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CLOSURE #9.5 / ComFor-Comference 2021 »Coherence in Comics. An Interdisciplinary Approach«* published

CLOSURE #9.5A special-themed issue #9.5 of Closure: Kieler e-Journal für Comicforschung, edited by Elisabeth Krieber (Salzburg), Markus Oppolzer (Salzburg), and Hartmut Stöckl (Salzburg), has just been published: »Coherence in Comics. An Interdisciplinary Approach«. The issue represents the proceedings of the 16the annual conference of ComFor (October 2021, Salzburg). It contains contributions by ComFor-members Elisabeth Krieber, Markus Oppolzer, Lukas R.A. Wilde, Barbara M. Eggert , and Stephan Packard:

Elisabeth Krieber, Markus Oppolzer, and Hartmut Stöckl:
Coherence in Comics. An Interdisciplinary Approach: Über diese Ausgabe

Lukas R.A. Wilde:
Essayistic Comics and Non-Narrative Coherence

Barbara M. Eggert:
Comics as Coherence Machines? Case Studies on the Spectrum of Functions that Comics perform in Museums

J. Scott Jordan und Victor Dandridge, Jr.:
Invincible: Multiscale Coherence in Comics

Mark Hibbett:
Image Quotation of Past Events to Enforce Storyworld Continuity in John Byrne’s Fantastic Four

Amadeo Gandolfo:
Do The Collapse: Final Crisis and the Impossible Coherence of the Superhero Crossover

Stephan Packard:
Inferential Revision in Comics Page Interpretation: A Hermeneutic Approach to Renegotiating Panel Comprehension

Continue to CLOSURE #9.5: »Coherence in Comics. An Interdisciplinary Approach«

*Die ComFor-Redaktion bedauert den Mangel an Diversität in dieser Publikation. Wir sind bestrebt, möglichst neutral über das Feld der Comicforschung in all seiner Breite zu informieren und redaktionelle Selektionsprozesse auf ein Minimum zu beschränken. Gleichzeitig sind wir uns jedoch auch der problematischen Strukturen des Wissenschaftsbetriebs bewusst, die häufig dazu führen, dass insbesondere Comicforscherinnen sowie jene mit marginalisierten Identitäten weniger sichtbar sind. Wir wissen, dass dieses Ungleichgewicht oft nicht der Intention der Herausgeber_innen / Veranstalter_innen entspricht und möchten dies auch nicht unterstellen, wollen aber dennoch darauf aufmerksam machen, um ein Bewusstsein für dieses Problem zu schaffen.

Conference “Comics, the Children and Childishness”

Termin:
2023 09 18 - 2023 09 19

On September 18/19, 2023, the conference “Comics, the Children and Childishness”, will take place in presence at KASK. It is one of the culminating outputs of the ERC project “Children in Comics: An Intercultural History (1865-)”, led by Prof. Maaheen Ahmed at Ghent University. The project aims to reconstruct a cultural history of European comics, particularly focusing on comics from Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Spain and Italy.

The conference is organized by Maaheen Ahmed und ComFor-member Giorgio Busi Rizzi (Ghent University). It aims to further deepen the interests and achievements of the ERC project, with the goal of opening a crucial forum for dialogue between European and international researchers, focusing on a distinctly international corpus, covering comics not only from the dominant areas of Western Europe and North America, but also from Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Asia and Latin America. In this way, the conference aims to inspire further research in this neglected but crucial aspect of comics studies.

The complete program can be found here. Among the contributors are also other ComFor members besides Rizzi (Benoît Crucifix, Jaqueline Berndt, Eva Van der Wiele). Those interested in attending the conference can register here. Please address any questions to comics@ugent.be.

Monitor 72: New Publications on Comic Books

Monitor is an irregularly published overview of publications from the previous six months that may be of relevance to comics studies scholars. The introductory texts are the respective publishers’. 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.


Jewish Comics and Graphic Narratives: A Critical Guide

Matt Reingold
Bloomsbury Academic
December 2022
Publisher’s website

“The most up-to-date critical guide mapping the history, impact, key critical issues, and seminal texts of the genre, Jewish Comics and Graphic Narratives interrogates what makes a work a “Jewish graphic narrative”, and explores the form’s diverse facets to orient readers to the richness and complexity of Jewish graphic storytelling.
Accessible but comprehensive and in an easy-to-navigate format, the book covers such topics as:

  • The history of the genre in the US and Israel – and its relationship to superheroes, Underground Comix, and Jewish literature
  • Social and cultural discussions surrounding the legitimization of graphic representation as sites of trauma, understandings of gender, mixed-media in Jewish graphic novels, and the study of these works in the classroom
  • Critical explorations of graphic narratives about the Holocaust, Israel, the diasporic experience, Judaism, and autobiography and memoir
  • The works of Will Eisner, Ilana Zeffren, James Sturm, Joann Sfar, JT Waldman, Michel Kichka, Sarah Glidden, Rutu Modan, and Art Spiegelman and such narratives as X Men, Anne Frank’s Diary, and Maus

Jewish Comics and Graphic Novels includes an appendix of relevant works sorted by genre, a glossary of crucial critical terms, and close readings of key texts to help students and readers develop their understanding of the genre and pursue independent study.”

 

Perfect Copies: Reproduction and the Contemporary Comic

Shiamin Kwa
Rutger’s University Press
January 2023
Publisher’s website

“Analyzing the way that recent works of graphic narrative use the comics form to engage with the “problem” of reproduction, Shiamin Kwa’s Perfect Copies reminds us that the mode of production and the manner in which we perceive comics are often quite similar to the stories they tell. Perfect Copies considers the dual notions of reproduction, mechanical as well as biological, and explores how comics are works of reproduction that embed questions about the nature of reproduction itself. Through close readings of the comics My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris, The Black Project by Gareth Brookes, The Generous Bosom series by Conor Stechschulte, Sabrina by Nick Drnaso, and Panther by Brecht Evens, Perfect Copies shows how these comics makers push the limits of different ideas of “reproduction” in strikingly different ways. Kwa suggests that reading and thinking about books like these, that push us to engage with these complicated questions, teaches us how to become better readers.”

 

Asian Political Cartoons

John A. Lent
Rutger’s University Press
January 2023
Publisher’s website

“In Asian Political Cartoons, scholar John A. Lent explores the history and contemporary status of political cartooning in Asia, including East Asia (China, Hong Kong, Japan, North and South Korea, Mongolia, and Taiwan), Southeast Asia (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam), and South Asia (Bangladesh, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka).
Incorporating hundreds of interviews, as well as textual analysis of cartoons; observation of workplaces, companies, and cartoonists at work; and historical research, Lent offers not only the first such survey in English, but the most complete and detailed in any language. Richly illustrated, this volume brings much-needed attention to the political cartoons of a region that has accelerated faster and more expansively economically, culturally, and in other ways than perhaps any other part of the world.
Emphasizing the “freedom to cartoon,” the author examines political cartoons that attempt to expose, bring attention to, blame or condemn, satirically mock, and caricaturize problems and their perpetrators. Lent presents readers a pioneering survey of such political cartooning in twenty-two countries and territories, studying aspects of professionalism, cartoonists’ work environments, philosophies and influences, the state of newspaper and magazine industries, the state’s roles in political cartooning, modern technology, and other issues facing political cartoonists.
Asian Political Cartoons encompasses topics such as political and social satire in Asia during ancient times, humor/cartoon magazines established by Western colonists, and propaganda cartoons employed in independence campaigns. The volume also explores stumbling blocks contemporary cartoonists must hurdle, including new or beefed-up restrictions and regulations, a dwindling number of publishing venues, protected vested interests of conglomerate-owned media, and political correctness gone awry. In these pages, cartoonists recount intriguing ways they cope with restrictions—through layered hidden messages, by using other platforms, and finding unique means to use cartooning to make a living.”

 

 

Beowulf in Comic Books and Graphic Novels

Richard Scott Nokes
McFarland
February 2023
Publisher’s website

“The legendary story of Beowulf comes to us in only one medieval manuscript with no illustrations. Modern comic book and graphic novel artists have created visual interpretations of Beowulf for decades, both illustrating and altering the classic story to pull out new themes.
This book examines the growing canon of Beowulf comic books and graphic novels since the 1940s, and shows the remarkable emergence of new traditions—from re-envisioning the medieval look, to creating new plotlines, and even to transforming his identity. While placing Beowulf in a fantastical medieval setting, a techno-dystopia of the future, or modern-day America, artists have appropriated the tale to comment on social issues such as war, environmental issues, masculinity, and consumerism. Whether Beowulf is fighting new monsters or allying with popular comic book superheroes, these artists are creating a new canon of illustration that redefines Beowulf’s place in our culture.”

 

 

Journal Monitor 16: 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.


European Comic Art  16.1

online, subscription
Website

  • Tilmann Altenberg: “Don Quixote Unbound: Intertextuality, Interpictoriality, and Transculturality in Flix’s German Graphic Novel Adaptation (2012)”
  • Jörn Ahrens: “The Graphical Epistemology of Comics via Jeff Lemire’s Gideon Falls
  • Alicia Lambert: “(Mis)Leading the Reader: Decolonising Adventure Comics in Baruti and Cassiau-Haurie’s Le Singe jaune
  • Ylva Lindberg: “The Agency of the Periphery: Changes in Local Comics through Flows of Francophone Bandes dessinées to Sweden, 1950–2020”

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 14.1 & 2

online, subscription
Website

  • Wajeehah Aayeshah: “Hockey sticks, purple smoke bombs, and empathy: female character representation in Pakistani comics”
  • Parnika Agarwal: “Calvin and Hobbes: satirising work, leisure, imagination and agency within the context of the pervasive forces of capitalism”
  • Jackson Ayres: ‘“A very, very bad mood”: the turn to horror in Alan Moore’s late comics’
  • Jerzy Szyłak, Sebastian Jakub Konefał: “The influence of local and national press on the comic publishing industry in the Polish People’s Republic between 1956 and 1989”
  • Prateek: “Emergency’s children: satire in the hindi comics of Hawaldar Bahadur”
  • Michael Cop, David Large: “‘Words, Words, Words’: Making Comics and Sense of the Three Texts of Hamlet
  • Hanae Kim: “‘I read webtoon every day!’: young adult k-pop fans’ language learning and literacies with korean webcomics”
  • Jonathan M. Bullinger: “Marvel tells / sells its own history: figureheads, promotion, curation, and application, 1982-1987”
  • Janina Wildfeuer, Ielka van der Sluis, Gisela Redeker, Nina van der Velden: “No laughing matter!? Analyzing the Page Layout of Instruction Comics”
  • Robert Aman: “Semi-naked revolutionary: native Americans, colourblind anti-racism and the Pillaging of Latin America in Tumac
  • Sathyaraj Venkatesan, Arya Suresh: “Critique of DSM, medicalisation and graphic medicine”
  • Thomas Hamlyn-Harris: “Double take: ephemera and viewpoint construction in graphic memoir”
  • Sohini Bera, Rajni Singh: “Graphic narratives as history: the emergency period (1975– 1977) in Vishwajyoti Ghosh’s Delhi Calm
  • Shriya Raina: “Corpse geographies in Munnu: a boy from Kashmir: sites of resistance and post-mortem agency”

 

Studies in Comics  13.1-2

online, subscription
Website

  • Denis Dépinoy: “‘Tu te trompes, Fantasio’: Yves Chaland’s decoding and recoding of Spirou
  • Shromona Das: “The perfect victim: Reading trauma and victimhood in rape narratives in Indian comics”
  • Nora Hickey, Amaris Feland Ketcham: “Troubling the sequential image: The poetry comics of Bianca Stone”
  • Benjamin Fraser: “The shape of European jazz: On mute, mutable and pedagogical musical representations”
  • Francesco-Alessio Ursini, Giuseppe Samo: “The purple thread: The reception of Prince as a fictional character in graphic narratives”
  • Greice Schneider, João Senna Teixeira: “Cuteness and everyday humour in Nathan W. Pyle’s Strange Planet
  • Damon Herd: “Introduction: Uncomics”

 

Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society  6.3

online, subscription
Website

  • Rachel Miller, Daniel Worden: “Understanding Comics at 30: An Introduction”Hillary Chute: “’Weirder than That’: Understanding Comics at Thirty”
  • Kate Polak: “Three Ideas”Moritz Fink: “’Cool’ Media Studies: McCloud, McLuhan, and the Popification of the Humanities”
  • Marco d’Alessandro: “Unaframed: A Short Visual Essay”
  • Charles Hatfield: “The Empowered and Disempowered Reader: Understanding Comics against Itself”
  • Caitlin Cass: “Alchemy and Control”
  • Paul Fisher Davies: “What We Do in the Gutters: Or, If Not Transitions, What?”
  • Ken Parille: “Image over Text: ‘Visual Emphasis’ and Understanding Comics”
  • Shreya Sangai, Beena Anirjitha Urumy: “Lines from the Margins: Gond Artists Engage with McCloud”
  • Misha Grifka Wander: “Someone Else’s Icon: Complicating Comics and Identification”
  • Antonija Cavcic: “Contemplating Covid through Understanding Comics: Conveying Meaning with Panel Transitions in Covid-themed Comics”
  • Chris Malone: “Reader Participation in Comics (Through Walking my Dog)”
  • Harriet Hustis: “Understanding McCloud: (En)Countering Closure in the Context of Trauma”
  • Jason DeHart: “Form and Counter-Narratives: Using Understanding Comics with Pre-Service Teachers”

ImageText  13.3

online, open access
Website

  • Brian Olszewski: “The Joke Work of Batman: The Killing Joke”
  • Christopher Younie: “Journey to the West goes Queer”
  • Jake Zawlacki: “Searching for Legitimacy: Spawn, McFarlane, and the Homage Cover”