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News Review February 2016

Americas

Canada

Research

The online journal Alternative francophone has published a special issue on French women’s comics, edited by Sophie Milquet and Chris Reyns-Chikuma. Link (22/02/2016, French, BC)

United States

Education

Meiji University professor Fujimoto Yukari will give a talk on ‘The Nuclear Disaster, Tsunami and Manga’ at Columbia University on the 11th March. Link (English, JBS)

Research

The Comics Studies Society, a new professional association for comics researchers and teachers, has launched its membership drive. Link (15/02/2016, English, WG)

There is a call for proposals for a collection of essays titled How to Analyse and Review Comics. Abstracts are due by the 15th March. Link (07/02/2016, English, WG)

The table of contents for the International Journal of Comic Art 17.2 has been published online. Link (16/02/2016, English, WG)

The Modern Language Association’s Forum on Comics and Graphic Narratives is currently accepting proposals to its three panels on Adaptation, Temporality, and Alien Lines for the 2017 meeting. Abstracts are due by the 15th March for proposals relating to Adaptation and Alien Lines, and the 4th March for Temporality. Link (English, WG)

There is a call for papers for a special roundtable session, Invisible Made Visible: Comics and Mental Illness, for the MLA conference 2017. The deadline for abstracts is the 15th March 2016. Link (12/02/2016, English, WG)

Issue 8.3 of ImageTexT has been published. Link (English, WG)

The deadline for applications for this year’s The Experience at Comic-Con, which engages students as participant-observers of Comic-Con International, is the 1st April. Link (English, WG)

Asia

Japan

Culture

Hagio Moto’s seventies girls’ manga series, Poe no ichizoku [The Poe Family] will be adapted for TV as a suspense drama in spring. It will be aired by TV Asahi and one of the main characters will be played by SMAP member Katori Shingo. Link (Japanese, JBS)

On the 19th March, Meiji University’s Yonezawa Yoshihiro Memorial Library will hold a talk event with manga artist and Kyoto Seika University professor Sugaya Mitsuru and Kyoto International Manga Museum researcher Ito Yu. Link (Japanese, JBS)

The nominees for the 20th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize have been selected. A full list of all seven works can be found at the link. The awards ceremony will take place on the 29th May. Link (Japanese, JBS)

The exhibition, Doboku and Manga, exploring manga from the perspective of civil engineering, will be held at Kyoto International Manga Museum from the 3rd March until the 20th May. Link (English, JBS)

Europe

Austria

Research

A Call for Papers for an issue of the Journal for Religion, Film and Media (JRFM) on Comics and Animated Cartoons has been published; the deadline for submissions is the 31st August. Link (English, MdlI)

France

Culture

Two authors’ groups have called for a boycott of the 2017 Angoulême Festival in light of this year’s troubled edition. Link (24/02/2016, French, LTa)

Four female BD creators -TanXXX, Julie Maroh, Aurélie Neyret and Chloé Cruchaudet- have refused membership of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres as offered by the French Ministry of Culture. Link (02/02/2016, French, LTa)

A bande dessinée-cented theme park has been proposed in Angoulême. Link (12/02/2016, French, LTa)

Research

Bande dessinée et numérique, edited by Pascal Robert, has been published through CNRS éditions and offers essays investigating digital comics. Link (25/02/2016, French, BC)

In the framework of the États Généraux de la Bande Dessinée association, which seeks to defend the rights of comics artists, Thierry Groensteen has written a historical study of cartoonists’ rights associations. Link (22/02/2016, French, BC)

Germany

Business

Novelist Hanna Heitmeyer, a.k.a. Hannah Ben, was found to have plagiarised Boys next Door by Kaori Yuki; Heitmeyer’s publisher terminated her contract. Link (10/02/2016, English, MdlI)

Culture

The 1st Comic and Manga Convention Hamburg is going to take place on the 12th May. Link (05/02/2016, German, MdlI)

An exhibition of Finnish comic artists is taking place in Berlin until the 3rd March. Link (15/02/2016, German, MdlI)

An exhibition on myth and history in comics is going to be shown in Leipzig from the 11th March until the 7th October. Link (19/02/2016, German, MdlI)

Research

A Call For Papers for this year’s ComFor conference, which is going to take place at University of Duisburg-Essen from the 16th until the 19th November, has been published; the topic of the conference is Comics in School – School in Comics and the deadline for abstracts is the 1st April. Link (04/02/2016, German, MdlI)

The book, Comic – Film – Gender, Véronique Sina’s PhD thesis, has been published by Transcript in February. Link (German, MdlI)

The books, Reading Graphic Novels: Genre and Narration by Achim Hescher, Metamedialität und Materialität im Comic: Zeitungscomic – Comicheft – Comicbuch by Christian Bachmann, Comic-Pioniere: Die deutschen Comic-Künstler der 1950er Jahre by Reginald Rosenfeldt, and Comiczeichnen: Figurationen einer ästhetischen Praxis by Lino Wirag, have been published in February. Link (29/02/2016, German, MdlI)

Portugal

Culture

From the 3rd March until the 6th March, the Coimbra BD will take place at the Casa da Cultura in Coimbra. Link (Portuguese, RR)

Spain

Culture

Termicómic 2016, a graphic novels and self-publishing festival, will take place from the 10th to the 12th March at La Térmica, Málaga.Link (22/02/2016, Spanish, EdRC)

Naúfragos, by Laura Pérez, has been awarded the 9th edition of FNAC-Salamandra International Graphic Novel Prize. Link (16/01/2016, English, EdRC)

Spanish cartoonist Jaume Capdevilla, a.k.a. Kap, has been awarded the Press Cartoon Europe 2016 with a cartoon about the refugee crisis. Link (22/01/2016, English, EdRC)

The 7th edition of GRAF, an event dealing with independent comic publishing, will take place in Barcelona from the 4th to the 6th March. Link (24/02/2016, Spanish, EdRC)

UK

Culture

Dr Simon Grennan and Dr Julian Waite of the University of Chester, and Professor Roger Sabin of Central Saint Martins, will give a talk on the work of the nineteenth-century cartoonist, Marie Duval, at the House of Illustration (London) on the 18th March. Link (English, WG)

The Dundee Comics Creative Space, partnered with the University of Dundee, is launching an after school club. Link (English, WG)

Research

The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics have tweeted about an open call for submissions for a special collection focusing upon Comics and Film. Link (English, WG)

European Comic Art 8.2 has been published, with a special issue focused upon the First World War in comics and cartoons. Link (English, WG)

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Correspondents: Jessica Bauwens-Sugimoto (JBS, Japan and America), Enrique del Rey Cabero (EdRC, Spain), Benoît Crucifix (BC, Canada and France), William Grady (WG, United States and UK), Martin de la Iglesia (MdlI, Austria and Germany), Renatta Rafaella (RR, Portugal), and Lise Tannahill (LTa, France).

Click here for News Review correspondent biographies.

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The Bi-Monthly ComFor Update for February 2016

by Stephan Packard

 

The new year starts with preparations for 2016’s annual ComFor conference, which will be held at Duisburg-Essen from November 16th to 19th. This year, we will focus on didactics, offering workshops and talks about implementing comics and comics studies into school curricula and lessons. Organized by Markus Engelns alongside Ulrike Preußer and Clemens Kammler, the conference will discuss basic concepts of comics analysis with a focus on examples that topicalize school within comics; and then turn that around to focus on comics in schools for the longest part. As usual, the conference will also include an open forum for current plans and intermediate reports from unfinished projects in comics studies that are looking for feedback or simply encouragement – my favorite part of each of our conferences. The call for papers was published recently and the deadline for abstracts is set at April 1st, 2016.

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Posted by on 2016/02/17 in ComFor Updates

 

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Broken Hero(es). The Construction of Masculinity in Enki Bilal’s La Trilogie Nikopol

by Véronique Sina

In France Enki Bilal may be one of the most popular comics artists who specialised in the genre of science fiction during his lifelong career. Since the mid 1970s his work has been characterised by the presentation of bleak visions of the future in which ruthless conglomerates reign and governments as well as ecological systems tend to collapse[1]. Most often the protagonists of these dystopic visions are disillusioned and broken heroes whose adventures Bilal manages to capture with the help of his surrealistic artwork. In the following I would like to focus on one of those broken heroes – namely Alcide Nikopol, the protagonist of Bilal’s comic book series La Trilogie Nikopol (1980-1992) – in order to analyse the construction of masculinity[2] in Bilal’s work by showing how performative discourses of gender and media go hand in hand in La Trilogie Nikopol[3]. In this respect, ‘masculinity’ is understood as a performative concept, i.e. as doing masculinity. As the American gender theorist Judith Butler elaborates

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News Review January 2016

Americas

Canada

Research

There is a call for papers for the conference “Transmédialité, Bande dessinée, Adaptation”, which will take place as part of the ACFAS convention in Montreal, from the 11th to the 13th May 2016. Abstracts are due by the 5th February. Link (31/12/2015, French, BC)

United States

Research

The new issue of Digital Humanities Quarterly (9.4) is a special issue focused upon “Comics as Scholarship”. Link (English, WG)

There is a call for papers for a collection entitled Superheroes and Critical Animal Studies. Abstracts are due by the 15th March for possible inclusion into this edited collection which seeks to explore the world of animal rights and liberation against the backdrop of superheroes in film, television, and comics. Link (24/01/2015, English, WG)

The Comics and Popular Arts Conference (CPAC) invites submissions for its ninth annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, taking place between the 2nd and 5th September. The submission deadline for abstracts is the 15th February. Link (English, WG)

The Visual Narrative Reader, edited by Neil Cohn, has been published through Bloomsbury. Link (English, WG)

There is a call for papers for the conference, Deaf-initely Ironic…? “Cripping” the Comic Con 2016, which takes place at Syracuse University on the 1st April. The deadline for proposals is the 8th February. Link (English, WG)

“How Come Boys Get to Keep Their Noses?”: Women and Jewish American Identity in Contemporary Graphic Memoirs, by Tahneer Oksman, has been published through Columbia University Press. Link (English, WG)

The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics, by Ramzi Fawaz, has been published through New York University Press. Link (English, WG)

Disaster Drawn: Visual Witness, Comics, and Documentary Form, by Hillary Chute, has been published through Harvard University Press. Link (English, WG)

Asia

Japan

Culture

The exhibition of works by Urasawa Naoki (Author of the best-selling manga series Monster, 20th Century Boys, and Pluto) at Setagaya Literary Museum is open until the 31st March. Related events will be held on the 28th February and the 12th March. Link (Japanese, JBS)

The Graduation Works exhibition of the students graduating Kyoto Seika University’s Faculty of Manga, will be exhibited at Kyoto International Manga Museum from the 17th to the 21st February. During this period, access to the museum is free. Link (English, JBS)

The award-winning works of the 19th Japan Media Arts Festival will be exhibited from the 3rd until the 14th February at the National Art Center in Tokyo (as well as a number of affiliated venues). There are four categories (Art, Entertainment, Animation, and Manga), and the awarded works were chosen from among 4417 from 87 countries. Link (English, JBS)

An exhibition, The Exhibition of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, will be held at Roppongi Hills from the 16th April until the 19th June, with original art from manga artist Takeuchi Naoko. Link (Japanese, JBS)

Europe

Austria

Culture

A Barbara Yelin exhibition is being shown in Krems until the 14th February. Link (28/01/2016, German, MdlI)

France

Business

The most recent Astérix album, Asterix And The Missing Scroll, is France’s highest-selling book of 2015. Link (27/01/2016, French, LTa)

Culture

Belgian author Hermann wins this year’s Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival; Here, by Richard McGuire wins best album with Best Series going to Ms. Marvel by G Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona. Link 1 (27/11/2016, English, LTa) Link 2 (20/01/2016, English, LTa)

A ‘fake awards ceremony’, preceding the genuine Angoulême International Comics Festival prize giving, has caused more controversy at this year’s festival. Link 1 (1/02/2016, English, LTa) Link 2 (31/01/2016, English, LTa)

A global controversy ensued after the Angoulême International Comics Festival released the long list for its Grand Prix award, which included no women cartoonists. The debate was initiated by the Collectif des Créatrices de Bande Dessinée Contre le Sexisme and fuelled by several nominees backing out of the list. Link 1 (05/01/2016, French, BC) Link 2 (06/01/2016, English, BC)

Research

Neuvième Art 2.0 published a new online issue devoted to Jacques Tardi. Link (11/01/2016, French, BC)

There is a call for papers for the bilingual workshop “Les femmes et la bande dessinée: autorialités et représentations/ Women and comics, authorships and representations,” which will take place on the 2nd June. Abstracts are due by the 31st March. Link (18/01/2016, French/English, BC)

Germany

Culture

The LUCHS children’s book award goes to Der Traum von Olympia by Reinhard Kleist. Link (18/01/2016, German, MdlI)

An exhibition on contemporary LGBT superhero comics is shown in Berlin until the 26th June. Link (21/01/2016, German, MdlI)

A radio feature on Erika Fuchs was broadcast. Link (22/01/2016, German, MdlI)

A Richard McGuire exhibition opens in Frankfurt on the 30th January. Link (25/01/2016, German, MdlI)

An MCM Comic Con is going to take place in Hanover on the 4th and 5th June. Link (26/01/2016, German, MdlI)

Obituary

Hansrudi Wäscher died aged 87 on the 7th January. Link (08/01/2016, German, MdlI)

Research

The January issue of literaturkritik.de focuses on comics. Link (German, MdlI)

Hungary

Culture

The Hungarian Comics Association in co-operation with kArton Gallery has started a series of workshops to promote interaction and creativity in the Hungarian Comics World. The monthly event series will feature talks by artists, discussions of various techniques, and common improvisations. The first workshop was held on the 12th January. Link (Hungarian, ES)

Portugal

Culture

BDteca2016 is taking place until March at the Library of Odemira. The show includes exhibitions, workshops, and a comics contest. Participants can enter until the 12th February. Link (04/01/2016, Portuguese, RR)

The exhibition, Nos 80 Anos d’O Mosquito [In the 80 yeas of O Mosquito], dedicated to the comics magazine O Mosquito, is being hosted at the Portuguese National Library until the 29th February. Link (26/01/2016, Portuguese, RR)

The Clube Português de Banda Desenhada in Amadora is hosting an exhibition related to O Mosquito and is open until the 12th March. Link (15/01/2016, Portuguese, RR)

Spain

Culture

The graphic novels publishing house, Astiberri, has celebrated its 15th anniversary. Link (26/01/2016, Spanish, EdRC)

The University of Córdoba is organising “dialectic battles” between superheroes to promote science. The next ‘battle’ will feature Batman vs. Spiderman (10th February) and Jean Grey vs. Wonder Woman (9th March). Link (10/12/2015, Spanish, EdRC)

Following this year’s Angoulême International Comics Festival’s controversial shortlist not including women, an article has been written about sexism and the role of women in Spanish comics. Link (12/01/2016, Spanish, EdRC)

UK

Culture

The exhibition, Comic Invention, will be hosted at the Hunterian Art Gallery from the 18th March until the 17th July. Link (English, WG)

There is a call for papers for the 17th “Forum for Iberian Studies, which will take place at the University of Oxford between the 29th and 30th September. The conference will focus on current issues in the Iberian Peninsula and there will be a panel on comics. Abstracts between 200 and 250 words should be written in English or, additionally, in any other peninsular language and must be sent by the 1st May. Link (25/01/2016, English, EdRC)

Research

Comics Grid has an event report on the symposium, “From Hogarth to Hellboy: Transformations of the Visual Reader”, which was hosted at Senate House Library, University of London on the 16th December. Link (19/12/2015, English, WG)

*                    *                    *

Correspondents: Jessica Bauwens-Sugimoto (JBS, Japan), Enrique del Rey Cabero (EdRC, Spain), Benoît Crucifix (BC, Canada and France), William Grady (WG, United States and UK), Martin de la Iglesia (MdlI, Austria and Germany), Renatta Rafaella (RR, Portugal), Eszter Szép (ES, Hungary), and Lise Tannahill (LTa, France).

Click here for News Review correspondent biographies.

Click here to see the News Review archive.

 

 

The Bi-Monthly ComFor Update for December 2015

by Laura Oehme

Following up on Nina’s update from October, I am providing the sixth and last ComFor update on current developments in German comics studies for 2015. However, before I concentrate on the last two months of 2015 in Germany, I would like to point out that the first academic position for “Graphic Fiction and Comic Art” (connected to a PhD program) at Lancaster University also attracted much interest with the German press. The professorship marks a milestone in comics studies worldwide and, hopefully, the beginning of a trend, as the Scottish University of Dundee also uploaded a job advertisment for a lecturer in comics studies. It is still a long way to an interdisciplinary department solely dedicated to comics studies, but every little step counts. Congratulations to French graphic novelist Benoît Peeters for his appointment are in order!

Conferences, Workshops, Symposiums

Since the fall season for conferences has already passed, the last two months of 2015 brought only a few academic events focusing on comics to light. On November 24, ComFor member Daniel Stein organized a workshop with Björn Hammel titled “Mediamorphose: Die mediale Transformation der Graphic Novel TearTalesTrust” (“Mediamorphosis: The Medial Transformation of the Graphic Novel TearTalesTrust”) at the University of Siegen. A few days later, on November 27–28, an interdisciplinary student conference on “The Rise of Sequential History: Historische Comics in Theorie und Praxis” (Historical Comics in Theory and in the Field) took place at the LMU in Munich. On December 4, the University of Kiel hosted a study day on “Comic & Kunstgeschichte” (Comics & Art History). I would also like to mention the new PhD program “Die Arbeit und ihre Subjekte” (Work and its Subjects) at the University of Duisburg-Essen that explicitly touted for comics projects, for which applicants were able to get funding for three years beginning in 2016.

Publications

In November, the second issue of the very first German-language e-journal for comics studies Closure was released. It focuses on “the dark side” of comics, introduces the new category “ComicKontext,” and includes articles and reviews by numerous ComFor members. Additionally, as every December, two classical yearbooks went into print: Deutsche Comicforschung 2016, edited by Eckart Sackmann, and the Comic-Jahrbuch 2016 of ICOM, edited by Burkhard Ihme. Furthermore, Julia Abel and Christian Klein edited one of the first German-language introductions to comics and graphic novels with J.B. Metzler (Comics und Graphic Novels: Eine Einführung). It covers a wide area of disciplinary perspectives and features contributions by eight ComFor members.

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Posted by on 2016/02/04 in ComFor Updates

 

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