Publications

Since 2006, the ComFor organises annual academic conferences on various topics and publishes the conference proceedings as well as, on occasion, other academic texts on current developments in the field of comics studies. The following collections were published or funded by ComFor:

Der Comic und das Populäre Der Comic und das Populäre Harte Fakten, große Aufgaben: Die Arbeitsrealität Comicschaffender im deutschsprachigen Raum
Was war, ist, wird Comicforschung – für uns? (Publikation zur 18. ComFor-Jahrestagung) re/traçar história/s: quadrinhos e resistência negra/geschichte/n über/zeichnen Die Königin Vontjanze: Kleiner Atlas zum Werk von Anke Feuchtenberger
COMFOR TAGUNGSBAND „COMICS AND AGENCY“ Zweite Tagungsband zur 10. ComFor Jahrestagung 2015 in Frankfurt: Studien zur Geschichte des Comic

Moreover, you can find academic publications on comic books by our members in this category.

New Publication: Handbook of Comics and Graphic Narratives

Posted on 2021 06 28, 00:01

Today we announce a publication that has the potential to quickly become a standard work in the field of comics studies: the Handbook of Comics and Graphic Narratives, published by De Gruyter. Edited by Sebastian Domsch, Dan Hassler-Forest and ComFor member Dirk Vanderbeke, this handbook unites a variety of critical approaches, historical contexts, and close readings. We are particularly happy that there are several ComFor members among the contributors to this unique volume.

Go to publisher’s website.

Publisher’s description:

“Whether one describes them as sequential art, graphic narratives or graphic novels, comics have become a vital part of contemporary culture. Their range of expression contains a tremendous variety of forms, genres and modes − from high to low, from serial entertainment for children to complex works of art. This has led to a growing interest in comics as a field of scholarly analysis, as comics studies has established itself as a major branch of criticism. This handbook combines a systematic survey of theories and concepts developed in the field alongside an overview of the most important contexts and themes and a wealth of close readings of seminal works and authors. It will prove to be an indispensable handbook for a large readership, ranging from researchers and instructors to students and anyone else with a general interest in this fascinating medium.”

Contents:

Introduction

  • Sebastian Domsch, Dirk Vanderbeke, Dan Hassler-Forest: “Comics Studies: Survey of the Field”

Part I: Systematic Aspects

Part II: Contexts and Themes

  • Stephan Packard: “Politics”
  • Dan Hassler-Forest: “World-Building”
  • Astrid Böger: “Life Writing”
  • Anna Oleszczuk: “Gender”
  • Kay Sohini: “Queerness”
  • Heike Elisabeth Jüngst: “Science Comics”
  • Sandra Heinen: “Postcolonial Perspectives”
  • Marie Vanderbeke: “DocuComics in the Classroom”
  • Dan Hassler-Forest: “Superheroes – Historical Overview”
  • Matt Yockey: “Superheroes – The Golden Age: Batman”
  • Matt Boyd Smith: “Superheroes – The Silver Age: Nick Fury”
  • William Proctor: “Superheroes – The Dark Age: Superheroes in the 1980s”

Part III: Close Readings

  • Christina Meyer: “Richard F. Outcault: The Yellow Kid“
  • Corey Creekmur: “George Herriman: Krazy Kat“
  • Sebastian Domsch: “Winsor McCay: Little Nemo in Slumberland“
  • Eric Hoffman: “Dave Sim: Cerebus“
  • Martin Lund: “Will Eisner: A Contract with God“
  • Dawn Stobbart: “Raymond Briggs: When the Wind Blows“
  • Joanne Pettitt: “Art Spiegelman: Maus“
  • Nicola Glaubitz: “Robert Crumb”
  • Monika Pietrzak-Franger: “Alan Moore: From Hell“
  • Evan Hayles Gledhill: “Neil Gaiman: The Sandman“
  • Erin La Cour: “Alison Bechdel: Dykes to Watch Out For“
  • Gerry Canavan: “Chris Ware: Jimmy Corrigan – The Smartest Kid on Earth“
  • Erik Grayson: “Daniel Clowes: Ghost World“
  • Luisa Menzel: “Martin Rowson: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman“
  • Harriet Earle: “Marjane Satrapi: Persepolis“
  • Oliver Moisich: “Grant Morrison: Flex Mentallo“

 

Publication: “Comics and Videogames: From Hybrid Medialities to Transmedia Expansions”

Posted on 2020 12 10, 02:45

For those still looking for a special Christmas gift, we are happy to announce that the book Comics und Video Games: From Hybrid Medialities to Transmedia Expansions, edited by Andreas Rauscher, Daniel Stein und Jan-Noël Thon, was published by Routledge earlier this year in October.  We are proud to say that we are very well represented in this work – not only are two of the editors members, but two of the other contributors as well: Daniel Stein, Jan-Noël Thon, Hans-Joachim Backe and Nina Eckhoff-Heindl.

Official announcement:

This book offers the first comprehensive study of the many interfaces shaping the relationship between comics and videogames. It combines in-depth conceptual reflection with a rich selection of paradigmatic case studies from contemporary media culture. 

The editors have gathered a distinguished group of international scholars working at the interstices of comics studies and game studies to explore two interrelated areas of inquiry: The first part of the book focuses on hybrid medialities and experimental aesthetics “between” comics and videogames; the second part zooms in on how comics and videogames function as transmedia expansions within an increasingly convergent and participatory media culture. The individual chapters address synergies and intersections between comics and videogames via a diverse set of case studies ranging from independent and experimental projects via popular franchises from the corporate worlds of DC and Marvel to the more playful forms of media mix prominent in Japan. 

Offering an innovative intervention into a number of salient issues in current media culture, Comics and Videogames will be of interest to scholars and students of comics studies, game studies, popular culture studies, transmedia studies, and visual culture studies.

 

Contributions:

Further information on the articles as well the PDFs can also be found here. A print version is available from  Routledge.

New Publication: ComFor Conference Proceedings “Spaces Between”

Posted on 2020 07 23, 00:05

We are happy to announce the publication of the proceedings of the 13th annual ComFor conference that took place in September 2018 in Cologne. Edited by ComFor members Véronique Sina und Nina Eckhoff-Heindl, the edited volunme Spaces Between: Gender, Diversity, and Identity in Comics contains numerous contributions by members and non-members.

 

Nina Eckhoff-Heindl and Véronique Sina (eds.)

Spaces Between: Gender, Diversity, and Identity in Comics

Springer, 2020

ISBN 978-3-658-30115-6

 

Publisher’s description:

“The contributions gathered in this volume exhibit a great variety of interdisciplinary perspectives on and theoretical approaches to the notion of ‘spaces between’. Theydraw our attention to the nexus between the medium of comics and the categories of difference as well as identity such as gender, dis/ability, age, and ethnicity, in order to open and intensify an interdisciplinary conversation between comics studies and intersectional identity studies.” → go to publisher’s website

Contents:

  • Cocca, Carolyn: “Reproducing Inequality and Representing Diversity: The Politics of Gender in Superhero Comics”
  • Blank, Juliane: “Gendered Violence and Structures of Power. Reclaiming the Victim Narrative in the Netflix Show Marvel’s Jessica Jones“
  • Brown, Jeffrey A.: “Spider-Analogues: The Unmarking and Unmasking of White Male Superheroism”
  • Crawford, Philip: “My Noose Around that Pretty’s Neck: Meditations on Matt Baker’s Good Girls“
  • Miller, Ann: “The Nude and the Naked: From Fine Art to Comics”
  • Rauchenbacher, Marina, and Katharina Serles: “Fragmented and Framed. Precarious ‘Body Signs’ in Comics by Regina Hofer, Ulli Lust, Barbara Yelin and Peer Meter”
  • Veith, Natalie: “Othering Voices and the Voice of the Other: The Depiction of Joseph Merrick in From Hell“
  • Neldner, Jonas: “Dis/ability and Hybridity: The Bodies of Charles Burns”
  • Becker, Romain: “The Binary Comics of a Non-binary Artist: How Vaughn Bodé’s Identity Structured His Art”
  • Eckhoff-Heindl, Nina: “Branford the Best Bee in the World. The Socio-Culturally Imprinted Self of Anthropomorphic Bodies”
  • Sina, Véronique: “‘If only I’d had a nose job’. Representations of the Gendered Jewish Body in the Works of Aline Kominsky-Crumb”
  • Berndt, Jaqueline: “Manga Aging: Grannies and Gutters”
  • Oksman, Tahneer: “An Art of Loss”

→ Conference report of the 13th annual ComFor conference
→ Overview of all annual ComFor conferences
→ Overview of all conference proceedings

Publication: “Producing Mass Entertainment. The Serial Life of the Yellow Kid”

Posted on 2019 12 16, 00:01

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)

Publisher’s website

 

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.”

New Publication Series on Comics Studies

Posted on 2018 12 10, 00:00

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.

ComFor-Tagungsband: Comics & Politik

Posted on 2014 04 03, 00:02

Die Gesellschaft für Comicforschung freut sich, bekannt zu geben, dass der von Stephan Packard herausgegebene Tagungsband zur 7. ComFor-Jahrestagung 2012 in Freiburg ab sofort im Christian A. Bachmann-Verlag erhältlich ist.

Broschur,
495 Seiten mit teils farbigen Abbildungen
ISBN 978-3-941030-29-9
€ 39,90
zzgl. Versandkosten (€1,65)

Klappentext:
“Comics interagieren in vielfältiger Weise mit den Sphären der Politik und des Politischen. Als künstlerische Ausdrucksform, als teilweise populäres, alternatives und marginalisiertes Genre und als Bestandteil der neuen Medien verfügen Comics über spezifische politische Dimensionen. Die besondere Rolle dieser Kunstform als Archiv, Agent, Spielfeld und Konstituente politischer Prozesse ist Thema der 21 internationalen Beiträge in diesem Band: Sie untersuchen Konstellationen aus Comics und Politik aus den Perspektiven unterschiedlicher kulturwissenschaftlicher Disziplinen.”

Zu Inhaltsverzeichnis und Bestellformular

Sammelband zu Tagung der ComFor 2009 in Köln erschienen

Posted on 2013 08 30, 08:50

Erzählen im Comic – Beiträge zur Comicforschungb_comfor2

Otto Brunken und Felix Giesa (Hg.)
Broschur, 330 Seiten mit teils farbigen Abbildungen
ISBN 978-3-941030-13-8
€ 29,90

Zwei Monate nach dem Tagungsband Der dokumentarische Comic: Reportage und Biografie zur ComFor-Konferenz in Passau 2011 erscheint nun der Band Erzählen im Comic – Beiträge zur Comicforschung zur Kölner Jahrestagung 2009.

Nähere Informationen finden Sie auf der Seite des Christian A. Bachmann-Verlags.

Tagungsband der ComFor-Konferenz 2011 in Passau erschienen

Posted on 2013 06 24, 07:00

Tagungsband der ComFor-Konferenz 2011 in PassauDer dokumentarische Comic: Reportage und Biografie

Dietrich Grünewald (Hrsg.)
Broschur, ca. 400 Seiten,
mit teils farbigen Abbildungen
ISBN 978-3-941030-27-5
€ 36,00

Der Band versammelt Beiträge zur Tagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Comicforschung (ComFor) in Passau aus dem Jahr 2011.

Reportage und Biografie, in Textliteratur und Film vertraute und probate Genres der Dokumentation, finden sich – in den letzten Jahren deutlich zunehmend – auch im Comic. Ob fiktiv oder faktisch – zur Dokumentation wird die Bildgeschichte, wenn ihr Inhalt im Kern gesellschaftliche Wirklichkeit spiegelt. Ziel ist stets, in möglichst ergreifender, anschaulicher Weise nicht nur Informationen zu vermitteln, sondern Wirkung zu erzielen, den Betrachter »zu packen«. Ob Reportage oder Biografie – diese Comics wollen dokumentieren und unterhalten, sie verbinden Fakteninformation mit Reflexion, beziehen Position. Im Verhältnis von authentisch und wahr geht es darum, die unter der sichtbaren Oberfläche verborgene gesellschaftliche »Wahrheit« aufzudecken. Die Reportage wird so zum »Röntgenbild«, für zeitgeschichtlich spätere Leser zum historisch-subjektiven Dokument. Die Spezifik des Comics, seine Bilddominanz, seine Wort-Bild-Einheit, eröffnen dabei in besonderem Maße Möglichkeiten anschaulicher dokumentarischer Vermittlung. Dieser Sammelband greift die Facetten dokumentarischer Comics, ihre unterschiedlichen Inhalte, Intentionen, Gestaltungs- und Erzählweisen auf und stellt sie zur Diskussion.

Mehr Informationen beim Christian A. Bachmann-Verlag.

 

"Hallo Dietrich!…" Burkhard Ihmes Comic zum ComFor-Sammelband beim Gratis-Comic-Tag

Posted on 2011 04 11, 10:00

Am 14. Mai 2011 veranstalten zahlreiche deutschsprachige Comicverlage und Comicläden wieder den Gratis-Comic-Tag: Comics verschiedenster Genres und Formate werden eigens für diesen Tag produziert und liegen kostenlos in den Läden auf.

In der Anthologie des Interessenverbands Comic, Cartoon, Illustration und Trickfilm (ICOM) für den Gratis-Comic-Tag hat ICOM- und ComFor-Mitglied Burkhard Ihme eine besondere Antwort auf den ersten Sammelband der Gesellschaft für Comicforschung publiziert: Der einseitige Comic zeigt, kommentiert und bespricht den Band, richtet sich im vertraulichen Telephonat öffentlich an den Herausgeber Dietrich Grünewald und reflektiert und experimentiert in seiner eigenen Struktur mit dessen ‘Prinzip Bildgeschichte’.

 

(Stephan Packard mit Dank an Burkhard Ihme)