360 pages
39,90 EUR
ISBN 978-3-96234-090-2

A new edited collection has just been published by Christian A. Bachmann, which ComFor has been looking forward to for a long time. It goes back to the 12th ComFor annual conference in Bonn and brings together not less than 14 essays reflecting the difficult tensions between comics and their popularity.

Blurbs:
»Der Comic und das Populäre« klingt für viele Menschen nach dem berühmten ›weißen Schimmel‹. Doch das Verhältnis der Kunstform zu der ihr quasi angeborenen Popularität hat sich im Lauf ihrer Geschichte als spannungsvoll erwiesen. Die Kritik kultureller Institutionen und tonangebender Kreise stieß sich immer wieder auch an der immensen Popularität des Comics. Zum Teil wird das Medium noch heute als minderwärtig betrachtet und ihm eine problematische Wirkungen unterstellt. Erst vor einigen Jahren wurde er als Graphic Novel gesellschaftsfähig, allerdings unter weitgehender Ausschluss seiner populären Anteile. Inwieweit prägt das spannungsgeladene Verhältnis des Comics zwischen high und low nach wie vor seinen Platz in Kultur und Gesellschaft? 14 Aufsätze belichten unterschiedliche Aspekte dieser grundlegenden Fragestellung.”

Table of Content:

Joachim Trinkwitz und Rolf Lohse:
Der Comic und das Populäre – einführende Überlegungen

Jörn Ahrens:
Der Comic ist das Populäre
Zur populärkulturellen Gestalt eines Mediums der Massenkultur

Ole Frahm:
Proletarität statt Popularität
Eine kleine Kritik der Rede über Comics

Mario Zehe:
Das Popula(e)re und das Signifikante
Der Comic als Antwort auf die Krise liberaler Erzählungen?

Joachim Trinkwitz:
»Auteur«-Serien im Comic
Prestigeprobleme eines populären Erzählverfahrens

Daniel Stein:
Batmans queere Popularität
Eine serienpolitische Dialektik

Véronique Sina:
»Comickeit is Jüdischkeit«
Populärkultur, Performativität und kulturelle jüdische Identität(en) in den Comics von Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Harvey Pekar und Art Spiegelman

Lukas R.A. Wilde:
Diesseits und jenseits der Diegese
Populäre, partizipatorische und transfiktionale Facetten der gezeichneten Figur

Dietrich Grünewald:
Grenzgang
Comics zitieren Kunstwerke

Rolf Lohse:
Museum und Magie
Das Populäre des Comics und die Kommunikationsstrategie des Louvre

Kirsten von Hagen:
Tintin und die Recherche
Von der Ligne Claire Hergés zu den synästhetischen Traumsequenzen bei Heuet

Markus Oppolzer:
Der Fluch der Graphic Novel
Ein kritischer Blick aus (sprach)didaktischer Sicht

Daniela Kaufmann:
»A Study in Black and White«
Die Signifikanz der Farben »Schwarz« und »Weiß« in Cartoons und Comics von George Herriman

Zita Hüsing:
Being and Nature
The Significance of the Southern Space of the Swamp in Alan Moore’s The Saga of the Swamp Thing

Publisher’s Page

 

The ComFor editorial board regrets the lack of diversity in this publication. We endeavour to cover the entire spectrum of comics studies, report in a neutral way and keep the editorial selection process to a minimum. But we are also aware of the problematic structures that shape our academic research environment and that frequently lead to a lower visibility of female comics scholars as well as those with marginalised identities in general. We know that this imbalance is often not intended by the editors / organisers and we do not want to imply this in any way. But nonetheless, we would like to draw attention to it to raise awareness for this problem..

“International Public History”-issue on “Teaching History Through Comic Books” published

Posted on 2024 12 11, 15:30

International Public History: Teaching History Through Comic Books

Einleitung by Amie Wright and Christine Gundermann
De Gruyter
2024
ISSN: 2567-1111

Christine Gundermann and Amie Wright have co-edited this new special issue on “Teaching History Through Comic Books” and have contributed and supervised numerous articles that attempt to present comics research and the use of comics as broadly and interdisciplinarily as possible. Some contributions are already open access, others are yet to be released as such:

 

Introduction by Amie Wright and Christine Gundermann

“The Graphic Anne: Anne Frank Comics as Transnational Lieux de Mémoire” by Christine Gundermann

“Illustrating History: April 25th and Its Legacy in Portuguese Comics” by Alexandra Lourenco Dias

“Teaching History Through Comic Books: New Opportunities for Public and Visual History” by Amie Wright

Visualizing the ‘Godmothers’ of the First World War: About the perks of writing a hybrid theses in image and text” by Aliénor Gandanger

Roundtable Conversation – ‘Making the Invisible and Private Seen and Public: On the Potentials of Graphic Medicine for Public History’, a discussion by Matthew Noe, Ian Williams, Soha Bayoum and Eugenia Garcia Amor

Graphic Collections and Resources

  • Katharina Hülsmann: Yoshihiro Yonezawa Memorial Library of Manga and Subcultures
  • Barbara Margarethe Eggert: nextcomic Festival (Austria)
  • Felipe Gómez-Gutiérrez: Latin American Comics Archive (LACA) – Carnegie Mellon
  • Felix Giesa: Comic Archive at Goethe-University Frankfurt, Institute of Children’s and Young Adult Literature Research
  • Astrid Böger: The Center for the study of Graphic Literature @ University of Hamburg
  • Graphic Medicine Collection – Harvard Medical (Boston, USA)

Continue to Publisher’s Page

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

Posted on 2024 11 04, 07:00

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 

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

Posted on 2024 10 10, 23:46

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

Posted on 2024 10 08, 07:39

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.

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

Posted on 2024 09 30, 21:13

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