News about the premier academic journal devoted to all aspects of cartooning and comics -- the International Journal of Comic Art (ISSN 1531-6793) published and edited by John Lent.

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

IJOCA Spring/Summer issue delayed

The Spring/Summer 2016 (Vol. 18, No. 1) issue of IJOCA has been delayed in production.

We expect to ship it at the beginning of September 2016.

We are very sorry and thank you sincerely for your patience.

The deadline for manuscripts to be considered for 18:2 (Fall/Winter 2016) has been extended until August 31, 2016.

We expect the Fall/Winter 2016 issue to ship in December.

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Superhero Identities Symposium CFP with Henry Jenkins, Paul Dini, and Hope Larson ­ 8-9 December 2016 Melbourne (ACMI)



Just Announced Keynote Speakers and Industry Guests (more details below):

 

Professor Henry Jenkins – Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education at University of Southern California and the author of landmark fan and transmedia research including Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide

 

Paul Dini – Writer of the Emmy Award-winning Batman: The Animated Series, best-selling video game Batman: Arkham Asylum, and the Eisner Award-winning comic Mad Love

 

Hope Larson – Eisner Award-winning graphic novelist (A Wrinkle in Time), co-creator of Boom! Comics' Goldie Vance, and writer of DC Comics new reimagining of Batgirl

 

 

CALL FOR PAPERS

 

Superhero Identities Symposium

 

Venue: Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) – Melbourne, Australia – 8-9 December 2016

 

It is hard to imagine a time when superheroes have been more pervasive in popular culture. As one of our most beloved folkloric traditions these costume-clad adventurers have become a means to negotiate and articulate identities in response to fictional heroes. Superhero identities range from those that symbolise a nation, to web communities that use cosplay to challenge gender roles, and the people of a city coming together under the banner of a caped crusader. This symposium will examine the many intersections between superheroes and identity. From big screen heroes to lesser-known comic book vigilantes and real-life costumed heroes, the symposium will include papers that consider superheroes across all eras and media platforms

 

We are inviting submissions for individual research papers of 20 minutes as well as pre-formed panels. Proposal topics might include, but are not limited to, the following areas: 

 

Super-Activism

One of the central tenets of the superhero story is the transition of unassuming civilians into costume-clad heroes. This narrative is not confined to the comic book page as the people of San Francisco demonstrated when they came together to realise the adventures of Batkid. Proposals are invited that consider how superheroes have become icons of activism and community engagement.

 

National and Regional Identities

Comic books are often considered an American form, and the medium's most popular character, the superhero, did much to affirm that link with dozens of star-spangled heroes created during the industry's Golden Age. However, the superhero has been reimagined in a range of contexts to respond to local cultures, politics, and traditions. Papers that consider how superheroes engage with national and regional identities are welcome.

 

Secret Identities

The masquerade and imaginative possibilities of superheroes, coupled with their high concept settings, have allowed these characters to engage with issues and interests that were often difficult to tackle in more "grounded" stories. Papers that consider how superheroes address topics such as gender, sexuality, and ethnicity are invited.

 

Audiences, Fans, and Superheroes

Whether it is t-shirts adorned with a familiar logo or convention cosplay and fan fiction, superheroes compel participation. We encourage papers that examine the range of this engagement from casual movie audiences to avid consumers.

 

Supervillains

The supervillain is often understood as the hero's dark double. This symposium welcomes papers that consider the identities of the supervillains, and their relationship to the above topics.

 

The Superhero Identities symposium is organised by the Superheroes & Me research team – Angela Ndalianis (University of Melbourne), Liam Burke (Swinburne University of Technology), Elizabeth MacFarlane (University of Melbourne), Wendy Haslem (University of Melbourne), and Ian Gordon (National University of Singapore)  – and supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) and Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI).

 

Proposals of 250-300 words for individual presentations or full panels, as well as any queries, should be sent to wburke@swin.edu.au by June 24, 2016, along with a 150-word bio.

 

 

Keynote Speakers and Industry Guests

 

Professor Henry Jenkins

Henry Jenkins joined USC from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was Peter de Florez Professor in the Humanities. He directed MIT's Comparative Media Studies graduate degree program from 1993-2009, setting an innovative research agenda during a time of fundamental change in communication, journalism and entertainment.

 

As one of the first media scholars to chart the changing role of the audience in an environment of increasingly pervasive digital content, Jenkins has been at the forefront of understanding the effects of participatory media on society, politics and culture. His research gives key insights to the success of social-networking websites, networked computer games, online fan communities and other advocacy organizations, and emerging news media outlets.

 

Paul Dini

Paul Dini is the Emmy, Eisner, and Annie Award-winning writer of some of the most popular superhero stories ever across animation, film, comics, and games. He is co-creator of the Batman: The Animated Series and related shows and films Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Superman: The Animated Series, and Batman Beyond. While working on Batman, Dini co-created fan favourite character Harley Quinn who makes her film debut in August's Suicide Squad. Moving to games, Dini is the writer of the best-selling Batman: Arkham Asylum game.

 

His 2016 graphic novel Dark Night: A True Batman Story is a harrowing and eloquent autobiographical tale of Dini's courageous struggle to overcome a desperate situation.

 

Other credits include ABC's Lost, Star Wars spin-offs Ewoks and Clone Wars, Tiny Toons Adventures, Animaniacs, Freakzoid!, Ultimate Spider-Man, DC Comics Harley Quinn, Superman: Peace on Earth, and Mad Love.

 

Hope Larson

Hope Larson is the New York Times bestselling author of six graphic novels, notably her graphic novel adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and co-creator of Boom! Comics' Goldie Vance. Forthcoming projects include two graphic novels, Compass South and Knife's Edge (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and, starting in July 2016, a reimagining of DC Comics' Batgirl. Her short comics have been published by the New York Times, Vertigo, and in several anthologies, including Flight and DC Comics' Gotham Academy Yearbook.

 

In addition to her comics work, Larson has explored filmmaking. She is the writer and director of two short projects. Bitter Orange, starring Brie Larson, James Urbaniak and Brendan Hines, is a tale of crime in 1920s Hollywood. Did We Live Too Fast is a Twilight Zone-inspired music video created for Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Dan the Automator's band, Got A Girl; it was used as the centerpiece of their 2015 tour.

 

Larson has been nominated for cartooning awards in the US, Canada and Europe, and is the recipient of a two Eisner Awards and an Ignatz. She holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She currently lives in Los Angeles.


Tuesday, February 16, 2016

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMIC ART Vol. 17, No. 2 Fall/Winter 2015 table of contents

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMIC ART Vol. 17, No. 2 Fall/Winter 2015

"NY 101" New York City According to Brian Wood
Martin Lund
1
Desert (E)Scapes: Cinematic Visions in Road Story
Janis Breckenridge
John Gardner
34
GANTZ Interpreted from Two Critical Perspectives
Motoko Tanaka
49
"The Good Duck Artist": How Carl Barks Changed Comics
Tom Speelman
67
A la recherche du chien perdu: Watch Dogs, Memory, and Mourning in Recuerdos de perrito de mierda (Shitty Little Dog Memories)
Ryan Prout
82
The Foundations of the Anglo-American Tradition of Political Satire and Comic Art: The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Richard Scully
98
An Alternative History of Canadian Cartoonists
Dominick Grace
133
Alberto Breccia: Memoirs of Resistance and the Ethos of Reading
Aarnoud Rommens
162
Fatal Attractions: AIDS and American Superhero Comics, 1988-1994
Sean A. Guynes
177
Conceptualizing the Freedom of the Press in Chinese Political Cartoons
James Yi Guo
217
Little Princess and the Mayor: Evaluating Cartoons on a Sex Scandal
Mike Lloyd
238
A Comment on the Impact of Cartoon Art on Social and Political Events with a Special Reference to the Case of Turkey
Levent Gonenc and Levent Cantck
256
Chasing the American Dream: Gender, Race, and Identity in American Born Chinese and Shortcomings
Kirsten Mollegaard
275
Revenant Landscapes in The Walking Dead
Julia Round
295
"We are the walking dead": Zombified Spaces, Mobility, and the Potential for Security in Post-9/11 Zombie Comics
Jessika 0. Griffin
309
The Glimmering Glow of Comic Art Amidst the Blinding Glitter of the United Arab Emirates
John A. Lent
329
Pioneers in Comic Art Scholarship
A Comics Studies Pioneer In Portugal: Antonio Dias de Deus
Domingos lsabelinho
346
'Pioneers in Comic Art Scholarship
"Struggling Independently to Understand the World": My Career in Comics Scholarship and Creation
Leonard Rifas
362
The Comic Book Film Adaptation --A Panel Discussion with Torn Brevoort, Joe Kelly, Michael E. Uslan, and Mark Waid
Liam Burke
375
Talibanization in Pakistan -- An Uneasy Subject for Editorial Cartoonists
Naveed Iqbal Chaudhry
Amoa Ashraf
395
The Next Generation of Comics Scholars
The System ls in The System: Researching the Visualization of Abstract Systems in Peter Kuper's Graphic Novel The System
Luka Hamacher
421
A Brief Introduction to Some Iranian Women Cartoonists and Their Works
John A. Lent
441
Surface Race Resolution: Race Commodification in Marvel Premiere's Series Featuring Black Panther
Danielle Cochran
457
Images of African Americans in the Golden Age of Comics (1939-1965)
William H. Foster Ill
478
Batul: The Great Disciplinarian
Sourav Chatterjee
492
The Translation Practices of Manga Scanlators
Matteo Fabbretti
509
Manga and Silent Film: Building a Bridge Between Modern Gitaigo, Giongo, and the Benshi
Kay K. Clopton
530
There's Life in Other Systems: The Comic Character Outside Narratives
Joiio Batista Freitas Cardoso
Roberto Elisio dos Santos
547
Sequential Images, the Page, and Narrative Structures
Jakob F. Dittmar
561
Visual Character and Context of Put On (1931-1965): The First Indonesian Comics
Toni Masdiono and Iwan Zahar
572
Sinann Cheah Interview
Philip Smith
586
An Interview with Canadian Webcornic Creator Becka Kinzie
Jeffery Klaehn
591
I Don't Know, Give It a Try, See What Happens
Mark Anderson
600
Digital Comic Adaptation and Adjustment: Conceptual Boundaries in Comic Book Recognition
Damien Tomaselli

Resources
612
Remembrances
John A. Lent
632
The Printed Word
John A. Lent
634
Exhibition and Media Reviews
Edited by Mike Rhode
A. David Lewis
David Hyman
Leslie Gailloud
641
Dromkeen -A New Australian Cartoon Museum
Rolf Heimann
650
<Portfolio>
655

Monday, February 15, 2016

16th World Press Freedom International Editorial Cartoon Competition (Theme and Regulations)




Here are the rules and regulations:

1. The theme for the 16th International Editorial Cartoon Competition is: 

The "right" to be forgotten

In a 2014 decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union, a Spanish lawyer was granted the right to have a previous brush with justice deleted from Google search on his name. 
While protection of one's privacy is an essential right, erasing public records could have untold consequences.
Could this decision jeopardize the reliability of the Internet and make research by journalists and historians impossible?
Could this precedent lead to the breakdown of the Internet and the creation of national networks vulnerable to state censorship?


2. Prizes: three prizes will be given: a first prize of $1000 plus a Certificate from Canadian UNESCO, second and third prizes of $500. All sums are in Canadian dollars. Ten additional cartoons will receive an 'Award of Excellence,' Regrettably no financial remuneration accompanies the Awards of Excellence.

3. Only one cartoon will be accepted from each cartoonist. It may be either in color or black and white and must not have won an award.

4. The size of the cartoon should not exceed A4; 21 by 29.2 cm; or 8.50 by 11 inches.

5. The name, address, telephone number and a short biography of the cartoonist must be included in the submission.

6. The Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom shall have the rights to use any of the cartoons entered in the Competition for promotion of our Editorial Cartoon Competition and World Press Freedom Day. 

7. The winners of the Cartoon Competition will be announced at the World Press Freedom Day Luncheon held at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa, Canada on Tuesday May 3, 2016 as well as being advised by e-mail. The winner's names and their cartoons will be posted on the CCWFP web site.

8. The winning cartoons will be exhibited at the luncheon.

The deadline for receipt of cartoons is 5 p.m. GMT, Friday, April 1, 2016.
Send submissions by e-mail to : info@ccwpf-cclpm.ca
Cartoons should be in jpeg format at 300 dpi 


Saturday, February 13, 2016

IJOCA 17-2 is out

I received my copy of IJOCA 17-2 today. It's got 663 pages. Article topics include Carl Barks, African-American images in comics, Antonio Dias de Deus, comics movies, Indonesia, AIDS, China, GANTZ, British prints, Canadian cartoonists, Brian Wood, the UAE, zombies, scanlation and a bunch of other stuff. Mark Anderson of Andertoons also reprises his how to make money with cartoons talk from the 2015 National Cartoonist Society meeting.

Friday, December 11, 2015

Library of Congress' Swann Foundation is accepting fellowship applications


The Swann Foundation for Caricature and Cartoon, administered by the Library of Congress is accepting applications for its graduate fellowship, one of the few in the field, for the 2016-2017 academic year. Deadline for applications is February 15, 2016. For criteria, guidelines, and application forms, please see:

http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/swann/swann-fellow.html

 

Please email swann@loc.gov or call (202) 707-9115 if you have questions.

 



Tuesday, September 8, 2015

CFP: Comics of Roberto Fontanarrosa

(posted at the request of the editors)


Call for book chapter proposals: Todo Fontanarrosa: la obra de un completo humorista / All Fontanarrosa: The Work of a Complete Humourist

Editors: Dr Celina Bortolotto (Massey University, New Zealand) and Dr Annick Pellegrin (University of Mauritius)

Contact email: fontanarrosaproject@gmail.com

 

When the Argentine Roberto Fontanarrosa passed away in 2007, a national day of mourning was declared and his funeral was attended by thousands. Although Fontanarrosa was much loved and both the man and his works have received public recognition time and again, there are very few published academic works on his œuvre to this day. This proposed anthology seeks to fill this gap by paying attention to Fontanarrosa's work as a whole.

 

We therefore invite papers in English, Spanish or Portuguese that consider any aspect of Fontanarrosa's œuvre, including but not limited to:

 

-          short stories and novels

-          comics

-          cinema and theatre

-          interviews and public addresses (such as his famous speech on "Las malas palabras")

 

Abstracts of 1000 words and a short CV should be sent to fontanarrosaproject@gmail.com by 31 December 2015 for consideration. Please write your family name(s) and "Fontanarrosa project" in the subject line. If accepted, full papers will be due on 31 May 2016.

 

 

 

 

Llamado a propuestas de contribuciones para edición académica: Todo Fontanarrosa: la obra de un completo humorista / All Fontanarrosa: The Work of a Complete Humourist

Editores: Dra. Celina Bortolotto (Massey University, Nueva Zelanda) y Dra. Annick Pellegrin (Universidad de Mauricio)

Contacto: fontanarrosaproject@gmail.com

 

Cuando el argentino Roberto Fontanarrosa falleció en el año 2007, el país declaró duelo nacional y miles de admiradores asistieron a su funeral. Si bien este humorista es muy querido y recordado y su trabajo ha recibido múltiples reconocimientos, a la fecha existen muy pocas publicaciones académicas sobre su obra. La propuesta de esta antología es suplir esta falta al considerar en profundidad la producción de Fontanarrosa en su conjunto.

 

Por ello invitamos artículos académicos en español, inglés o portugués que consideren cualquier aspecto de la obra de Fontanarrosa, incluyendo pero no limitándose a:

 

-          narrativa (cuentos y novelas)

-          historietas

-          cine y teatro

-          entrevistas y presentaciones (como la tan conocida sobre "Las malas palabras")

 

Las propuestas de hasta 1.000 palabras deberán enviarse a: fontanarrosaproject@gmail.com antes del 31 de diciembre de 2015, incluyendo una breve biografía del/a autor/a. Favor de escribir su(s) apellido(s) y "Proyecto Fontanarrosa" en el asunto de su correo electrónico. De ser aceptados, los capítulos deberán presentarse en versión final antes del 31 de mayo de 2016.