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
Attracting Mature Readers[1]
By Peter W. Y. Lee
Among the 1954 Comics Magazine Association of America’s Comic Code’s many regulations was a directive to company admen: “Liquor and tobacco advertising is not acceptable” (Nyberg 168). The ubiquity of alcohol in mainstream media certainly concerned social guardians in post-war America (Rotskoff). However, liquor manufacturers did not solicit to minors in the comics, but another demographic group: their parents.
The first part of my article looked at how Lev Gleason Publications responded to the public alarm over comic books. Gleason and his chief editor, Charles Biro, pushed comics as a progressive medium with educational and artistic merit. This second part explores their second strategy: courting adults. Gleason hoped that an expanded readership would bolster support and offset rising production costs. However, critics rejected comic books’ potential beyond that of disposable children’s entertainment. The Comics Code sanitised comic books and stigmatised readers beyond middle-school age.
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Tags: Abraham Lincoln, adult readership, Alan Valentine, Amazing Adult Fantasy, anticrime comic magazines, Association of Comic Magazine Publishers, Atlas, Boy Comics, Charles Biro, comics code, comics industry, crime comic books, Crime Does Not Pay, Dell Comics, economics, education, educational comics, Frederic Wertham, Fredric Wertham, Great Depression, Henry E. Schultz, History, juvenile delinquency, Lev Gleason, Lev Gleason Publications, mature readers, Mortimer Smith, pre-code, sexual imagery, social progressivism, St. John Publishing, superheroes, USA, violence, WWII
The comic market in the Western world today is heterogeneous and complex. However, I suggest it can be divided into three main segments, or groups of readers (see also the American market commentaries Alexander 2014, Alverson 2013): the first segment are manga fans, many of which also like anime and other kinds of Japanese pop culture. The second segment are comic fans in a narrower sense, who, at least in America, read mostly superhero comic books, and other comics from the genres of science fiction and fantasy. These are the ‘fanboys and true believers’ that Matthew J. Pustz writes about in his book Comic Book Culture (Pustz 1999). Finally, the third segment is the general public. These readers are not fans, but only casual readers of comics – mostly so-called “graphic novels”, newspaper strips and collections thereof, and the occasional bestseller such as the latest Asterix album.
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Tags: Akira, Albin Michel, Archie, autobiography, Barefoot Gen, Bleach, censorship, Comics Buyer's Guide, Der Spiegel, Dragon Ball, economics, fandom, Fantasy Advertiser, First Comics, First Publishing, Frank Miller, Frederick Schodt, gekiga, Graphic Novels, Gōseki Kojima, I Saw It, Ittō Ogami, Japan, Japan Inc., Japanese manga, Katsuhiro Otomo, Kazuo Koike, Keiji Nakazawa, Kozure Ōkami, Lone Wolf and Cub, Lynn Varley, Macao, Mai the Psychic Girl, manga, Manga Nihon Keizai Nyūmon, Martin Skidmore, Matthew J. Pustz, medieval comics, Naruto, Negative Perceptions of Comics, Norman Rentrop, One Piece, Peter Odrich, Rraah!, Sailor Moon, Sexual Violence, Shōtarō Ishinomori, superheroes, Superman, The Legend of Kamui, Translations, University of California Press, USA, Weekly Manga Action
Comics Forum 
Symposium Report: Sugar and Spice, and the Not So Nice: Comics Picturing Girlhood
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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Posted by Annick Pellegrin on 2021/06/14 in Conference reports
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