RSS

Author Archives: Comics Forum

Why is it so hard to think about comics as labour? by Benjamin Woo

09 Dec

Last year, Image Comics ran an in-house advertising campaign featuring simple, candid photographs of comic book writers and artists in their working environments (see Khouri 2012). Emblazoned with inspiring quotations and the slogan, ‘Experience Creativity,’ the ads argued that—unlike competitors?—Image’s comics issue forth from the vision of exceptionally creative individuals.

But cultural work is always exceptional. It doesn’t follow the normal rules of labour under capitalism because of the exceptional character of cultural goods. In the age of mass production, cultural goods are pretty easy to make but still hard to create. As anyone who’s ever stared at a blank page or computer screen can tell you, creativity can’t be engineered. The creative act is contingent, specific and unique, but it can also be tough to tell whether it has produced something valuable or not. For all the efforts of executives at the big culture industry conglomerates and creativity gurus, cultural work remains mercurial.

Read the rest of this entry »

 
3 Comments

Posted by on 2013/12/09 in Comics and Cultural Work, Guest Writers

 

News Review: November 2013

04 Dec

Americas

Canada

Research

Benjamin Woo, at the University in Calgary, is currently conducting a study of working conditions in comics. He is currently seeking those involved with comics creation to complete a survey. Link (English, WG)

The annual conference of the Canadian Society for the Study of Comics invites proposals for papers on any and all aspects of comics, graphic narrative, picture books, and textual-visual arts. The conference will be held in collaboration with the Toronto Comics Arts Festival, at the Toronto Reference Library, between the 9th and 11th May 2014. Abstracts are due by the 10th February 2014. Link (English, WG)

United States 

Business

Walking Dead #115 (an anniversary issue featuring 10 covers), alongside Batman #24 (an oversized issue), and Infinity #4 took the in top three spots for Diamond Comic Distributors 100 best-selling comics for October 2013. Link (11/11/2013, English, MB & EG)

Diamond Comics also released their 100 top-selling graphic novels. Batman Volume 3: Death of the Family and its companion novel, The Joker: Death of the Family, held the first and third spots respectively, while Marvel’s Avengers: Endless Wartime was in the second spot. Link (11/11/2013, English, MB & EG)

Education

The Swann Foundation for Caricature and Cartoon, administered by the Library of Congress, is accepting applications for its graduate fellowship, for the 2014-2015 academic year. The deadline for applications is the 14th February 2014. Link (English, WG)

The Comics Journal report on the opening of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University. Link (20/11/2013, English, WG)

Obituaries

Bill Schelly of The Comics Journal remembers Nick Candy who passed away at the age of 93. Candy practiced a classical approach in portraying his characters – both inside and on the cover of such comics as DC’s Aquaman, Batman, and Bat Lash. Link (06/11/2013, English, MB)

Research

The University of California, Santa Barbara, will be hosting a conference entitled “Composition: Making Meaning through Design”, an interdisciplinary study of material texts ranging from graphic novels to e-books. Proposals for the conference are due by the 15th January, for the conference that takes place on the 15th and 16th May 2014. Link (16/11/2013, English, MB & EG)

There is a call for papers for the fifth annual Comics & Medicine conference. The theme this year is “From Private Lives to Public Health.” The conference is scheduled to take place at the John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, between the 26th and the 28th June 2014. 300-word proposals are due by the 14th February 2014. Link (English, MB & EG)

“Cripping” the Comic Con, a conference now in its second year, has released a call for papers for its April 2014 gathering at Syracuse University, New York. The conference aims to be accessible for individuals regardless of their academic credentials. Submissions which discuss the representations of disability across popular culture mediums and genres are due by the 13th January 2014. Link (12/11/2013, English, MB & EG)

Comic-Con International has announced that WonderCon Anaheim 2014 will be held between the 18th and 20th April.  Proposals for papers and panels are being accepted until the 15th December. Link (English, WG)

Salem Press has released a call for contributors for its collection of essays entitled “Critical Insights: The American Comic Book.” Each of the essays  should be between 4,000 and 5,000 words in length, and each should be written for the general reader. Link (20/11/2013, English, EG)

Case Western University has announced a call for papers for its July 2014 conference entitled “Evil Incarnate: Manifestations of Villains and Villainy.” Although this conference is not specific to comic books, relevant discussions of the medium are welcome. Link (26/11/2013, English, EG)

Undead in the West II: They Just Keep Coming, edited by Cynthia Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper, has recently been published through Scarecrow Press. The collection examines undead Westerns in comics and graphic novels, amongst other things. Link 1 (English, WG), Link 2 (English, WG)

Following on from their work in the Undead in the West collections, editors Cynthia Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper seek submissions for the proposed collection, “The Horrors of War: The Living, the Undead, and the Battlefield.” The collection will focus on ghosts, zombies, vampires, etc. in fictional war narratives across media (including comics), and abstracts are due by the 20th December. Link (22/11/2013, English, WG)

Renee Krusemark of Creighton University is currently studying leadership in The Walking Dead, and is looking for readers of the comic book to participate in an online survey. Link (English, WG)

Asia

Japan

Culture

Yoshihiro Yonezawa Memorial Library will hold a talk on the 7th December. Yukari Shiina and Masato Hara will discuss the Gaiman Awards (gai from gaikoku [foreign] and man from manga), an award for foreign works that are available in Japanese translation. Link (Japanese, JBS)

The Institut Francais in Kansai is holding its fifth bande dessinée lecture on the 7th December. The theme this time is the depiction of sexuality, with Xavier Gillard as a lecturer. Link (Japanese, JBS)

Education

Professor Keiko Takemiya, a renowned manga artist and member of the group of revolutionary 1970s shojo manga artists called “The Magnificent 49’ers”, was elected as the new President of Kyoto Seika University. This is a post she will assume at the start of the new academic year, April 2014. Link (21/11/2013, English, JBS)

Research

The symposium, Anime Studies Now, will be held on the 20th December at Kyoto International Manga Museum. Scholars from Japan, Malaysia, Turkey, and the U.S. will be presenting their research, and two experts, prof. Nobuyuki Tsugata from Kyoto Seika University, and Mr. Yasunori Oya from Kyoto International Manga Museum will comment. Link (Japanese, JBS)

Singapore

Culture

The e-book of the Lianhe Zaobao cartoon exhibition has just been released (news of the exhibition was reported in August). Link (English, LCT)

Europe 

Austria

Culture

Scott McCloud was one of the speakers at the literature festival “Erich Fried Tage” in Vienna on the 9th November. Link (01/11/2013, German, MdlI)

A Nicolas Mahler exhibition takes place at Karikaturmuseum Krems from the 29th November to the 23rd March 2014. Link (11/11/2013, German, MdlI)

France

Business

The satirical magazine Siné Mensuel has encountered financial difficulties and has launched an appeal to make up for the shortfall. Link 1 (07/11/2013, French, LTa), Link 2 (French, LTa)

The director of a planned Blake & Mortimer film adaptation is no longer working on the project, due to lack of funds. Link (19/11/2013, French, LTa)

Culture

Frederik Peeters’ Blue Pills is being adapted for the Franco-German TV channel ARTE. Link (01/11/2013, French, LTa)

A Smurfs album has been published in Breton. Link (30/10/2013, French, LTa)

Germany

Culture

The exhibition “Mucha Manga Mystery” explores Alphonse Mucha’s influence on subsequent graphic design, including manga. It will be shown from the 5th December to the 2nd March 2014 at the Bröhan Museum in Berlin. Link (25/11/2013, German, MdlI)

Research

New issues of the yearbooks Deutsche Comicforschung and Comic-Jahrbuch have been published. Link (18/11/2013, German, MdlI)

Ireland

Research

There is a call for papers for the conference The First World War in European Children’s Literature: 1970-2014. The event is concerned with the subject of the First World War in late-twentieth and twenty-first century literature for children and young adults. The event will take place in Dublin on the 27th June 2014, with abstracts due by the 31st January. Link (20/11/2013, English, WG)

Spain

Culture

A selection of works by underground artist Miguel Angel Martin is exhibited as part of the Independent Film Festival in Madrid 2013 (22nd – 30th November). Link (Spanish, EC)

GRAF took place in Madrid on the 29th and 30th November. This encounter between artists, readers and publishers focused on independent creation, self-publishing, crowd-funding and the relation between comics and other arts. There was a very dynamic, vibrant and inspiring atmosphere, with round tables, discussions and exhibitions. Link (Spanish, EC)

6th Comic Week took place at Tarragona between the 17th and the 24th November. Exhibitions and conferences were moderated by celebrated Spanish artists and critics. Link (14/11/2013, Spanish, EC)

UK   

Culture

There is a call for entries into Myriad Editions’ First Graphic Novel Competition. The biennial competition seeks to publish a graphic novel-in-progress, and is open to all cartoonists, writers and artists who have not previously published a full-length graphic work. The deadline for entries is the 3rd March 2014. Link (English, WG)

The winners of the British Comic Awards were announced at this year’s Thought Bubble festival. Link (23/11/2013, English, WG)

Forbidden Planet review Thought Bubble, Leeds 2013. Link (29/11/2013, English, WG)

Downthetubes report on Dundee Comics Day, which took place at the University of Dundee on the 26th and 27th October. Link (02/11/2013, English, WG)

Education

There are a number of funded places on offer at the University of Glasgow to pursue a PhD in the French department. Research proposals that consider bande dessinée are welcome. Link (English, WG)

Obituary

Downthetubes offer an obituary of Bob Bartholomew, editor of Eagle between 1962 and 1969, who died on the 9th October at the age of 90. Link (07/11/2013, English, WG)

Research

There is a call for papers for the conference, “Heroes and Monsters: Extra-ordinary Tales of Learning and Teaching in the Arts and Humanities.” The conference is concerned with how monsters can unnerve and innervate those working in arts and humanities higher education. The conference will take place at The Lowry, Manchester, between the 2nd and 4th June 2014. Link (English, WG)

A review of the conference Transitions 4, which took place on the 26th October at Birkbeck, London, has been published online by the conference organisers. Link (13/11/2013, English, WG)

Oceania

Australia

Culture

The winner of the Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing Award in the category of Graphic Short Story was David Blumenstein, for “The Bolt Report.” Creators shortlisted for the award include Scarlette Baccini, Timothy Newport, Chris Rodgers and Edwin Tan. The awards were created to encourage creativity and promote Melbourne’s status as a UNESCO City of Literature. Link (English, AM)

Research

The University of Adelaide has released a call for papers for its upcoming symposium, Inkers and Thinkers: The Evolution of Comics, to be held on the 4th April 2014. Abstracts of 300-500 words will be accepted until the 20th December. There is no conference booking fee. Link (English, AM)

Technology

Kickstarter has launched in Australia. The popular crowd-funding site now accepts Australian-based projects, providing creators with a new platform in which to fund, produce and market their comics. Link (English, AM)

*                    *                    *

 

News Editor: Will Grady (comicsforumnews@hotmail.co.uk)

Correspondents: Jessica Bauwens-Sugimoto (JBS, Japan), Michele Brittany (MB, North America), Esther Claudio (EC, Spain), Eric Garneau (EG, North America), William Grady (WG, UK), Martin de la Iglesia (MdlI, Austria & Germany), Amy Maynard (AM, Australia), Lise Tannahill (LTa, France), Lim Cheng Tju (LCT, Singapore).

Click here for News Review correspondent biographies.

Click here to see the News Review archive.

Suggestions for articles to be included in the News Review can be sent to Will Grady at the email address above.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on 2013/12/04 in News Review

 

Comics and Cultural Work: Introduction by Casey Brienza

02 Dec

‘All artistic work, like all human activity, involves the joint activity of a number, often a large number, of people. Through their cooperation, the art work we eventually see or hear comes to be and continues to be. The work always shows signs of that cooperation,’ wrote sociologist Howard Becker (1982, 1) in his seminal monograph on cultural production Art Worlds. Comic art is no exception to Becker’s basic insight. Writers, illustrators, graphic designers, letterers, editors, printers, typesetters, publicists, publishers, distributors, retailers, and countless others are both directly and indirectly involved in the creative production of what is commonly thought of as the comic book.

Read the rest of this entry »

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on 2013/12/02 in Comics and Cultural Work, Guest Writers

 

Tags:

Comics Forum 2013: Thank You and Announcements

26 Nov

Comics Forum 2013 took place at Leeds Central Library last week. A huge thank you to our speakers, who travelled from around the world to present a set of excellent papers and who made the event a resounding success. We would also like to extend a vote of thanks to the following people, who were all very helpful in running various aspects of the conference: Clark Burscough, Hugo Frey, Ben Gaskell, Mel Gibson, Nabil Homsi and the staff of Travelling Man, Roger Sabin, Dawn Stanley-Donaghy and the whole team at Leeds Central Library, Hannah Wadle and Lisa Wood Thanks also to our supporters, who made the event possible: Thought Bubble, the University of Chichester, Routledge, Travelling Man, Dr Mel Gibson and Molakoe.

The Comics Forum 2013 page on the website has now been moved into the Comics Forum Archives, where you can also download the full text of the conference programme (including abstracts and speaker biographies) and other relevant documentation. We’ll also be adding a selection of photos taken by conference photographer Craig Brogden shortly. Keep an eye on the site for details of Comics Forum 2014 as they are confirmed!

At Comics Forum 2013, Comics Forum Director Ian Hague announced eleven developments for Comics Forum, which will feed into the website and other areas over the next twelve months. Here’s the full list of announcements:

1. Comics Forum is shifting to become an unincorporated association.

Although we will still be running as part of the Thought Bubble festival, Comics Forum is establishing itself as a separate entity, called an unincorporated association, which will allow it to operate more autonomously. This means we’ve developed a constitution and set up a committee from the people who are involved in running the organisation. Full details of the constitution and the committee will be announced on the Comics Forum website in the next few months as this process is completed.

2. @ComicsForum is two years old.

The Comics Forum Twitter feed, run by Hattie Kennedy, launched at Comics Forum 2011 and has been providing regular updates on Comics Forum, and comics scholarship more generally, ever since. Why not follow @ComicsForum and keep up to date with all the latest as it happens?

3. Comics Forum’s Facebook page is eighteen months old.

Comics Forum’s Facebook page, run by Paul Fisher Davies, was launched in June 2012. Since then it’s offered all the latest and most interesting articles on comics from around the web. Like us on Facebook to receive updates!

4. The Comics Forum News Review is one year old.

The Comics Forum News Review, edited by Will Grady and contributed to by many correspondents, has now been running for a little over a year. If you would like to join our team and expand our coverage, contact Will at comicsforumnews@hotmail.co.uk. A huge thank you to all our correspondents for your great work so far!

5. Comics Forum will launch a reviews column in March 2014.

Hattie Kennedy has been appointed as Comics Forum’s reviews editor, and will launch a column covering book, conference and exhibition reviews to run monthly from March 2014. We are now recruiting reviewers; if you would like to join the team please contact Hattie at comicsforumreviews@outlook.com.

6. Comics Forum presents ‘Comics and Cultural Work’ in December 2013.

Guest edited by Casey Brienza, the Comics Forum website will be running a series of articles on Comics and Cultural Work in December 2013. The full line up of articles is as follows:

‘Comics and Cultural Work (Introduction)’, by Casey Brienza

‘Why Is It So Hard to Think about Comics as Labour?’ by Benjamin Woo

‘Comics and the Day Job: Cartooning and Work in Jeffrey Brown and James Kochalka’s Conversation #2’, by Paddy Johnston

‘My Brief Adventure in Comic Book Retail’, by Tom Miller

‘Comics and Cultural Work (Conclusion)’, by Casey Brienza

7. Research from the University of Lincoln’s ‘Comics and the World Wars’ research project will be available on the Comics Forum website from January 2014.

In association with the University of Lincoln, the Comics Forum website will be running materials from the AHRC funded research project ‘Comics and the World Wars’. Launching in January 2014, this exciting collaboration will see Comics Forum publish ‘Comics and the World Wars: A Cultural Record’ by Anna Hoyles. The site’s digital text archive will also be hosting ‘Representation of female war-time bravery in Australia’s Wanda the War Girl’ by Jane Chapman and ‘Multi-panel comic narratives in Australian First World War trench publications as citizen journalism’ by Jane Chapman and Dan Ellin, with more titles to be announced around mid-2014.

8. Comics Forum will host a bi-annual International Bande Dessinée Society column from January 2014.

From January 2014 Comics Forum will be hosting an ongoing bi-annual column from the International Bande Dessinée Society. Format and contributors are currently to be confirmed but we’re very pleased to be able to provide an ongoing presence for the study of BD on the site.

9. News and content from Germany’s Gesellschaft für Comicforschung will be translated in a bi-monthly column on Comics Forum launching in February 2014.

Starting in February, Paul Meyer, Stephan Packard and Lukas Wilde will be writing a bi-monthly column translating major articles and news from Germany’s pre-eminent Comics Studies association Gesellschaft für Comicforschung. We already host extensive archive material from the ComFor conference series in our affiliated conferences archive, and we’re delighted to be able to extend our collaboration and present more work from the highly productive German language comics scholarship field in translation.

10. A new monthly column on Manga Studies will launch on Comics Forum in April 2014.

From April 2014, Comics Forum will be running a monthly column on Manga Studies. The column’s editorial board comprises five experts in the field: Jessica Bauwens-Sugimoto (also our Japan correspondent for the News Review), Jaqueline Berndt, Ronald Stewart, CJ Suzuki and Nicholas Theisen. The column will include discussions of major manga critics, their works, impacts, and problems; themes and methodologies in manga studies; comparative approaches and current issues and longer term ideas. The column’s focus is not limited to Japanese manga will also cover related forms such as manhua and manhwa, and global manga. We’re very excited to be able to present work by this wonderful team, and we’re looking forward to seeing what they have up their sleeves!

11. Routledge will publish Representing Multiculturalism in Comics and Graphic Novels, a new book spinning out of Comics Forum 2012, in Winter 2014.

Following 2012’s very successful ‘Multiculturalism and Representation: A Conference on Comics’ we’re pleased to announce that Routledge will publish a book based on the conference. Edited by Carolene Ayaka and Ian Hague, the book will feature seventeen fantastic writers, including: Jacob Birken, Corey K. Creekmur, Brenna Clarke Gray & Peter Wilkins, Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru, William H. Foster III, Mel Gibson, Lily Glasner, Simon Grennan, Sarah D. Harris, Ian Horton, Alex Link, Paul M. Malone, Andy Mason, Ana Merino, Dana Mihăilescu, Emma Oki and Mihaela Precup. Keep an eye on the site for more information on the book as we move through the production process.

2013 has been a very exciting year for Comics Forum, and it looks like 2014 will be bigger still. The Comics Forum team would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to everyone who has supported and contributed to the work we’ve been doing so far. If you have any suggestions for other things we can do to help develop comics scholarship, or you’d like to get involved, please let us know! You can contact us via Twitter or Facebook, or by email at comicsforum@hotmail.co.uk. Finally, don’t forget that you can sign up to receive every post from the Comics Forum website direct to your inbox by filling in the Email Subscription box on the right hand side of this page!

Carolene Ayaka, Paul Fisher Davies, Will Grady, Ian Hague, Hattie Kennedy and Rebecca Macklin

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on 2013/11/26 in Affiliated Conferences, Comics Forum 2012, Comics Forum 2013, Comics Forum Archives, Digital Texts, News, News Review, Scholarly Resources

 

Tags: ,

Next Week: Comics Forum 2013

15 Nov

CF2013 - PosterComics Forum 2013 is taking place at Leeds Central Library next Thursday and Friday!

As you can see from the poster above, we have a fantastic line-up of speakers and events this year, and we’re really looking forward to welcoming everyone to Leeds for what promises to be a fantastic event. In addition to the individual papers, we also have a keynote event featuring Paul Gravett and Roger Sabin, a book launch for Paul’s latest book Comics Art, and we’ll be making some exciting announcements about Comics Forum’s plans for 2014! The full running order is provided below:

DAY 1: 21/11/2013

0900-0930: Registration

0930-0945: Opening Remarks

0945-1100: Panel 1: History

Chair: Ian Hague

Lise Tannahill: Assessing Ololê: Vehicle for Breton Pride or Source of Shame?

David Huxley: ‘I still have 50 Copies in the Attic’: British Regional Underground comics 1970- 1980

Martin de la Iglesia: Early manga translations in the West: underground cult or mainstream failure?

1100-1115: Break

1115-1215: Panel 2: Audience

Chair: Joan Ormrod

Cameron Fletcher: “Amateur” Hour

R.Finn: Using a webcomic comment thread to gauge reader experience

1215-1300: Lunch

1300-1415: Panel 3: Gender & Sexuality

Chair: Carolene Ayaka

Louisa Parker: Small Story – Big Picture

Laura A. Pearson: Nina Bunjevac’s “Alternative” Catwoman in ‘Bitter Tears of Zorka Petrovic’

Mihaela Precup: ‘It came from Alpha Centaur looking for love’: The Mutant and Non-human Body in Denis Kitchen’s Bizarre Sex (1972-1982)

1415-1430: Break

1430-1545: Panel 4: Graphixia

Brenna Clarke Gray, Damon Herd, Hattie Kennedy, Ernesto Priego, Peter Wilkins and David N Wright: Small is the New Big: The Comics Criticism Blog as Small Press

1550-1620: Comics Forum Developments

1700-1830: Comics Art Book Launch (Venue: Travelling Man Leeds)

1830: Conference Dinner

DAY 2: 22/11/2013

0900-0930: Registration

0930-0945: Opening Remarks

0945-1045: Panel 5: Authorship

Chair: Julia Round

Ian Horton: Dave Sim’s Cerebus the Aardvark: Self-publishing, the Direct Market and Creative Freedom

Christopher J. Thompson: Comix Narrative Parody: Hunt Emerson’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner

1045-1100: Break

1100-1215: Panel 6: Art

Chair: Simon Grennan

Gareth Brookes: Small Press Comics and Fine Art

Paddy Johnston: From Random House to Rehab: Julia Wertz and the Small Press

Dan Smith: Revisiting Donald Parsnips’ Daily Journal

1215-1300: Lunch

1300-1400: Panel 7: Politics

Chair: Hattie Kennedy

Aysel Demir: Political Humor is Absolutely a “Serious” Job!

John Miers: Metaphor, financial crisis, and the small press

1400-1415: Break

1415-1515: Panel 8: Communication

Chair: Ian Horton

John G. Swogger: Underground Archaeology: Comics as alternative agents of professional discourse

Lydia Wysocki, Jack Fallows and Mike Thompson: Epic themes in awesome ways, or how we made Asteroid Belter: The Newcastle Science Comic

1515-1530: Break

1530-1630: Keynote: Paul Gravett in conversation with Roger Sabin

1630-1645: Closing Remarks

*          *          *

Registration fees this year are as follows:

1 day pass (21st or 22nd): £10

2 day pass (21st and 22nd): £20

4 day pass (two day Comics Forum pass + 2 day Thought Bubble Convention pass (SRP £22)): £35 (save £7!)

To register, simply email comicsforum@hotmail.co.uk with the phrase ‘CF2013 Registration’ in your subject line and tell us your name and how many tickets you’d like.

*          *          *

Comics Forum 2013 is supported by: Thought Bubble, the University of Chichester, Routledge, Travelling Man, Dr Mel Gibson and Molakoe.

Discounted books:

In addition to sponsoring Comics Forum 2013, Routledge are offering Comics Forum readers and attendees a 20% on their comic-related titles, including pre-orders! To see the full range of discounted books, click here.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on 2013/11/15 in Comics Forum 2013, News

 

Tags: , ,

← Older posts
Newer posts →