by Nicoletta Mandolini, Alessia Mangiavillano, Giorgio Busi Rizzi and Eva Van de Wiele
From Monday 12 July to Thursday 15 July, the third edition of the AIPI (Associazione Internazionale Professori di Italiano) Summer School took place in Ghent. For the first time, the Summer School was dedicated to the study of comics. The edition was sponsored by AIPI; the Italian Cultural Institute of Brussels; the Dante Alighieri Society of Ghent; and the research groups COMICS and SnIF.
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Tags: A Contract with God, adaptation, Alberto Giolotti, Alexander Calder, authorship, autofiction, Belgium, City of Glass, collages, comics, David Mazzucchelli, discontinuity, Enki Bilal, film, Finnegans Wake, fumetti, Gene Roddenberry, Gianni Colombo, graphic journalism, Graphic Novels, Henry Jenkins, imagination, Italy, James Joyce, Kafka, Kobane Calling, La Guerre des tranchées, Le Château, Le Voyage, Lev Manovich, literature, Lovecraft, Marvel, mass media, merchandising, metafiction, Mickey Mouse, Mobile sur deux plans, Olivier Deprez, Paul Auster, Paul Karasik, Pierre Fresnault-Deruelle, political engagement, radio, Reinhard Kleist, representation of realities, Robert Crumb, Roland Barthes, SnIF, social commentary, stagnation, Star Trek, Strutturazione fluida, subjectivity, Summer Schools, television, Tezuka Osamu, transmediality, transtextual narratives, Trilogie Nikopol, Umberto Eco, Will Eisner, Zerocalcare
by Joe Sutliff Sanders and Laurence Grove
Although the 2021 joint conference of the International Graphic Novels and Comics and the International Bande Dessinée societies, to be held in Cambridge, was advertised as an in-person-only event that would be cancelled if the pandemic interfered, such was the response to the call for proposals that we moved the conference online. The result was five full days (21-25 June) of papers, keynotes, and online socialisation.
The four keynotes targeted the conference theme of “Comics and Their Audiences / Audiences and Their Comics.” Sara W. Duke (Library of Congress) gave an overview of European comics and caricatures in the Library onwards from the purchase of material from Windsor Castle a century ago. Kate Charlesworth (Sensible Footwear: A Girl’s Guide and many more) took us through her personal journey to becoming an artist, coming out as a lesbian, and creating the much-lauded autobiographical account that is Sensible Footwear. Lara Saguisag (City University of New York-College of Staten Island) provided a compelling history of the petrocultural, the ways in which global society is an oil society, in physical and material ways, shaping values, practices, habits, and even feelings, infusing comics and communities with a narrative that naturalises high energy consumption. Kazumi Nagaike (Oita University) explored depictions of sexuality in Japanese ‘essay manga’, essentially slice-of-life narratives in comic form.
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DAY 2/2
by Eva Van de Wiele and Dona Pursall
Gert Meesters chaired Panel 4: A Space for Girls. Early research into the relationship between comics and their readers was central to Sylvain Lesage’s presentation. Through a study of reader correspondences he analysed the reception of and discourse provoked by the comics strip “Corinne et Jeannot” in the communist comics magazine for children Pif Gadget (1969- 1993/2004-2009). The serial performance of Jeannot, a boy in love being pranked by Corinne, the girl he adores, sparked a feedback loop between publishers, creators and readers and was also referred to within the comic. The curiosity of the readers’ letters is their desire to negotiate the morality of a fictional character, to communicate ideologies such as the extent of acceptable meanness for girls and suitable levels of temperance and kindness. It speaks to readers’ genuine investment in these comics, showing that fictional characters in humour strips are subject to such socially normative constraints. Aswathy Senan’s research on the childhood of Malayalis considered the extent to which the context of publication shapes the comics themselves. This notion was explored through a comparison of the comics strip “Bobanum Moliyum” as published in the women’s magazine Malayala Manorama and in Kalakaumudi, a literary magazine. Whilst the characters and the concept of their strip remained constant, the humour, the interests and the agency of the characters adapted to the flavour of the different magazines.
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Tags: A Man Among Ye, abjection, affect, Ana Caspão, autobiography, autographics, Belit, blackness, Bobanum Moliyum, body, Charlotte Solomon, children readers, choice, civil rights, comics, coming of age, Corinne et Jeannot, creative practice, culpability, diary, education, feedback loop, female influence, female superheroes, Feminist Cultural Studies, friendships, Fundo do nada, gender roles, genre, girlhood, gothic motifs, graphic narratives, grotesque, heteronormative-queer dynamic, horror, humour, identity, individuality, isolation, Jackie Ormes, Kalakaumudi, Lynda Barry, Malayala Manorama, Martha Newbigging, memory, Misty, monstrosity, morality, narrative, origin stories, Paddy Jo, Pif Gadget, polyvocal identities, possession, power, prejudice, reader response, readers’ letters, representation, restrictions, segregation, self-sacrifice, Skim, social interactions, socially normative constraints, songplays, Spellbound, superheroine, teenage culture, trauma, Valeria, women’s magazines, Wonder Woman, WWII
DAY 1/2
by Eva Van de Wiele and Dona Pursall
The digital symposium Sugar and Spice, and the Not So Nice: Comics Picturing Girlhood was launched on 22 April 2021 with a profound and personal keynote by Mel Gibson. Using herself as a case study she reflected on being a reader, a librarian, a scholar and an individual who, in a variety of fields, has represented non-standard notions of ‘girl’. In workshops for librarians, teachers and scholars, Gibson uses comics for object elicitation, allowing her to encourage others to reconsider themselves as child comics readers and the complex ideologies knotted up in this experience. Gibson’s work provokes the notion of the individual as a role model, a unique and precise representation with particular qualities, interests and passions. Using restorative nostalgia entails not just reflecting back on but, also, resisting shame and embarrassment, forgiving and accepting ourselves as the child readers we were. Gibson shows a respect for the powerful and evocative materiality of comics and offers a compassionate model for identity. Whilst speaking personally about comics reading, Gibson engaged with discourses of hierarchy, child development and affect, interrogating the simple truth that what we read is part of making us who we are.
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Tags: access, adventure, aesthetics, affect, agency, autoethnography, biography, body, censorship, Child characters, child development, children readers, comics, COMICS project, coming of age, curiosity, dance, disability, disobedience, economics, Emmanuel Guibert, empathy, Escape from Syria, ethics, Europe, exploration, family, feminism, Gender, gender roles, genre, girl protagonists, girlhood, Giulia Pex, gutters, hierarchy, Hilda and the Black Hound, identity, independent women, insecurity, isolation, Italy, Jeg rømmer, Joann Sfar, Khalat, Lars Horneman, liberated women, Luke Pearson, Lumberjanes, Mari Kanstad Johnsen, Marvel, materiality of comics, Mirabelle, mobility, Mophead, Morten Dürr, neurodiversity, news narratives, nostalgia, objectification, operationalised invisibility, oppression, otherness, Pacifica youth, parenthood, queering, reader response, refugee experiences, representation, resistance, Samya Kullab, Sardine, second wave feminism, Selina Tusitala Marsh, shame and embarrassment, silence, social commentary, societal rules, song, status and authority, subjugation, Syria, Sıdıka, teenage culture, The Unstoppable Wasp, trauma, Turkey, twentieth century, Valentina Mela Verde, values, vulnerability, women’s magazines, working young women, Zenobia
by Erika Chung
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadian Society for the Study of Comics/La Société canadienne pour l’étude de la bande dessinée 2020 conference was cancelled. In its place, a series of online symposiums were organised to bring comic scholars together throughout the 2020/2021 academic year. Participants accepted to the conference and CSSC/SCEBD members in good standing were welcomed to participate in the online symposiums. In an effort to maximise the flexibility of the online Zoom space, the symposiums did not replicate in-person panel presentations. Instead, panellists’ research was shared with spectators in advance of the scheduled symposium session and, on the day of the symposium, researchers participated in a roundtable discussion. The goal was for panelists to engage in greater dialogue with their research and each other. Panelists and spectators met on Zoom and a moderator helped guide the roundtable discussion. Moderators introduced each speaker and prepared discussion questions. Panelists were also welcome to ask one another questions. In total, the online symposium series consisted of four sessions and featured researchers from the UK, India and across Canada.
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Tags: Amar Chitra Katha, androids, Asian representation, Austria, Bitch Planet, Canada, Canadian Comics Scholarship, Captain Marvel, charity projects, colonialism, community, Condo Heartbreak Disco, CSSC/SCEBD, disability, Domino, education, Eric Kostiuk William, femininity, film, friendships, Gender, graphic novel, identity, In a Queer Time and Place, India, Indian Comics, Jack Halberstam, Marjorie Liu, Martian Manhunter, Monstress, monstrosity, nationalism, political cartoons, post-war period, racism, Sana Takeda, science fiction, sexuality, sound, stereotypes, superheroes, the abject, UK, white gaze, women’s comics
AIPI Summer School 2021 Ricerca a fumetti (Researching comics: genres, form(s), variations) 1/2
by Nicoletta Mandolini, Alessia Mangiavillano, Giorgio Busi Rizzi and Eva Van de Wiele
From Monday 12 July to Thursday 15 July, the third edition of the AIPI (Associazione Internazionale Professori di Italiano) Summer School took place in Ghent. For the first time, the Summer School was dedicated to the study of comics. The edition was sponsored by AIPI; the Italian Cultural Institute of Brussels; the Dante Alighieri Society of Ghent; and the research groups COMICS and SnIF.
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Posted by Annick Pellegrin on 2021/09/15 in Conference reports
Tags: A Contract with God, adaptation, Alberto Giolotti, Alexander Calder, authorship, autofiction, Belgium, City of Glass, collages, comics, David Mazzucchelli, discontinuity, Enki Bilal, film, Finnegans Wake, fumetti, Gene Roddenberry, Gianni Colombo, graphic journalism, Graphic Novels, Henry Jenkins, imagination, Italy, James Joyce, Kafka, Kobane Calling, La Guerre des tranchées, Le Château, Le Voyage, Lev Manovich, literature, Lovecraft, Marvel, mass media, merchandising, metafiction, Mickey Mouse, Mobile sur deux plans, Olivier Deprez, Paul Auster, Paul Karasik, Pierre Fresnault-Deruelle, political engagement, radio, Reinhard Kleist, representation of realities, Robert Crumb, Roland Barthes, SnIF, social commentary, stagnation, Star Trek, Strutturazione fluida, subjectivity, Summer Schools, television, Tezuka Osamu, transmediality, transtextual narratives, Trilogie Nikopol, Umberto Eco, Will Eisner, Zerocalcare