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Comics Forum 2013: Registration Open

01 Oct

CF2013 Image

Registration is now open for Comics Forum 2013: Small Press and Undergrounds, which will be running at Leeds Central Library on the 21st and 22nd of November.

This year features a fantastic lineup of speakers and papers, including:

Cameron Fletcher: “Amateur” Hour Kenan Kocak: Koloni: Pirate Comics, Published Once In A While 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? Louisa Parker: Small Story – Big Picture Laura A. Pearson: Nina Bunjevac’s “Alternative” Catwoman in ‘Bitter Tears of Zorka Petrovic’ Brenna Clarke Gray, Damon Herd, Hattie Kennedy, Ernesto Priego, Peter Wilkins and David N Wright (Graphixia): Small is the New Big: The Comics Criticism Blog as Small Press Mihaela Precup: ‘It came from Alpha Centaur looking for love’: The Mutant and Non-human Body in Denis Kitchen’s Bizarre Sex (1972-1982) 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 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 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 R.Finn: Using a webcomic comment thread to gauge reader experience Aysel Demir: Political Humor Is Absolutely A “Serious” Job! John Miers: Metaphor, financial crisis, and the small press

Further speakers are still to be confirmed, and we’ll put the details up here as soon as we have them.

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. It’s that simple!

We look forward to seeing you in November!

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

 
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Posted by on 2013/10/01 in Comics Forum 2013, Thought Bubble

 

Keep watering the rocks by Di Laycock

20 Sep

‘For goodness sake put that graphic novel down and get yourself a real book to read.’

Overheard in the school library, this comment was a short, but far from simple, remark made to a student by a colleague. Given the work I’d done with this teacher as to how graphic novels might be used in the classroom, I was disheartened to hear that graphic novels still struggled to make her literary cut. And whilst another colleague once told me not to waste time ‘watering the rocks,’ a part of me wasn’t going to give up so easily – I enrolled in a professional doctorate and grabbed my watering can.

The above scenario took place nearly six years ago, around the same time that Carter (2007) suggested graphic novels ‘still remain largely on the fringes of the [teaching] profession’ (p. 1). To reposition graphic novels more centrally, added Carter, more success stories of their use in schools were needed.

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Posted by on 2013/09/20 in educators, Guest Writers, librarians

 

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Universalism Re-visited: The Cartoon Image, My Mom, and Mii by Mita Mahato

12 Sep

Scott McCloud’s articulation of the universality of cartoon imagery (‘when you enter the world of the cartoon—you see yourself’ [36]) has come under much scrutiny during the years since Understanding Comics first ushered the medium into the spotlight among academics. I am partial to this growing collection of perspectives that seeks to complicate the idea that comics naturally invite readers into their worlds. Gillian Whitlock, in her reading of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, offers one such complication; ‘there can be no simple universality in the associations produced by cartooning across very different relationships’ (977), she writes. Even a cursory survey of the tools, topics, and stylistic and generic choices that cartoonists have employed in their work reveals that comics do not make us all one in our experiences; instead the form (as with any form) exhibits a proliferation of divergent approaches to life—some that pull us in with their imagery and others that seem determined to alienate. Additionally, universalizing claims tend to neglect the medium’s capacity to help readers “re-see” known events or experiences with new points-of-view. Of course, another problem with universalism is that what we understand as a universal worldview tends to be dictated by those who have the power and voice to control the world’s goings-on.

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Posted by on 2013/09/12 in Guest Writers

 

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News Review: August 2013

04 Sep

Americas

United States 

Business

Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc., announced their top-selling comics for July 2013. Superman Unchained #2, Batman #22 and Guardians of Galaxy #5 took the top spots. Link (09/08/2013, English, MB & EG)

Diamond Comics also released their best-selling graphic novels for July 2013, with the second volume of Matt Fraction and David Aja’s Hawkeye, alongside Avatar Last Airbender, and Saga in the top spots. Link (09/08/2013, English, MB & EG)

Culture

The Comic Arts Brooklyn Festival (taking place on the 9th November) has confirmed the first of its curated panels, which will feature Paul Auster, Paul Karasik, David Mazzucchelli, and Art Spiegelman speaking about the adaptation of Auster’s City of Glass graphic novel to commemorate its 20th anniversary. Link (29/08/2013, English, EG)

The Columbus College of Art & Design will be hosting their second annual Celebration of Comics between the 27th and 28th September. Bone creator Jeff Smith will be the keynote speaker, and his work from RASL will be on exhibition. Link (English, MB)

Education

The University of Colorado is offering a free seven-week online course entitled “Comic Books and Graphic Novels” starting on the 23rd September. Professor William Kuskin will lead the session that will explore the comic book as literary art. A draft course syllabus has been published. Link (English, MB)

Karen Green was interviewed about her course Comic Books and Graphic Novels as Literature. Link (English, WG)

Obituary

Rick O’Shay creator Stan Lynde passed away on the 6th August, in Helena, Montana, aged 81. Emerging in 1958, the western comic strip gained Lynde a following over the next 20 years of 15 million daily readers. Link 1 (07/08/2013, English, MB), Link 2 (14/08/2013, English, WG)

Research

The Midwest Popular Culture Association / American Culture Association (MPCA/ACA) has announce the launch of a new journal: The Popular Culture Studies Journal. The journal accepts submissions on comics, cartoons, and graphic novels, amongst other things. Link (English, WG)

Narrative Structure in Comics: Making Sense of Fragments by Barbara Postema has been published through RIT Press. Link 1 (25/07/2013, English, WG), Link 2 (English, WG)

The Daniel Clowes Reader: A Critical Edition of Ghost World and Other Stories, With Essays, Interviews, and Annotations has been published through Fantagraphics. Amongst other things, the collection includes a number of essays about Clowes’ work by scholars and critics. Link (English, WG)

Shot in the Face: A Savage Journey to the Heart of Transmetropolitan is an anthology that explores Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan series. The collection is edited by Chad Nevett and has been published through SEQUART. Link (English, WG)

The University of Toledo’s Matt Yockey has released a call for papers for a collection focusing on the shaping of Marvel Comics as a transmedia brand. Link (02/08/2013, English, EG)

The Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association has opened up presentation submissions for their 2014 conference in Chicago. Link (05/08/2013, English, EG)

The 42nd Annual Louisville Conference on Literature & Culture has announced a call for papers, with particular emphasis on panels focusing on the intersection of comics and literature. Link (06/08/2013, English, EG)

Asia

China

Culture

Comix Homebase, a centre for Hong Kong comics and animation, finally opened in July. It is run by the Hong Kong Arts Centre, and the first exhibition which was held in August, focused upon Ma Wing Shing. Link (Chinese, LCT)

Japan

Culture

Yonezawa Yoshihiro Memorial Library (Meiji University) is hosting the SciFi and Images of the Future Exhibition, between the 1st and 29th September. Link (Japanese, JBS)

Eshi 100 Part 2 – Contemporary Japanese Illustration in Kyoto Exhibition will be hosted by the Kyoto International Manga Museum from the 28th September to the 1st December. Link (English, JBS)

On the 14th September, the Yonezawa Yoshihiro Memorial Library will be holding a talk event with Tani Koshu, author of Japan Sinks, Part 2. Link (Japanese, JBS)

Education

Kyoto International Manga Museum is hosting four presentations under the title, “Pikadon – Expressions of the atomic bomb in Japanese animation,” on the 30th September. There will also be a screening of Pikadon. Link (Japanese, JBS)

Law & Politics

The Matsue City (Shimane Prefecture) Board of Education rescinded its decision to limit access to the manga series Barefoot Gen. Link (26/08/2013, English, JBS)

Research

The Gender and Sexuality Research Group of the Japanese Society for Studies in Cartoons and Comics (JSSCC) will hold its 28th research meeting on the 22nd September. Link (Japanese, JBS)

Singapore

Culture

The main Chinese newspaper in Singapore, Lianhe Zaobao, celebrated its 90th anniversary by holding a cartoon exhibition at the National Library of Singapore. It was co-organised with the Singapore Memory Project. Link (English and Chinese, LCT)

Europe 

Belgium

Culture

FACTS 2013, the biggest comics, sci-fi, and anime festival in the Benelux, will be held on the 19th and 20th October, at Flanders Expo, Ghent. Link (English, JBS)

Croatia

Culture

Croatian illustrator and writer Igor Kordej has been knighted by the French Ministry of Culture for his contributions to art and literature. Kordej is currently working for the French publisher Goncourt. Link (11/08/2013, English, LO)

Germany

Culture

The third Graphic Novel Day is announced as part of internationales literaturfestival berlin (ilb) to take place at Haus der Berliner Festspiele on the 8th September; guests include Atak and Flix. Link (19/08/2013, German, MdlI)

The festival, Comicgarten Leipzig, will take place on the 6th and 7th September; guests include Naomi Fearn and Haggi. Link (27/08/2013, German, MdlI)

Obituaries

Cartoonist Christian Moser (Monster des Alltags) died at the age of 47. Link (15/08/2013, German, MdlI)

Research

A conference on historically based comics, Sketching the Past – Vermittlung von Gewaltgeschichte im Comic, will take place at Europa-Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), between the 26th and 28th September. Link (02/08/2013, German, MdlI)

A conference on comic adaptations of literary works, Graphisches Erzählen – Comic-Adaptionen literarischer Texte, will take place at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf between the 5th and 7th March 2014. The call for papers deadline is the 31st October 2013. Link (08/08/2013, German, MdlI)

Portugal

Culture

From the 9th August until the 22nd September the city of Viseu is hosting the XVIII Salão Internacional de Banda Desenhada de Viseu. The main subject is Comics Fanzines in Portugal. Link (Portuguese, RR)

Research

The Second International Conference on Illustration & Animation (CONFIA) has extended their call for papers until the 12th September. Comics and Graphic Novels is one of the recommended topics for paper submissions. Link (21/08/2013, English & Portuguese, RR)

The 3CBDPT (3rd Comics Conference in Portugal)  will be held in Universidade de Lisboa on the 18th September. Link (Portuguese, RR)

Serbia

Culture

A comic book conference took place in Kragujevac between the 30th August and the 1st September. Key speakers included the Italian illustrators Paolo Bisi and Alessandro Bignamini. Link (28/08/2013, Serbian, LO)

UK   

Culture

The Comics Grid‘s blog currently houses a series of reports from Damon Herd, and Hattie Kennedy, on talks by Rutu Modan, Leanne Shapton, Joe Sacco, and Chris Ware, at the Edinburgh Book Festival. Link (English, WG)

The Stripped Book Fest website has a host of videos and reviews from the event. Link (English, WG)

Education

The Guardian have announced the master class How To Write A Graphic Novel. The class takes place on the 7th September, and is run by Paul Gravett, and Pat Mills, amongst others. Link (English, WG)

Research

The symposium, Japanese Body Cultures and The Human Condition (which is inclusive of  manga), will take place at Birkbeck College on the 9th September. Link (English, WG)

The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) have posted a film that details the research currently being undertook by Professor Jane Chapman (et al.) at the University of Lincoln. The project looks to examine the depiction of World War I in comics from 1914-1918. Link (English, WG)

Abstracts are now being accepted for the symposium, The Adventures of Tintin, at University College London on the 10th January 2014. 400 word abstracts are due by the 31st October. Link (12/08/2013, English, WG)

The deadline has been extended for submissions for the collection, Neo-Victorian Villains: Neo-Victorian Fiction, Adaptation and Performance, which will examine the depiction of Victorian villains in comics (amongst other things). 250 word abstracts are due by the 15th September. The old call for papers (without the updated submission date) can be accessed through the link. Link (18/08/2013, English, WG)

The International Bande Dessinée Society website currently houses photographs and reportage from the Joint International Graphic Novel and IBDS Conference which took place in Glasgow and Dundee between the 24th and 28th June. Conference reports are courtesy of Alex Valente, Stephen O’Donnell, and William Grady. Link (English, WG)

*                    *                    *

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

Correspondents: Jessica Bauwens-Sugimoto (JBS, Japan), Michele Brittany (MB, North America), Eric Ganeau (EG, North America), William Grady (WG, UK), Martin de la Iglesia (MdlI, Germany), Luka Ostojic (LO, Croatia), Renatta Rafaela (RR, Portugal), Lim Cheng Tju (LCT, Singapore).

Click here for News Review correspondent biographies.

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

 
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Posted by on 2013/09/04 in News Review

 

The dissolution of the pictorial content in Hugo Pratt’s ‘Corto Maltese’ and Lorenzo Mattotti’s ‘Fires’ by Barbara Uhlig

30 Aug

In her article ‘L’héritier des maîtres de l’aquarelle’, Emmanuelle Lequeux (2011) wrote that Hugo Pratt evoked the history of abstract art in his work Corto Maltese. And indeed, from the three-panel-detail she presented alongside her article one might get the impression that Pratt ventured into the abstract in his comics. However, it raises the questions of whether Pratt did stretch the medium’s boundaries to include abstraction into his narration or whether this is only due to the detail she chose and if comic panels can actually be analyzed without taking at least the scene as a whole into account.[1]

Corto Maltese was bursting with innovations when its first story ‘Ballad of the Salt Sea’ appeared in installments in 1967. Firstly, it was astonishing in its clear design and unusual length of 165 pages. The multitude and complexity of its characters, the morally dubious anti-heroes, the landscape that itself became an active character in the narration as well as the extensive research Pratt conducted for his stories were groundbreaking. And without a doubt ‘The Ballad of the Salt Sea’ already shows tendencies to reduce the pictorial content to a minimum, something that went on to be considered typical of Pratt’s work.[2] In an interview conducted in the early 1970s, he stated: ‘Vorrei arrivare a dire tutto con una linea’ (Trevisani 2010) – I want to arrive at telling everything with one line. At that time his style was changing significantly, moving away from his Milton Caniff inspired chiaroscuro and becoming increasingly clean, reduced and daringly simplified in its language.

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Posted by on 2013/08/30 in Guest Writers

 

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