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Table of contents will be posted here tomorrow.

Future in Comics CFP (UPDATED)

SECOND CALL FOR PAPER (BY POPULAR DEMAND!)

 

Organizers: The research group on comics at the English Department, Stockholm University

 

Where and When: Stockholm, 3rd-5th September

Call for papers, deadline/ Notification of acceptance: 10th of May, 2015/15th of May, 2015

 

Website: https://futureincomics.wordpress.com

 

E-mail for submissions: Submissions will be handled via easychair:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=fic1

 

This conference aims to investigate ways in which comics explore the idea of "future." Its goal is to gather scholars from the field of comic studies and related fields, such as linguistics, philosophy, literary studies, cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, film studies as well as others that can discover a conceptual connection to the rigorous study of comics. Given our broad and yet specific purpose, we aim to discuss work on comics originating from all major traditions: French bande desineé, American and British comics, Italian fumetti, Japanese manga, and so on. In pursuing this cross-cultural approach, we wish to discuss not only how different conceptions of the future in comics can be compared and analysed, but also how comics offer unorthodox modes of representation that allow for creative, intellectual freedom that may be different from literature and cinema. In particular, we are interested in, but not limited to, discussing these themes:

 

·         The cross-roads between utopia and dystopia (e.g. Gundam's Universal Century);

·         Transmetropolitan's representation of life in "the city", Harlock's 30th century, the world of Rogue Trooper);

·         Apocalypses and new beginnings (e.g. Nausicaä's tragic millennium, Authority's new world, X-Men's days of future past, El eternauta's alien invasion);

·         The cities of the future (e.g. Dredd's Mega city one, Akira's neo-Tokyo, RanXeroX's Rome);

·         The humans of the future: mutants, augmented humans and cyborgs (e.g. Major Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell, Tony Stark in Iron Man; 2000 A.D.'s ABC Warriors);

·         The politics of the future (e.g. Bilal's Nicopol Trilogy, Oshi's Patlabor trilogy, Marvel's Civil War);

·         Time and history (e.g. Watchmen, Planetary, Neon Genesis Evangelion);

·         Nostalgia for future pasts (e.g. Nadia, Arzach, Tom Strong, Satellite Sam);

·         Elaborations and revisitations of futures in comics (Pluto, Time², Le Transperceneige);

·         Futures set in stone, and how to avoid or reach them (X-Men's days of future past, AppleSeed, The Invisibles).

 

We hope to create a conference that not only discusses these topics and uncovers how they have been addressed in comics about the future, but also to lay the foundations of future research on these topics and develop new tools for advanced comics studies. We welcome abstracts between 400 and 500 words, excluding references and title. At the moment, we are aiming at securing publishing rights for selected papers from this conference, aiming at publication in December 2016.

 

For further information, please contact us at:
francesco.ursini@english.su.se
or
adnan.mahmutovic@english.su.se

Electronic registration will start by the 16th of May.

 

Webinar invitation for April 7th international MOOC discussion

Anyone who would like to link a classroom outside the U.S. with a comics-related classroom at the University of Washington can contact Michael Dean at deanm206@uw.edu

International Course Collaboration

Connect your professors and students to partners in the United States using online technology

Dear colleagues,

We invite you to join us in an effort to deepen global engagement of students in the classroom, without requiring travel abroad, by implementing project-based online collaboration within existing courses.  Since 2013, the University of Washington Bothell has been implementing an initiative that connects classes on our campus to those in Egypt, India, Peru, South Africa and others. Read more at: http://www.uwb.edu/globalinitiatives/academic/coil-initiative  

We are looking to expand the effort and engage new partners – you!  Please join us for a free, one-hour introductory online workshop, intended for professors and administrators who would like to explore collaborating with University of Washington faculty on courses in the future.

Introduction to COIL Webinar

Tuesday, April 7, 2015 | 2:30-3:30pm Pacific Time

The online workshop, presented by UW Bothell International Collaboration Facilitator, Greg Tuke, and his colleague Karim Ashour from Future University in Egypt, will introduce the COIL* approach and discuss some of the communication tools used – Skype video, closed Facebook groups, student-produced videos – to have students work directly and deeply with each other across cultures and countries.  Register by March 31 by emailing gregtuke@uw.edu. Following this, we will send you a link to the webinar.

As a preview, I invite you to watch Greg discuss his Global Media and Social Change course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8aRff5EwTE0

* COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) is an approach to fostering global competence through development of a multicultural learning environment that links university classes in different countries. Using various communication technologies, students from different countries complete shared assignments and projects, with faculty members from each country co-teaching and managing coursework.

Technology-enabled global engagement is a growing internationalization trend, as highlighted in a recent article published by NAFSA on this topic, "New Windows on the World" by Christopher Connell, NAFSA International Educator, May/June 2014.

We look forward to working with you.

Sincerely,

 

 

Natalia Dyba

Director of Global Initiatives

University of Washington Bothell

UW1-186 | Box 358555

18115 Campus Way NE | Bothell, WA 98011

Email: nataliak@uw.edu

Web: http://www.uwb.edu/globalinitiatives

Review: The Art of Richard Thompson, from the next issue

Book Reviews

Apatoff, David, Nick Galifianakis, Mike Rhode, Chris Sparks, and Bill Watterson. The Art of Richard Thompson. Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel, 2014. 224 pp. $35. 978-1-4494-4795-3.

            Richard Thompson is one of the United States' premier cartoonists, having received accolades from stalwarts such as Pat Oliphant, who called him "Michelangelo with a sense of humor"; Edward Sorel, who thinks of him as "one of the best comic artists of his time"; and Arnold Roth, who "salutes" him for the "delightful absolute excellence of [his] artwork and thinking." Anyone familiar with Thompson's subtle and cerebral humor cartoons knows he is more than deserving of these remarks.

            Certainly the authors of The Art of Richard Thompson (David Apatoff, Nick Galifianakis, Mike Rhode, Chris Sparks, and Bill Watterson), all friends, feel that way as they assess his career, work habits, and personality, through observations of, interviews and discussions with, him, his own delightful essays, and many examples of his varied styles and forms of comic art.

            Thompson's oeuvre consists of, at least, illustrations, summary-type cartoons (his long-running "Richard's Poor Almanac" in the Washington Post), caricatures, and an award-winning comic strip ("Cul de Sac"), portrait-paintings, humorous writing, and rhyming ditties. The authors (pushed by self-named "The Enforcer" Mike Rhode) write in a light-hearted, humorous manner that fits Thompson's personality and work. Though they justifiably heap praise on him, they do so with levity and much admiration. The images chosen to supplement the text reflect Thompson's exquisite art, deep literary, history, music, and trivia knowledge, and brilliant use of language in captions containing silly rhymes, bon mots, and well-thought-out parodies. A few examples: an illustration labeled "Manhattan, 240, 193 B.C." showing a graffiti-splattered mammoth; subversive and cynical satirical everyday events, such as "Benjamin Franklin Cartoonist," showing his political contemporaries not understanding the symbolism of his "Join, or Die" cartoon, or "An Introduction to Electronic Voting," where the technology fails miserably; and, to the surprise of this reviewer, refined (or simply-drawn) and artistically, often contextually-funny caricatures that interviewer and acclaimed caricaturist John Kascht said, "capture(s) a likeness in a new way. Your drawing isn't like him, it is him."

            A number of Thompson's caricatures are of classical music maestros that he liked and whose works he played earlier when he was a pianist; others were of politicians (Ross Perot emerging mole-like on the White House lawn or Bill Clinton discretely discarding his wedding band upon laying eyes on a scantily-clad lass), entertainers (Elizabeth Taylor loaded down with a slew of expensive fur coats on a blistering hot day -- even the head of one of the furry animals she wears pleads for water), literati, sports figures, and more. In the interview, Thompson explained he draws people he likes or admires (exceptions George W. Bush and Jesse Helms), without anger, from memory, seeking to find his subject's "emotion."

            Seeing that Thompson's "Cul de Sac" has been favorably compared to the classic "Calvin & Hobbes," it seems natural that Bill Watterson would interview him. (To get Watterson to come out of seclusion for the occasion was a feat in itself.) The interview serves a double usage, mixing Watterson's experiences and views with those of his interviewee. Obviously, Thompson knows and appreciates the works of fellow comic strip artists, slipping into "Cul de Sac" an occasional "Little Neuro in Slumberland" or a subtle reference to a "Peanuts" character.

            The Art of Richard Thompson is a masterpiece, beautifully designed, intelligently planned, and craftily written. It will bring joy and laughter to the casual reader, knowledge about the whos, whys, and hows of cartooning to practitioners and scholars, and aesthetic pleasure to the art-inclined. It is a book that can comfortably grace a coffee table, fill a slot in a library reference section, or sit on the drawing table of a cartoonist.

            John A. Lent