Who’s who

COMICS FORUM (GENERAL)

Ian Hague: Director of Comics Forum, Conference Director, ‘A Conference on Comics’ series (2009-2014), Conference Committee Member (2015- ), Website General Editor (2009- ).

Dr Ian Hague is a lecturer in Contextual and Theoretical Studies at the University of the Arts, London, where he is based at London College of Communication. He is also a practicing graphic designer and illustrator, and works as a PowerPoint Designer at OgilvyOne Business.

He is the founder and director of Comics Forum, and was the director of the organisation’s annual conference from 2009-2014, transitioning to be a member of the conference committee after that point. He was the editor of the website from 2011-2014, and remains involved in the site as a general editor.

Ian holds a PhD from the University of Chichester (2012), an MA in Cultural Studies (2008) from the University of Leeds (2008), and a BA (Hons) in English from the University of Hull (2007).

Ian is the author of Comics and the Senses: A Multisensory Approach to Comics and Graphic Novels (Routledge 2014) and the co-editor (with Carolene Ayaka) of Representing Multiculturalism in Comics and Graphic Novels (Routledge 2014).

COMICS FORUM DIGITAL 

Harriet Earle: Website Editor (2016- )

Dr Harriet Earle is an associate lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Birkbeck, University of London. Her first monograph, Comics, Trauma and the New Art of War, is forthcoming in 2017, published by the University Press of Mississippi. Her other publications are spread across the field of comics and popular culture studies, including articles in The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics and The Journal of Popular Culture.

Paul Fisher Davies: Facebook Administrator (2012- )

Paul is a PhD student researching visual narrative theory at the University of Sussex, where he also gained his BA in English and MA in Literature and Visual Culture. He teaches English Language and Literature at Sussex Downs College on the South Coast, and dabbles in comics creation amongst other creative endeavours. You can find samples of his work at www.crosbies.co.uk.

Hattie Kennedy: Twitter Administrator (2011- )

Harriet Kennedy is currently studying for an MPhil at the University of Glasgow with a project about Nationalism in Quebecois Comics.

Josh Moorby: Editorial Assistant (2016- )

Josh Moorby has recently acquired a BA (Hons) degree in English literature and will be starting a Publishing MA this September. Josh enjoys writing creatively and is currently most focused on his amalgam comic series, 3 Parts Mad, (comprised of flash fiction, short stories, poetry and stand-alone art) which he creates with artist/illustrator Sarah Docker. Experimental comics and analysis of form are among Josh’s key interests.

Annick Pellegrin: Website Editor (2016- )

Annick Pellegrin holds a PhD in French and in Spanish and Latin American Studies and a BA (Languages) (Honours), both from The University of Sydney. Her research interests are primarily in Franco-Belgian comics and Latin American comics.

Chris Thompson: Resources Editor (2014- )

Chris Thompson holds a BA and MA in English from Oxford Brookes University.  He has published and presented work on the British comix artist Hunt Emerson, examining his narrative parodies and comic strips in the Fortean Times.  He is currently researching the representation of violence in The Beano comic strip ‘Dennis the Menace and Gnasher’. Chris also manages the environment and sustainability programme at the University of Oxford.

COMICS FORUM CONFERENCE & EVENTS

Helen Blejerman: Organising Committee (2015- ) 

Helen Blejerman is an artist and writer based in the UK. She holds an MA in Fine Art from Sheffield Hallam University, where she has been an associate lecturer since 2008. There, with artist Hester Reeve, she implemented Dialogue — a method that explores collective creative thinking. As an artist her work has been shown nationally and internationally; and Presque Lune Editions in France published her short graphic novel Lulu la sensationnelle (2014). Helen’s main area of interest is the relationship between language, particularly the mother tongue, and feelings of belonging when living abroad.

helenblejerman.com

Twitter: @HelenBlejerman

Hattie Kennedy: Organising Committee (2010-2014); Conference Director (2015)

Harriet Kennedy is currently studying for an MPhil at the University of Glasgow with a project about Nationalism in Quebecois Comics.

Kat Lombard-Cook: Organising Committee (2015- )

Kat Lombard-Cook is a PhD candidate at Edinburgh University, after having completed her M.Des (Communication Design) at the Glasgow School of Art. She is interested in researching how comic books can be used to interrogate and analyze narrative structure, how interaction can shape narrative understanding, and the relationship between image, place and memory. She is also a comic maker who has been involved with the Glasgow-based collective Team Girl Comic. She creates work that questions the form and format of comics through manipulating and subverting structuralist constructs inherent in comic reading as well as pieces that encourages the reader to engage with physical narratives in non-traditional ways.

DESIGNER

Ben Gaskell

Ben Gaskell has been working under the design tag Molakoe for the last 5 years. He studied for his MA in Cultural Studies at Leeds University where he also found himself designing for university societies and local club nights. Now based in East London he spreads his time between designing and VT work for Channel 4. His creative focus is bespoke web design/coding as well as print and digital work for local events and organisations. You can find samples of his work as well as contact details at www.molakoe.com.

CONSULTANTS

Hugo Frey

Dr Hugo Frey is Head of History at the University of Chichester, UK. He has worked extensively on French collective memory of the Vichy period and the wars of decolonization. Publications include a monograph on Louis Malle (Manchester UP: 2004) as well as contributions to Yale French Studies, Journal of European Studies and Modern and Contemporary France. He is currently writing a history of French national identity and the cinema, to be published by Reaktion books, London.

Mel Gibson

Dr Mel Gibson works at Northumbria University, UK. She has written about women, girls and comics and about developing and promoting graphic novels and comic collections in libraries, schools, colleges and universities. Her National Teaching Fellowship has enabled her to establish a comics website http://www.dr-mel-comics.co.uk/ and has helped support the development of both comics collections in libraries and comics scholarship in the UK and beyond.

Roger Sabin

Roger Sabin is Reader in Popular Culture at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London. He is the author of Adult Comics: An Introduction (Routledge), Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels (Phaidon), and (as co-author) The Lasting of the Mohicans (University Press of Mississippi). He is Editor of Punk Rock: So What? (Routledge) and Co-editor of Below Critical Radar: Fanzines and Alternative Comics, from 1976 to Now (Codex) and The Movie Book (Phaidon). He serves on the Editorial Boards of The Journal of Comics and Graphic Novels (as Consulting Ed), Studies in Comics (as Consulting Ed), European Comic Art , Image and Narrative, ImageText, and Studies in Graphic Narratives. He reviews graphic novels for the press and radio.