Comicgesellschaft
Publication: “Producing Mass Entertainment. The Serial Life of the Yellow Kid”
We are happy to announce the recent publication of the monograph Producing Mass Entertainment: The Serial Life of the Yellow Kid by ComFor member Christina Meyer:
Producing Mass Entertainment. The Serial Life of the Yellow Kid
Christina Meyer
278 pages, 35 illustrations
ISBN 978-0-8142-1416-9 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 978-0-8142-5560-5 (Paperback)
ISBN: 978-0-8142-7746-1 (eBook)
Official blurb:
“Emerging mass culture in nineteenth-century America was in no small way influenced by the Yellow Kid, one of the first popular, serial comic figures circulating Sunday supplements. Though comics existed before, it was through the growing popularity of full-color illustrations printed in such city papers as Inter Ocean (Chicago) and the World (New York) and the implementation of regular, weekly publications of the extra sections that comics became a mass-produced, mass-distributed staple of American consumerism. It was against this backdrop that one of the first popular, serial comic figures was born: the Yellow Kid.
Producing Mass Entertainment: The Serial Life of the Yellow Kid offers a new take on the emergence of the Yellow Kid comic figure, looking closely at the mass appeal and proliferation of the Yellow Kid across different media. Christina Meyer identifies the aesthetic principles of newspaper comics and examines the social agents—advertising agencies, toy manufacturers, actors, retailers, and more—responsible for the Yellow Kid’s successful career. In unraveling the history of comic characters in capitalist consumer culture, Meyer offers new insights into the creation and dissemination of cultural products, reflecting on modern artistic and merchandising phenomena.”
Announcement of the laureate of the first Martin-Schüwer Prize 2019
We return a few days earlier from our summer break on the occasion of the announcement of the laureate of the Martin-Schüwer Prize 2019. The prize is a joint venture of the ComFor and the Committee for Comic Studies (AG Comicforschung) of the German Society of Media Studies (GfM) and is this year awarded for the first time. Among a total of 14 submissions from the field of interdisciplinary comics studies, it was the contribution of Dorothee Schneider (now Dorothee Marx), “The ‘Affected Scholar’. Reading Raina Telgemeier’s Ghosts as a Disability Scholar and Cystic Fibrosis-Patient”, that stood out the most, earning her the first Martin Schüwer Prize for Excellence in Comics Studies! The essay was published in Closure 5 (2018).
In addition to Marx’s submission, the judges also made special mention of two more shortlisted essays that struck them as particularly interesting: “Opazität und Transparenz: Überlegungen zum poietischen Potenzial in Chris Wares Comics und Animationen“ by Nina Eckhoff-Heindl and „Visible Hand? Subjectivity and Its Stylstic Markers in Graphic Narratives” by Lukas Etter.
The official award ceremony will take place on 09 November, 2019, as part of the Annual ComFor Conference 2019 where Dorothee Marx is going to hold a special lecture entitled “Approaching Ghosts – Creating affected scholarship”.
We congratulate the laureate Dorothee Marx as well as the shortlisted authors Nina Eckhoff-Heindl and Lukas Etter on their outstanding contributions!
The judges were:
Stephan Packard
Véronique Sina
Lukas R.A. Wilde
Summer Break and Initiative for more Diversity in the Field of Comics Studies
The ComFor‘s web editorial team will take a break over the summer months. Therefore, there will be no regular posts on the website until 30 September 2019. We will, however, keep updating the sections on ongoing calls for papers and on exhibitions.
But before we say good bye, we would like to announce the formation of a new committee within the ComFor, the Committee for Diversity, an initiative instigated by ComFor Vice-President Véronique Sina.
The aim of this committee is to contribute to an equal, gender-neutral research culture by promoting the visibility of non-hegemonic, queer-feminist research and researchers, both within the ComFor as well as in the comics studies community in general. The initiative is a reaction to a lack of diversity that characterises the field of comics studies in many ways, for example in terms of methodological approaches and the canon of works as well as the research community in general. To counteract these excluding mechanisms of representation, the Committee for Diversity aims at establishing a more inclusive research environment and introduce new academic impulses.
Last year’s annual ComFor Conference, which was dedicated to topics relating to intersectional gender and diversity studies, showed both the great necessity of and interest in queer-feminist questions and perspectives in the field of comics studies. But it also clarified the desideratum and the gaps that need to be explored to arrive at a critically reflexive and interdisciplinary engagement with comics.
With the foundation of the Committee for Diversity, the ComFor takes an important step to fill these gaps and to send a clear message against any form of discrimination and exclusion.
Currently the committee is in the planning phase, but during this year’s annual ComFor Conference at Schwarzenbach, a constitutive meeting will take place on 10 November, 2019, during which the committee‘s approach and line of work will be decided.
For further information, contact the Committee for Diversity via email: AGDiversity@comicgesellschaft.de
For now, we wish all of our readers a nice summer and look forward to once more keep you posted with regular news on comics studies in early autumn.
All the best,
Robin-Martin Aust, Katharina Serles, and Natalie Veith
on behalf of the web editorial team
Program of the Annual ComFor Conference 2019: “Comparative Aspects in Comics Studies”
Termin:
2019 11 08 - 2019 11 10
14. Annual Conference of the Society for Comics Studies (ComFor):
Translation, Localisation, Imitation, and Adaptation: Comparative Aspects in Comics Studies
Program
D| Talk or panel in German
E| Talk or panel in English
| Freitag | Friday | |
| 11.30 am | D| Member’s meeting of the Society for Comics Studies (ComFor) |
| 1.00 pm | Mittagspause | Lunch Break (Snacks) |
| Offenes Forum I | Open Forum I | |
| 1.30 pm | D| Lukas Etter:
»It’s a relief« Aline Kominsky-Crumbs spielerische Imitation und Subversion von Stildiskursen |
| 2.00 pm | D| Marie Müller:
Prudhommes Adaption von Struths Museum Photographs |
| 2.30 pm | E| Jennifer Neidhardt:
»I knew there was something in the closet«: Marvel’s Spider-Man and Queer Identity |
| 3.00 pm | Pause | Break |
| Offenes Forum II | Open Forum II | |
| 3.15 pm | E| Katharina Serles and Marina Rauchenbacher:
Visualities of Gender in German-language Comics |
| 3.45 pm | E| Jeff Thoss, Ian Hague, Ian Horton, and Sylvia Kesper-Biermann:
Lost in Translation: Connecting English-language and German-language Comics Studies |
| 4.15 pm | E| Ivan Petrovic:
Translating Comics between Cultures and within Languages: The Case of Yugoslavian Comics in German-Speaking Countries |
| 4.45 pm | Pause | Break |
| 5.00 pm | Begrüßung | Commencement |
| D| Panel I: Comic-Übersetzung und ihre populäre Vermittlung | |
| 5.15 pm | Alexandra Hentschel (Schwarzenbach):
Das einzige Museum für Comic-Übersetzung |
| 5.45 pm | Nassrin Sadeghi (Dortmund):
comic+cartoon. Pläne zum neuen Schauraum für Comic-Kunst in Dortmund |
| 6.15 pm | Pause | Break |
| E| Keynote I: Practice in Translation | |
| 6.30 pm | David Zane Mairowitz (Berlin): KafKa in KomiKs |
| 8.00 pm | Abendessen | Dinner (Buffet) |
| Samstag | Saturday | |
| E| Keynote II: International Perspectives on Comics Translation | |
| 9.00 am | Federico Zanettin (Perugia):
New Methods in Examining Comics in Translation |
| 10.15 am | Pause | Break |
| E| Panel II: Translation and Localisation | |
| 10.30 am | Laura Antola (Turku):
»If the other Nordic countries wish to publish rubbish, they can go ahead!« Transnational strategies for adapting the Marvel Universe in Finland |
| 11.15 am | Romain Becker (Lyon):
»Just according to keikaku (keikaku means plan)«:How fans translate (or don’t) |
| 12.00 noon | Pause | Break |
| 12.15 pm | Keren Zdafee (Tel Aviv):
Egyptianizing Mickey and Minnie? On cultural transfers and the domestication of Western imagery in the Egyptian satirical press of the 1930s |
| 1.00 pm | Lynn L. Wolff (Michigan):
Translation, Modification, Visualization: Comparative Aspects of Nora Krug’s Heimat |
| 1.45 pm | Mittagspause | Lunch Break |
| E| Panel III: Intermedia Adaptation | |
| 3.00 pm | Olga Kopylova (Sendai):
Lines and Layers, Look and Feel: Transformations of style in manga-to-anime adaptations |
| 3.45 pm | Elisabeth Krieber (Salzburg):
Adapting the Queer Autographic Self: Fun Home from the Comics Page to the Broadway Stage |
| 4.30 pm | Pause | Break |
| 4.45 pm | Marina Rauchenbacher (Wien):
Who (and where) is Alice? Anke Feuchtenberger’s Adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice |
| 5.30 pm | Pause | Break |
| 6.00 pm | Preisverleihung & Preisvortrag | Award & Special Keynote
Martin-Schüwer-Publikationspreis für herausragende Comicforschung Martin Schüwer Publication Award for Excellence in Comics Studies |
| 7.00 pm | Conference Dinner |
| Sonntag | Sunday | |
| D| Keynote III: Kulturwissenschaftliche Translatologie | |
| 9.00 am | Natalie Mälzer (Hildesheim):
Comic-Übersetzungen und Adaptionen als kulturelle Praxis |
| 10.15 am | Pause | Break |
| D| Panel IV: Übersetzungen und Lokalisierungen | |
| 10.30 am | Christine Hermann (Wien):
Die vielen Namen von Suske und Wiske. Ein flämischer Abenteuercomic in deutscher Übersetzung |
| 11.15 am | Yun-Jou Chen (Taiwan/Mainz):
»Popalania, the perfect country« Neue Überlegungen zu dem Fall der Popeye-Übersetzung (1967-1968) in Taiwan |
| 12.00 noon | Pause | Break |
| D| Panel V: Intermediale Adaptionen | |
| 12.15 pm | Dietrich Grünewald (Koblenz/Reiskirchen):
Die Kunst der Adaption – Oscar Wilde: Das Bildnis des Dorian Gray |
| 1.00 pm | Linda-Rabea Heyden (Jena/Berlin):
Klassikeradaption im Comic funktional und medial, am Beispiel von Goethes Faust |
| 1.45 pm | Mittagspause | Lunch Break
& Treffen der AG Diversity | Meeting of the Committee for Diversity |
| 3.00 | Markus Oppolzer (Salzburg):
Nachgezeichnete Leben:Die Künstlerbiografie am Beispiel Vincent van Goghs |
| 3.45 pm | Véronique Sina (Köln):
Queering Comic and Film: Coming out und coming of age in Le Bleu est une couleur chaude (2010) und LA VIE D’ADÈLE (2013) |
| 4.30 pm | Pause | Break |
| D| Panel VI: Noch einmal: Vergleichen | |
| 4.45 pm | Jörn Ahrens (Gießen):
Die Erfindung des Comic in Deutschland. Frühe Perspektiven der Comicforschung |
| 5.30 pm | Ole Frahm (Frankfurt am Main): Phantom. Phantomias. |
| 6.15 pm | Abschlussdiskussion | Conclusion |
| ~7.00 pm | Abreise | Departure |
Organisers:
Christian Bachmann, Juliane Blank, Alexandra Hentschel and Stephan Packard
See also:
Registration
Accomodation
Directions
CFP: Translation, Localisation, Imitation, and Adaptation
New Publication Series on Comics Studies
Recently, two new publication series on comics studies have been announced by their respective editors:
Wilfried Laurier University Press is currently preparing the series Crossing the Lines: Transcultural/Transnational Comics Studies, edited by Barbara Postema, Candida Rifkind and Nhora Lucía Serrano. This interdisciplinary publication series will focus on contemporary research that unites comics studies with impulses from the fields of gender studies, art history and visual studies as well as postcolonial and Diaspora studies. Further information and contact addresses can be found in the flyer. –> see flyer
Routledge is planning to release the series Routledge Focus on Gender, Sexuality, and Comics Studies, edited by Frederik Byrn Køhlert. This series will collect contributions from the fields of gender and sexuality studies that engage with comics and similar formats as well as their consumption. Further information and contact addresses can be found in the flyer. –> see flyer
The editors call for submissions of relevant publications. Please see the flyers for further information.
Conference Report: ComFor Annual Conference 2018
A Conference Report by J. Rehse, P. Zwirner, M. Pollich, Y. Neuhaus, S. Böhm, and L. Respondek (students of the University of Cologne), Photography by Philin Zwirner
From September 17th to 19th 2018 the 13th Annual Conference of the German Society for Comics Studies (ComFor) took place at the University of Cologne. Under the main theme “Spaces Between – Gender, Diversity and Identity in Comics” the conference schedule – planned and organized by Véronique Sina and Nina Heindl – offered a wide range of interesting insights into state-of-the-art research on the nexus between the medium of comics and categories of difference and identity such as gender, dis/ability, age, and ethnicity. Participants who already arrived on Sunday (the day before the official start of the conference) had the opportunity to become familiar with the city of Cologne. In the afternoon, the cultural program started with a guided tour through the exhibition “Avengers Assemble” held at the Cöln Comic Haus. With highly entertaining host(s) and a lot of interesting details, the visit of the exhibition was a perfect start for the conference. Afterwards, the group took a stroll along the Rhine in warm and shiny weather. With a boat-trip along the picturesque panorama of the most beautiful part of Cologne, the pre-program ended and gave the participants the opportunity to enjoy the rest of the evening in the historic center of Cologne.
At the official beginning of the conference on Monday, the conveners Véronique Sina and Nina Heindl, as well as Manuela Günter (Vice-Rector for Gender Equality and Diversity of the University of Cologne), and Stephan Packard (President of the German Society for Comics Studies) welcomed all speakers and guests. They stressed that it is their great pleasure to open a conference that not only focuses entirely on gender, diversity, and identity in comics, but also presents a majority of female speakers as well as an all-female organizational team – a premiere for the German Society for Comics Studies.
Exhibition Poster and Program Flyers for ComFor 2018
Termin:
2018 07 11 12uhr - 2018 09 20
„SuperQueeroes. Unsere LGBTI*-Comic-Held_innen“
In less than two and a half months, ComFor’s Annual Conference 2018 will take place at the University of Cologne on the topic “Spaces Between – Gender, Diversity and Identity in Comics”. At the same time one can visit the exhibition “SuperQueeroes. Unsere LGBTI*-Comic-Held_innen”, which was designed in 2016 by the Schwules Museum Berlin and shown with great success. For the first time, queer comic heroes of various kinds were thematized in the German museum world. As part of the ComFor annual conference, the exhibition was brought to Cologne under the organization of Christine Gundermann and reworked for the university by students as part of a seminar. 
The exhibition can be visited from 11 July to September 20 in the foyer of the Philosophikum of the University of Cologne. Vernissage is on the 11th of July from 12 o’clock, opening with a talk by and about comic artist Ralf König . Subsequently, the exhibition will be opened by Dr. Kevin Clarke, curator of the Schwules Museum Berlin.
The organizers of the conference, Véronique Sina and Nina Heindl, have now also published digital program flyers in German and English (design: Julia Eckel), which not only provide quick overviews of the topics and the schedule of the conference, but – with motifs by artist Aisha Franz – also turned out to be very appealing:
Program flyer in German
Program flyer in English
Continue to the conference’s page with information on the registration process
ComFor’s New Managing Committee:
As of April 27, 2017, ComFor has elected a new Managing Committee for the next two years.
After four and a half years, Dr. Catherine Michel and Dr. Felix Giesa had decided to conclude their tenures. Both our colleagues have supported and contributed to the reform of ComFor, newly founded as a public society in 2014, as well as to the decisive expansion of ComFor’s projects and services during that time. All of ComFor’s members owe them a great debt of gratitude; Stephan Packard, their colleague in the steering committee, would like to extend his special thanks for the productive and friendly work we did together.
The new management includes:
President:
Prof. Dr. Stephan Packard joined ComFor in 2008 and has been its President since its new establishment as a public society in 2012. He organised and edited several of the society’s conferences and publications. He is a founding member of the Committee for Comics Studies at the German Society for Media Studies (GfM) as well as a Consultative Committee Member for the journal European Comic Art. His PhD thesis Anatomie des Comics was published in 2006. Further research interests include transmedia narratology, political uses of comics and other media, and the study of censorship. Packard holds the Professorship for „Popular Culture and Its Theory“ at Cologne University. Read more at his ComFor-profile page.
Vice President:
Dr. Véronique Sina has been a member of ComFor since July 2010. She is a media studies scholar at the University of Cologne and specialises in Gender and Queer Studies, Intersectionality, Intermediality, and Identity Studies. She received her Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees as well as her PhD at Ruhr University Bochum. Her dissertation at the Department of Media Studies was published as Comic – Film – Gender. The (Re-)Mediation of Gender in Comic Book Movies (transcript, 2016). She is Co-Founder of the Committee for Comic Studies (AG Comicforschung) of the German Society for Media Studies (GfM), for which she also serves as Chairwoman and as organizer of numerous workshops and events. For ComFor, she appears in 2018 as a co-organizer of the 13th Annual Conference on comics studies, on „Spaces Between – Gender, Diversity and Identity in Comics“. More information at her ComFor-profile page.
Treasurer:
Dr. Lukas R.A. Wilde has been a member of ComFor since September 2012, and he has been coordinating ComFor’s editorial work online ever since: ComFor’s homepage underwent a major transformation during this time, and ComFor’s online magazine has become a steadily growing contact point and a source of information on conferences, publications, CfPs and other news from our field. In this context, Lukas Wilde also manages ComFor’s mailing list and the online profiles of its members. He is a media studies scholar at the University of Tübingen, where he received his PhD in 2017 through a dissertation on the ‚mangaization‘ of Japanese public spaces and the implementation of transmedial ‚characters‘ (kyara) within functional communication (Im Reich der Figuren, Cologne 2018). Together with Vanessa Ossa and Jan-Noël Thon, he will organize ComFor’s planned 15th Annual Conference in 2020 on „Comic/Mediation: Actors, Participation, and the Public“. Read more at his ComFor-profile page.