Upcoming online Falklands War Conference includes panel on Argentinian and British Comics with Paul Gravett, Calum Laird

Coming up next week, 40 years on from the Falklands War, is a three-day, online multi-disciplinary academic conference, looking at Visions and Versions in Argentinian and British Cultures. It will include a panel on contemporary comics of the period, and later, in both countries.

The conference is co-ordinated between Dr. Tilmann Alternberg, Reader in Hispanic Studies at the School of Modern Languages, Cardiff University and Dra. Cora Gamarnik from the Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani, Universidad de Buenos Aires.

Comics archivist Paul Gravett will be among the presenters on Friday afternoon, 8th April exploring British responses to the conflict from Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell, in Battle Picture Weekly, Raymond Briggs and more.

Steve Bell’s If … flashback, 1984: mutton mutiny in Las Malvinas

“I’m very glad that they are including a panel on comics,” says Paul. “The panel is being coordinated by Argentine academics Pablo Turnes and Lauri Fernández, and includes Adolfo “Fuchi” Bayúgar, author of the groundbreaking 2013 Falklands War comic Tortas frites de polenta, and Calum Laird, a former editor on Commando for various periods between 1981 and 2007.”

“Tortas frites de polenta”, the story of a veteran of the Falklands War, was first published in Fierro Magazine No. 78 in April 2013, apparently the first time that the magazine dedicated an entire issue to a single comic.

A page from the Falklands War-inspired story “Invasion”. published in Battle with Storm Force in August 1987. Story by Story by Terry Magee, art by Jim Watson

Numerous Falklands-inspired comics and features relating to the conflict ran in British comics of the period, and in Commando later, and the war comic returns to the war with some anniversary stories with its set due for release on Thursday 14th April.

• (Re)pensando Malvinas (1982–2022): Visiones y versiones en las culturas argentina y británica | 6th – 8th April 2022

Attendance for this online event is free of charge. To receive a copy of the full programme and the links to the Zoom Webinar, please register by completing the form on this page | Registration deadline: 5th April 2022 (14:00 BST)

Further Reading

Operation Corporate: The Falklands War in British Comics

In the early 1980s, Britain was at war over islands in the South Atlantic many Britons had never heard of – and some at the time even thought were part of the Shetlands. Back in 2007, Jeremy Briggs examined the British comics that featured the 1982 Falklands conflict between Britain and Argentina…



Categories: British Comics, Comics, Comics Education News, Comics Studies, Creating Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Events

Tags: , , , , , ,

Discover more from downthetubes.net

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading