A Call For Papers for the Joint International Conference of Graphic Novels and Comics and 20th Anniversary of the International Bande dessinée Society at Manchester Metropolitan University next June has just been announced. Taking place 24th -28th June 2019 the… Read More ›
Comics Studies
Items on comic studies from around the world – course information and more
New academic comics study, Queer about Comics, released
A new publication Queer about Comics, has just been published by Duke University Press. Edited by Darieck Scott and Ramzi Fawaz, this special issue explores the intersection of queer theory and comics studies. The contributors provide new theories of how… Read More ›
San Diego Comic Con 2018: The Academic’s Eye View!
Phillip Vaughan from the University of Dundee reports on this year’s San Diego Comic Con, casting an academic’s eye over one of the biggest annual comics gatherings in the United States… I have been lucky enough to attend four San… Read More ›
Comic Art Festival Academic Sessions announced for October in Kendal
The Lakes International Comic Art Festival has announced this year’s “Friday Sessions” – a full day of talks and discussions exploring comic art in all its guises, taking place Friday 12th October 2018 as part of the Festival weekend in Kendal. The… Read More ›
Call for Papers: Transitions 8 – New Directions in Comics Studies 2018
After a year’s hiatus, academics have announced a call for papers for the interdisciplinary Transitions 2018 symposium, taking place at Birkbeck College, London, on Saturday 10th November 2018. Originally convened by PhD students in 2010, Transitions at Birkbeck College is… Read More ›
Call For Papers: Retro! Time, Memory, Nostalgia – The Ninth International Graphic Novel and Comics Conference
The organisers of Retro! Time, Memory, Nostalgia – The Ninth International Graphic Novel and Comics Conference taking place at Bournemouth University (Wednesday 27th – Friday 29th June 2018) have issued a Call for Papers. Here’s their appeal: Retro – a looking to the past –… Read More ›
Drawing on the Past: Comic Creators wanted to mix it up with archaeologists, historians for London conference
Drawing on the Past is a two-day conference on comics and the pre-modern world at Senate House in London on 10-11th September 2018 – and the organisers are looking for comic creators who fancy being involved in workshops/ reading groups with some historians… Read More ›
Alan Moore’s early work as a cartoonist comes under the spotlight in new academic work
Alan Moore‘s early work as a cartoonist comes under the spotlight in the recently-released academic text, Alan Moore, Out from the Underground – Cartooning, Performance, and Dissent, by Dr Maggie Gray. Published by Palgrave Macmillan, the book explores Alan Moore’s… Read More ›
Dundee comics course graduates help bring comic about biologist D’Arcy Thompson to life
You may never have heard of D’Arcy Thompson, but in his day, he was a well-known figure on the streets of Dundee and St Andrews in Scotland, famously strolling around town with a cowboy hat and a parrot on his… Read More ›
Monad Journal Launch Symposium at the University of Northampton
The University of Northampton is to host the launch of a new peer-reviewed open access online journal MONAD next month – and comics writer Alan Moore is among invited guests for the Launch Symposium. The Monad Journal Launch Symposium on Thursday… Read More ›
Call For Papers: Storytelling Conference 2018
The organisers of the Storytelling Conference 2018 (10th – 11th July) at the University of Suffolk have announced the call for papers is now open. They are inviting papers that theoretically and empirically engage with a broad range of disciplines… Read More ›
Were Communists air brushed out of British comics in the 1950s?
Here’s an interesting item about comics as propaganda from the 1950s – with Captain America a possible victim of British publisher (and government) manipulation that some downthetubes readers may be able to shed further light on. “Are you now, or… Read More ›
Lancaster University announces free “Power of Graphic Novels” networking event
Lancaster University has announced “The Power of Graphic Novels/ Comics” – a free networking event in October for regional and UK schools (Heads/ Principals, Headmasters, Headteachers, Teachers, Trustees), libraries (librarians, event and education staff), and graphic novel and comic artists/authors/illustrators…. Read More ›
Growing old disgracefully: DC comics’ Harley Quinn turns 25
Andrew Ross, Graduate Tutor and Lecturer in Film at Northumbria University, discusses how Harley Quinn is not just a side-kick to The Joker, but is now a multi-platform anti-hero…. The joke’s on Batman this year. Fans of the Caped Crusader… Read More ›
Sequentials, hub for comics-as-scholarship launches
The US-based Trace Innovation Initiative has launched Volume One, Issue One of Sequentials, a hub for comics-as-scholarship. Not to be confused with the digital publisher Panel Nine’s e-magazine of the same name, the site features a number of original comics that… Read More ›
Lakes International Comic Art Festival announces October “Academic Sessions” conference details
The Lakes International Comic Art Festival will be hosting the LICAF Academic Sessions 2017 on Friday 13th October, the first day of its three-day Festival Weekend, kindly supported by Lancaster University. A small scale conference for those interested in comics and graphic novels… Read More ›
Call For Papers: Documenting Trauma: Comics and the Politics of Memory Symposium, Oxford
The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), which offers the city’s humanities scholars to collaborate with researchers across other disciplines, and institutions, has issued a Call For Papers for a day-long symposium to be hosting here in Oxford on 22nd June 2017. (The… Read More ›
Call for Papers for a Special issue Authorship: Comics and Authorship (deadline 31st July 2017)
The open-access journal Authorship has issued a Call for Papers around the subject of Comics and Authorship. Here are the details… The comic book, recently legitimized through the graphic novel phenomenon while remaining anchored in popular culture, can provide unique… Read More ›
Oxford’s TORCH to host talk by Roger Sabin on the Origins of Comics Criticism
TORCH, Oxford’s Research Centre in the Humanities third seminar of the term will take place tomorrow, Thursday 10th November 2016, at 5.15pm and will feature a talk from Roger Sabin, Professor of Popular Culture at Central Saint Martins in London, on “The… Read More ›
From the Trenches: The Lakes International Comic Festival’s Academic Workshop
Mel Gibson reports on another aspect of this year’s Lakes International Comic Art Festival – its academic workshop, an aspect set to expand next year… The Lakes International Comic Art Festival‘s approach to developing links with the academy is distinctive. Their… Read More ›