Comicgesellschaft

“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

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

Posted on 2024 09 18, 11:59

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
House of Connections, Grote Markt 21, Groningen

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

Introduction of the new ComFor Managing Comittee

Posted on 2024 07 29, 22:01

During ComFor’s online members’ meeting on 15 July, 2024, the new managing comittee that had previously been elected via postal vote was confirmed.

Christina Meyer and Lukas R.A. Wilde ran again for the 1st and 2nd chair of the society. Arnold Bärtschi ran for the office of treasurer for the first time. Vanessa Ossa has stepped down from this position, which she held since 2020. During this time, she was not only extremely active as a member of the ComFor online editorial team but also as co-organizer of two ComFor annual conferences, “Comics and Agency – Actors, Publics, Participation” (October 2020, Tübingen) and “What Was, Is, and Will Comics Research Be – for Us?” (December 2023, Gleichen). She was and is also the editor of both freely accessible open access publications (the most recent of which is currently in preparation). We would like to thank Vanessa Ossa very much for her commitment to ComFor and for the important contribution to comics research that she has made through her work!

The new managing comittee consists of:

President

PD Dr. Christina Meyer has been a ComFor member since 2010. She is an American Studies scholar with a research focus on American newspaper comics of the late 19th century. She is currently visiting professor at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies at the FU Berlin. In November 2019 her monograph Producing Mass Entertainment: The Serial Life of the Yellow Kid was published by the Ohio State University Press (see publisher’s website), which was nominated for the 2020 Eisner Award in the category “Best Academic/Scholarly Work.” She is co-editor of New Perspectives on American Comic Books and Graphic Novels (a special issue of the journal Amerikastudien / American Studies, 2011) and Transnational Perspectives on Graphic Narratives: Comics at the Crossroads (2013). For more information, please see her ComFor profile page.

Vice President

Associate Prof. Dr. Lukas R.A. Wilde has been a ComFor member since September 2012 and was in charge of the coordination of the ComFor website for many years. In 2018, he first joined the ComFor managing comittee as treasurer, since 2020 as Vice President. He works in the field of media studies where he submitted his Ph.D. thesis on the ‘mangaization’ of public spaces in Japan and the implementation of transmedial figures (kyara) in functional communication (Im Reich der Figuren, Cologne 2018), which was honored with the Roland-Faelske-Award. Since 2022 he is an Associate Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway. Moreover, he was co-organizer of two ComFor annual conferences (2020 and 2023) and supports Eve Jay in the organisation of Comic Solidarity (see Website) and is one of the initiators of the German Inclusive Comic Award of the Independent Scene GINCO (see Website). For more information, please see his ComFor profile page.

Treasurer

Dr. Arnold Bärtschi has been a ComFor member since 2020 and was elected to the board as treasurer in 2024. As a classical philologist, he wrote a dissertation on “Titans, Gigants, and Giants in Ancient Epic: A Literary-Theoretical Reinterpretation” (Heidelberg 2019). Since 2019, he has worked as a senior lecturer and executive council member at Ruhr University Bochum. In addition to the application of modern literary theories to ancient literature, his current research focuses on the reception of antiquity in modern media, with a particular focus on comics. Several essays and a monograph are in progress on the question of various transformations of antiquity in comics. More information can be found on his ComFor profile page.