Leeds Central Library
Leeds, UK
9^th & 10^th of November 2023

Following a hiatus, Comics Forum will return to its regular slot as the academic strand of the Thought Bubble sequential art festival in November 2023!

For our twelfth event, we will focus on the themes of reboots and remediations in comics and related forms across cultures.

Comics have a long history of reinventing themselves and adapting to changing circumstances and media forms. Examples are varied, ranging from the resurgence of the superhero genre in the U.S. following the establishment of the Comics Code in 1954 to the repositioning of comics as “graphic novels” in the late 1980s and 1990s, and the increasingly numerous adaptations of comics into other media forms such as film, television and video games. Comics also has a long history of drawing on related art forms including literature, visual arts and performance, adapting their techniques and properties to tell new stories, and new types of stories, in comics. Comics Forum 2023 will focus on the flexibility, adaptability and intermediality of comics. Subjects for discussion might include, but are not limited to:

• Adaptations to and from comics
• Attempts to revitalise comics properties
• Comics in new contexts (e.g., in translation)
• Fan cultures as reworking, reinventing, queering comics, and remaking comics texts
• Moments of reinvention in the cultural, economic, political or social histories of comics
• Rebirths, returns and resurrections of characters or groups in comics
• Representations of comics in other media
• Republications of comics in new formats
• Retconning and revisionist histories
• Revisions of comics in new editions

Comics Forum welcomes speakers from a diverse range of backgrounds, ranging from students to senior academics, practitioners and beyond. No particular academic disciplines are preferred, and we are open to proposals on comics and related forms from any part of the world. Proposals of up to 250 words for papers of 20 minutes in length are now being accepted at: comicsforum@hotmail.co.uk.

Alternative formats of presentation are welcome but must fit within the same 20-minute time limit. If you are proposing an alternative format please indicate this in your proposal.

The deadline for submissions is the 16th of August 2023 and you will be notified of acceptance by or before 30th of August 2023. Please include a short (100 word) biography with your proposal. We look forward to seeing you in Leeds!