At the cusp of second decade of the 21st century, if the word “webcomics” still sounds strange to some, it is clear the reason is not the prefix web. It is the word “comics” that is problematic for several reasons. In spite of their ubiquity in the mainstream cultural landscape, comic books are still the object of a widespread prejudice that has two main expressions. One is the debatable disqualification of any texts addressed or appealing to children as lacking “seriousness”. The “infancy/maturity” binary set is a recurring topos of comics scholarship, explained amongst other reasons by the field’s struggle to convince the general public that “comics are not just for kids”. Echoing Bart Beaty’s assessment of “contemporary comics scholarship” (2004) , Craig Hight writes:
Author Archives: Comics Forum
Women in Comics by Sarah Lightman
Women in Comics I and II have been unique events inspiring, informative and celebratory. We are committed to honouring women’s contribution to comics, and hosting women comics creators from the UK and abroad – both those who have been pioneers in the field and those currently forging new directions in the medium today.
In 2009 Women in Comics I was held at The New Hall Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge. We welcomed from Belgium, author of Faire Semblant C’est Mentir, Dominique Goblet, and also Melinda Gebbie, artist of Lost Girls, who noted of the day: “I never knew Cambridge could be so much fun!”
In 2010 Women in Comics II was hosted as part of Comics Forum, in Leeds Art Gallery. We heard from Suzy Varty who edited the first all-women comic in the UK in 1972, and we borrowed the front page of her publication “Heroine” for our programme’s cover image. We also hosted Maureen Burdock from Santa Fe, New Mexico, whose comics “The F-Word Project” have social consciousness as their message and take superheroines into a whole new dimension. Penneviender (The Penfriends), a Danish feminist separatist comic book art group showed us what women comic artists are producing both individually and collaboratively in Denmark. We also had an exciting array of comics scholars including Professor Teal Triggs, author of Fanzines, and Dr Mel Gibson, National Teaching Fellow and a great supporter of Women in Comics conferences.
Women in Comics III will take place at the University of Glasgow in Autumn 2012. We look forward to seeing you there!
Sarah Lightman (Chair),
Catriona MacLeod, Rikke Platz-Cortsen Nicola Streeten, Hattie Kennedy and Emily Rabone (Committee)
Sculpture and Comic Art #1: An expanded Call for Papers by Kirstie Gregory
The Henry Moore Institute is a world-recognised centre for the study of sculpture in the heart of Leeds. An award-winning exhibitions venue, research centre, library and sculpture archive, the Institute hosts a year-round programme of exhibitions, conferences and lectures, as well as developing research and publications, to expand the understanding and scholarship of historical and contemporary sculpture. The Institute is part of The Henry Moore Foundation, which was set up by Moore in 1977 to encourage appreciation of the visual arts, especially sculpture.
The ‘Sculpture & Comic Art’ Call for Papers and conference, part of the wider Comics Forum 3 day event, has been developed by the Henry Moore Institute’s Research Programme. The Research Programme is central to the activities of the Institute, aiming to encourage research into sculpture both within its walls and without, acting as a hub to develop a network of people with a particular interest in sculpture.
As historical and theoretical interest in comic art continues to grow, the Institute plans to explore the relationship between sculpture and comic art, looking at how formal and thematic concerns migrate, and have migrated across the last hundred years or so, between these practices. By using the phrase ‘comic art’ we mean to be inclusive of cartoons, comics, comix and graphic novels, and although examples of very early sequential visual art such as Trajan’s Column and the Bayeaux Tapestry are of interest, our focus is more linked to developments and connections which have emerged since the late nineteenth century, perhaps beginning around the time of Rodolphe Töpffer (1799-1846), an artist synonymous with the beginnings of modern comics.
Comic figuration is a regular influence on much modern and contemporary sculpture – allowing the body to be reinvented and restaged in new and fantastical ways beyond anatomical norms, and allowing sculptors to use a visual shorthand embracing exaggerated silhouettes, strange dramatic perspectives and subtle to exaggerated caricature. In addition to caricature, and its sort-of opposite, the ‘simplified reality’ style explained succinctly by Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics, comic art has also perhaps given sculptors and installation artists (such as Tom Friedman and Jake and Dinos Chapman) inspiration and ‘licence’ to push the boundaries of their work into the grotesque and ultra-violent.
By the same token we can also find the direct appropriation of comic and cartoon characters (often animals or superheroes) in recent installational practices, including those of Paul McCarthy, Maurizio Cattelan, Mark Dion and Thomas Schütte. This is always a choice by the artist heavy with significance, however intentions and outcomes are massively various, with contemporary artists Philippe Parreno and Pierre Huyghe highlighting issues of ownership and identity in their collaborative project ‘No Ghost Just a Shell’, for which an anonymous Manga character was bought from a Japanese design agency and given a new ‘life’, or Claes Oldenburg in the 1960s turning the shape of Mickey Mouse’s head into a Mouse Museum, literally elevating comic figuration into the realm of high art, as well as commenting on consumer culture and the allure of the collectible.
Such co-options are, in turn, echoed in sculpture’s intriguing place in many comics and graphic novels, where it is often given special powers and dynamic plot-determining roles within the visual sequential narratives constructed. From Tintin and Asterix to Jason Lutes’ Berlin: City of Stones, and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, the sculptural object is frequently employed as a potent or poignant visual device to heighten tension, turn the plot or embody a character’s emotions. Sculpture has also been caricatured within comic art since the earliest cartoon strips and tensions between high and low art emphasised.
The role of narrative (sculptural and sequential) is significant, within and between the ‘gutter’ and the gallery – the way we move through a story or installation, book or gallery, the choices the reader or viewer makes, or thinks they make, and the creative manipulations of writers, illustrators, sculptors and curators. Also tied into this are issues of spatial boundaries and the links and significance when creators from both genres break with convention and lead their audiences down new narrative paths. Comic writers and artists who have worked with unusual narrative and spatial techniques must be plentiful, and examples which spring to mind initially include Chris Ware’s disturbing, disjointed narrative in Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth and what Paul Gravett describes as “the quaking panel borders” in Raymond Briggs’ When the Wind Blows, representing “the impact of the bomb”.[1]
Finally, as sculptors have turned to comic art, so artists who began their practice in two dimensions (such as Robert Crumb, Paul McDevitt, David Shrigley and Chris Ware) have turned to three-dimensions. What does examining this shift and the works produced tell us about the links/lacunae between the mediums and the reasons and choices behind these different forms? This move from 2D to 3D is also relevant to issues of the power and popularity of the small-scale figurine, and the collectible’s standing as a three-dimensional demonstration of characters originally articulated in two dimensions, whether on the page or in animated film. The attraction of the figurine is applicable to both the comic and the sculptural spheres as is the wider subject of collecting.
In future blog entries I hope to focus more closely on some of these subjects – but please note these ‘categories’ are not exclusive and we very much welcome papers which approach the relationship between sculpture and comic art from different perspectives.
Kirstie Gregory is the co-convenor of Sculpture and Comic Art, taking place at Leeds Art Gallery on the 16th of November as part of Comics Forum 2011.
[1] – Gravett, Paul, Graphic Novels: Stories to Change Your Life, London: Aurum Press Limited, 2005. p.149.
Comics Forum 2010 Papers: Hanging out with Halo Jones by Maggie Gray
I’m delighted to announce that Maggie Gray has been in touch to provide a digital copy of her paper ‘Hanging out with Halo Jones – the first feminist comics heroine?’, which was delivered at Women in Comics II as part of Comics Forum 2010. You can download the paper in PDF format from the ‘Papers & Notes’ section of the Comics Forum 2010 Archive here.
Many thanks to Maggie for her generous contribution!
If you were a speaker at Comics Forum 2010 or Possibilities and Perspectives in 2009, and you have a paper or notes you would be willing to share, please get in touch at comicsforum@hotmail.co.uk and let us know.
IH
Genre Conventions by Clark Burscough
Mention the term “comic convention” to your average man or woman on the street and certain stock images will instantly spring to mind. Many of these will have been gleaned from the less than glamorous portrayal of cons in the popular media, and some may be downright fabrications, but there is a certain stigma attached to these events by the public. Were these the bad old days of terrible events simply designed to prise cash from the hands of hardcore fans you could forgive this lack of acceptance, however, the modern iteration of the humble convention is, at its best, an entirely different animal. A quick glance across the pond to established titans, such as Toronto’s Comic Arts Festival and the New York Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art’s Festival, demonstrates that quality events attracting a diverse audience are not mere flights of fancy.
Since its expansion in 2008, Thought Bubble has referred to itself as a “sequential arts festival”, an admittedly verbose term, but an accurate one nonetheless. As an organisation we are dedicated to promoting comics, animation, and other types of illustrated storytelling as an important cultural art-form, aiming to cater to both long-time fans and those who are completely new to the medium. Part of this involves putting on free workshops and other such events to try and engage with young people who may be interested in comics, but don’t know where to start; and the other is bringing a variety of events to the general public to showcase as many of the different faces of sequential art as we possibly can. This year we’ve expanded the festival to run for a week in November (14th – 20th), devising a programme which will include workshops, exhibitions, book give-aways, screenings, academic talks, and a “traditional” comic convention – all for the cause of promoting funny books as a legitimate art-form.
Comics Forum 