International Journal of Comic Art 13: 2 table of contents

The current issue has shipped and subscribers should have received it by now.

 

International Journal of Comic Art contents

Vol. 13, No. 2, Fall 2011

 

Women's Manga beyond Japan

Contemporary Comics as Cultural Crossroads in Asia

edited by

Fusami Ogi, Cheng Tju Lim, Jaqueline Berndt

"Women's Manga Beyond Japan:

Contemporary Comics as Cultural Crossroads in Asia"

Fusami Ogi

003

 

Yes, There Are Women Cartoonists:

Snippets from Those I Have Interviewed

John A. Lent

007

 

Inspiring Women: 40 Years' Transformation

of Shôjo Manga and Women's Voices

Fusami Ogi

032

 

Envisioning Alternative Communities

through a Popular Medium:

Speculative Imagination in Hagio Moto's Girls' Comics

CJ (Shige) Suzuki

057

 

"Silent Music": Desiring-machine and Femininity

in Some Music-themed Comics

Ming Hung Alex Tu

075

 

Historical Shojo Manga: On Women's Alleged Dislike

Fujimoto Yukari

Translated by Jaqueline Berndt

087

Functions and Possibilities of Female "Essay Manga":

Resistance, Negotiation, and Pleasure

Akiko Sugawa-Shimada

103

 

Crossing Double Borders:

Korean Female Amateur Comics Artists

in the Globalization of Japanese Dojin Culture

Kim Hyojin

116

 

So, How Was Your Day?

The Emergence of Graphic Diary

and Female Artists in Indonesia

Dwinita Larasati

134

 

Why Thai Girls' Manga Are Not "Shojo Manga":

Japanese Discourse and the Reality of Globalization

Mashima Tojirakarn

143

 

Manga in Malaysia:

An Approach to Its Current Hybridity

through the Career of the Shojo Mangaka Kaoru

Gan Sheuo Hui

164

 

Women "Using Manga to Tell Local Stories":

A Workshop on the "Glocality"

of Manga in Southeast Asia

Angela Moreno Acosta

179

 

Afterwords

Lim Cheng Tju

198

My Life in Cartoons

Richard Samuel West

200

 

The Contested Frontier:

Western Comics and Australian Identity, 1945-1960

Kevin Patrick

219

 

Ryan Walker, American Radical:

A Date with History from the Bottom Up

David Spencer

244

 

The State of Comics Scholarship:

Comics Studies and Disciplinarity

Gregory Steirer

263

 

"Where the Joke Comes From": Comical Potential

of Comics in the Works of Tadeusz Baranowski

Hubert Kowalewski

286

 

Transnationalism and Hegemony

amid a Very Uneven Modernity:

On Arandú, El Principe de la Selva, and the Dynamics

of the Mexican Comics Industry

Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste

313

 

Fetuses in the Sewer:

A Comparative Study of Classic 1960s Manga

by Tatsumi Yoshihiro and Tsuge Yoshiharu

Tom Gill

325

 

The Colonial Beginnings of Autobiography

in French Comics

Mark McKinney

344

Censorship and Super Bodies:

The Creative Odyssey of Margaret Harrison

Kim Munson

369

 

"Those Guys Give Me the Creeps":

Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol and Satire

in the Shared-Narrative Universe

Tom Miller

393

 

The Hero and the Apocalypse

in Watchmen and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8

Melissa Olson

417

Graphic Narrative and Global Ground:

A Symposium

 

edited by

Tracy Lassiter, Stefan Buchenberger, Guiherme Pereira

with assistance of

Lea Pao

 

Introduction: "Graphic Narrative and Global Ground"

Tracy Lassiter

432

 

Disembodiment of Our Physical Bodies

and Embodiment of Urban Space

in Oshii Mamoru's Animations

Hiroko Terai

437

 

Freeze-Frame: The Vagaries of Textual Analysis,

the Intentions of Art Spiegelman,

and the Ascendancy of Nobrow Art

Peter Swirski

448

Sequential Art between Language and Textuality

Angelo Piepoli

458

 

The Implicit Narrator in Comics:

Transformations of Free Indirect Discourse

in Two Graphic Adaptations of Madame Bovary

Kai Mikkonen

473

 

Metafiction: The Graphic Novel Embedded

in Laura Esquivel's Multimedia Novel The Law of Love

Tracy Lassiter

488

 

Narrating the Cities in Comics:

The Case of Bologna

Barbara Grüning

499

 

In Search of New Caledonian Comic Books:

The Image of New Caledonian Society,

the Growth of Cultural Consciousness,

and the Movement towards Citizenship

Sonja Faessler

518

 

Tex, Lone Wolf and Cub, and Preacher:

Justice Wanders through Three Countries

Guilherme Choovanski

529

 

Comic Book Super Villains and the Loss of Humanity

Stefan Buchenberger

539

 

Mr. Punch versus the Kaiser, 1892-1898:

Flashpoints of a Complex Relationship

Richard Scully

553

 

Sequential Art between Language and Textuality

Angelo Piepoli

458

 

The Implicit Narrator in Comics:

Transformations of Free Indirect Discourse

in Two Graphic Adaptations of Madame Bovary

Kai Mikkonen

473

 

Metafiction: The Graphic Novel Embedded

in Laura Esquivel's Multimedia Novel The Law of Love

Tracy Lassiter

488

 

Narrating the Cities in Comics:

The Case of Bologna

Barbara Grüning

499

 

In Search of New Caledonian Comic Books:

The Image of New Caledonian Society,

the Growth of Cultural Consciousness,

and the Movement towards Citizenship

Sonja Faessler

518

 

Tex, Lone Wolf and Cub, and Preacher:

Justice Wanders through Three Countries

Guilherme Choovanski

529

 

Comic Book Super Villains and the Loss of Humanity

Stefan Buchenberger

539

 

Mr. Punch versus the Kaiser, 1892-1898:

Flashpoints of a Complex Relationship

Richard Scully

553

 

Vinegar not Vitriol: The Picture-Politics

of Sir Francis Carruthers Gould (1844–1925)

Mark Bryant

579

 

Between Photography and Drawing:

The Documentary Comics as Translation of the City

Felipe Muanis

599

 

"A Sojourner Amongst Us":

Charles Wirgman and the Japan Punch

Todd S. Munson

614

 

Visual Transgressions and Queer Representations

in Gaiman's A Game of You

Daniel King

627

 

Sympathetic Geography:

Tropes of the Cityscape in Chris Ware's

Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth

John D. Schwetman

642

 

Reminiscences

John A. Lent

659

 

It Is an Honor To Be the Wife of Francisco V. Coching

(Dean of Pilipino Illustrators)

Filomena Coching

660

 

Hugo C. Yonzon, Jr.

Hugo Yonzon III

668

 

India's Abu Abraham: A Private View

Ayisha Abraham

674

 

Osamu Tezuka:

His Life, Works, and Contributions

to the History of Modern Japanese Comics

Kinko Ito

679

 

Sailor Moon and Art Deco

Jon LaCure

700

 

The Next Generation of Comics Scholarship

Sex and Power in "Absent Friends": An Essay

Shayla Monroe

714

 

An Exploratory Study

The Effect of Age on Comic Narrative Creation

John Baird and Dana Newborn

725

 

The Printed Word

John A. Lent

739

 

Exhibition and Media Reviews

edited by Michael Rhode

Doug Singsen

744

 

A Response and an Observation

Lim Cheng Tju

749

PR: Purchase "Interplanetary Journal of Comic Art: A Festschrift in Honor of John Lent" for 30% off until Wednesday.

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New issue of IJOCA out now

The new issue of the International Journal of Comic Art (Spring 2011) is out now, and is 750 pages. You can get this year's run for $45 / personal US or $60 / personal overseas.

June 20th: International Political Cartoonists in DC

Daring to Draw: An Evening with Political Cartoonists from Around the World
Monday, June 20, 2011
5:00pm - 7:00pm
Holeman Lounge, The National Press Club
Free for Press Club Members, Non Members: $10

Free for DC Conspiracy Members and any other DC cartoonists (enter discount code DOS)

Registration Required at:  http://press.org/events/daring-draw-evening-political-cartoonists-around-world#tickets

Daring to Draw: An Evening with Political Cartoonists from Around the World

Press Club Hosts Political Cartoonists From Around the World

Political cartoonists have the unique ability to capture complex issues in a picture and a few short words. In many parts of the world, they contribute political commentary that few print or broadcast journalists would dare.

The U.S. Department of State's International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) is hosting a group of 20 political cartoonists from North Africa, the Middle East, and South and Central Asia. During their three weeks in the U.S., they will meet with fellow cartoonists around the country and get a taste of American culture.

We invite you to a welcoming reception hosted jointly by the U.S. Department of State and the National Press Club. The event will begin at 5 p.m. in the Holeman Lounge at the National Press Club. A brief program will begin at 6 p.m. The international cartoonists' pieces will be on display and they will be available to discuss their work and experiences.A cash bar will be available and hors d'oeuvres will be served.

This event is free to members of the National Press Club and $10 for non members.

Bill Blackbeard reminisces (2003)

Reprinted from the International Journal of Comic Art, 5:2 (Fall 2003).

The Four Color Paper Trail: A Look Back

 

Bill Blackbeard

 

 

Once upon a Sunday page there was a mighty nation called the United States. The comic artists of this blessed country had for 60 rollicking years woven and wrought for us a brilliant new narrative art form called the newspaper comic strip. This unique and innovative picture-story art filled the pages of the nation's press with dozens of continuing daily black and white comic strip episodes featuring nationally followed comic characters -- and backed them up with multi-page color comic sections every Sunday, delighting us with still more about these same characters. 313 daily strip episodes and 52 full color Sunday strip pages there were, faithfully omnipresent year in and year out, from 1896 through the 1960s, comprising hundreds of titles over these happy years. Europeans, deprived of any similar bounty, marveled at the richly abundant U.S. art, but found themselves, like many enthralled Americans, unable to access the whole of the staggering creative accomplishment for research and rereading. For by the 1960s, when one would have expected to see the archival shelves of such fundamental American historical data centers as the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, and the nation's university and major city libraries, groaning with the tens of thousands of newsprint pages the strip art form had filled from its inception, proudly filed by title and artist in chronological order and sturdily bound for easy reference, one found -- nothing.

 

Well then, reasoning afficionados might have thought, the newspaper and syndicate owners of the ultifarious strips printed over so many decades must have maintained their own carefully preserved files. The great Hearst newspaper chain, which filled its comic pages with the widely relished likes of Jiggs, Popeye, the Katzenjammer Kids, Flash Gordon, Krazy Kat, and dozens more, presided over by the nations' foremost champion of the comic strip page, William Randolph Hearst himself, must have immaculate and cherished files of every strip it had ever published. So must the other great newspaper strip syndicates. But turning here, again, one found nothing.

 

The reasons for this tragic neglect must be the unhappy subject of other papers; our concern here is with the total lack of nationally accessible files of the unique comic strip narrative art form in its own birthplace. What had survived -- in an effectively closed archive -- were hundreds of monthly bound files of the nation's newspapers, still in the 1960s to be found in hundreds of libraries and newspaper offices. Because of the cumbersome weight of these volumes and the lack of any indexing of their comic strip contents -- which varied sharply from one newspaper to the next -- their utility as a research source was grieviously limited. (A single strip of 40 years duration might run for 30 years in one paper and only five in another, depending on the whim of the editorial staff, and might be found to have never appeared for its complete run in any one paper. Multiply this hurdle by some hundreds of strip titles, run partially in dozens of papers spread across the country, and you have a research situation that was impossibly costly to pursue in terms of both money and time.) Writers of strip history did the best they could do, but the bulk of their pre-1970s' texts are largely derived from strip texts inadequately recalled over the years, strips seen only partially whole, and the erroneous classic strip artist anecdotes endemic among cartoonists for decades, i.e. that the term "yellow journalism" was coined because of the use of the "Yellow Kid" comic in building circulation for rival newspapers in the 1890s, while the term actually came from Hearst press headlines blatantly promoting its own promotional bicycle race to the west coast, years before the "Yellow Kid" saw competitive print: the Hearst cylist color was yellow, echoed in headlines screaming "YELLOW AHEAD" and "YELLOW REACHES DENVER" day after day.

 

But at least all of the newspaper comic strips from 1896 on (when R.F. Outcault drew the first definitive comic strip in his 1890s' "Yellow Kid" series) were intact -- just impossibly out of practical reading or research reach. We had it all but we didn't have it at all. Then, in the mid-1960s, even this parlous treasure was threatened, this time with outright extinction. The great lure to the American library system of microfilm reproduction of newsprint had entered the scene. Wonder of wonders, it would now be possible to (whee!) microfilm all of those weighty newspaper volumes, putting all of those endless pages of newsprint (wow!) onto slender rolled lengths of microfilm for reading on a magnified view screen and kept (gee!) in tiny file boxes occupying less than five per cent of the space (ugh!) filled with the nasty discarded newspaper volumes. Truly a librarian's millennium solution to printed bulk! But it was death to Bonnie and Clyde -- and to Little Nemo and the Kin-Der-Kids and Dick Tracy and Captain Easy and the myriad comic strip characters that still held glorious stored carnival in all those immediately condemned newspaper files.

 

(Entering into the suddenly discovered hatred of old newsprint as well was a fixed librarian belief -- mythical from the start -- that newsprint was decaying internally at a fixed rate that would soon leave only dusty fibre in its wake, and so clearly spurred the need for rapid transition to microfilm. Strip collectors and researchers knew, of course, that several generations of librarians would be dust before a single newspaper page self-destructed, but this sound certainty, based on decades of direct work with properly preserved newspaper runs, went unheeded by the public payroll vandals. They wanted the hundreds of newspaper volumes then in every library gone -- simply GONE -- and gone they were in fairly short order, destined for useful disposal in local landfill.)

 

The Library of Congress led the way in this holocaust of national newsprint archives, destroying century-long runs of virtually every major city newspaper in the country (most of them in immaculate condition), which it had long stored in immense naval warehouses in Alexandria, Virginia. The Library dutifully microfilmed the lot over several years of intense work, duly offering the filmed files to other institutional libraries first (knowing that none would be wanted by kindred librarians elsewhere), then putting themup for sale as waste paper to anyone willing to pay a few bucks, which at last got the dread things off the premises. Locally, around the country, other libraries followed suit by making or purchasing microfilm copies of their own newspaper files, then discarding them in the most efficacious way. All of this went on largely unnoted by the public and only casually covered by the press itself, the claim of decaying newsprint going unchallenged everywhere.

 

Among the worldwide afficianados of the newspaper comic strip I had long numbered myself through the early 1960s and before, persuading local libraries to permit me to remove old Sunday comic sections from their bound paper files with the argument that these pages were not editorial product of the papers concerned and therefore held no research worth by continuing to clutter up the file. (I was not allowed to touch the daily strips, however, since these might carry Part 6 classified ads or some similarly vital part of the papers on their reverse sides

 

The grapevine I had already set up among local San Francisco librarians about my strip interests led to my hearing that the city library had just decided to "deaccess" (dump) their bound newspaper holdings, an incredibly vast accumulation of regional and San Francisco papers from the 1870s on, stored in city administration basements and attics as the often duplicating files were passed into the library's keeping over the decades. But it seemed they had a knotty problem of sorts in simply turning them over to a very eager me (I having already volunteered to cover all pickup and removal costs, which they thought was great) -- as city librarians, they were prohibited from selling or giving away library property of any kind. They could only pass it on to other libraries or educational institutions -- and of course every other such body was busy getting rid of its own newspaper files and wanted no more. The solution changed my life. I immediately applied to the IRS and the state to establish a non-profit research library dedicated to the preservation of actual newspaper print files "and their contents." This, of course, was the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, which you all know and love. It took government bureaucracy a while to grant my application, but the city library was so eager to get rid of its newspaper runs that they turned them over to me as soon as I told them how I had acted to solve the release problem. They had an institutional name to cover their rears in dumping the papers and that was all that mattered. No one ever even asked later if I had been given non-profit status. In fact I became the guy they called whenever they had magazine runs to dispose of after purchases of microfilm dups: nobody on staff had to perspire moving hefty stacks of old magazines off the shelves, and all such material was, of course, welcome reference additions to the institution I had suddenly created. When patrons complained that the newspaper volumes they enjoyed looking at were gone, they were referred to the Academy -- with its two long library reading tables in the basement of an old Victorian in the Sunset district of the City, so my existence even took away much of the static the city library might otherwise have faced. It was a neat and exciting experience, surrounded by endless ceiling-high stacks of century-long runs of great old newspapers and their jampacked pages of comic strips all unread and waiting. But I had to find much larger quarters soon since the State Library had contacted me about taking on their staggering mass of out-of-state newspapers as soon as I possibly could. And the New York Public Library had a dozen paper runs they could only give to another, willing library. I was becoming a crucial dumping ground for all the nation's unwanted glut of newsprint papers which they could not throw away or pass on to other institutions. I had to move fast, and I did.

 

Two truck driver friends who were also comic buffs became crucial aides in picking up these distant, massive bodies of newsprint: Gale Paulson and George Cushing, both retired bus drivers who handled Ryder Truck loaners with ease. Both also gave vital help moving when I located an enormous old Sunset mansion which became the permanent capacious hq (headquarters) of the Academy, housing the endless influx of newspaper files in its cavernous basement maw and suites of upstairs rooms where I had seated local strip collectors who aided my crucially helpful wife, Barbara, and myself in clipping the tens of thousands of daily strips that had to be assembled into complete archival files suitable for reprint or reading access. (The Sunday pages prior to the 1950s were, of course, much less work intensive as they slipped easily out of their volumes in the wake of deftly moving box cutters.

 

The culled strip episodes were moved to file cabinets and walls of metal drawers in the basement and filed by artist, while the emptied newspaper volumes were initially sold or traded to back-date newspaper dealers in Los Angeles and New Jersey. Certain newspaper files, however, proved to be of such extraordinary graphic interest beyond their strip content that these were made permanent -- and important -- parts of the Academy collection. Obviously these were the sensational big city papers that unfurled garish (often multi-colored) headlines dealing with local murder cases, gang wars, and the like. Dillinger, Arbuckle, Capone, and their ilk swaggered and died spectacularly in these headlines above full page pictures of their rise and finish in bright-hued ink (all, of course, lost forever in black and white microfilm). Other papers featured page-high movie ads in one and two colors, some drawn by the papers' own staff and seen nowhere else. The Hearst papers were paramount examples of this sort of classically lurid journalism, as were the great tabloids of New York and Chicago, and all those I recovered came to form labyrinthine stacks of white, crisp newsprint corridored under metal-shaded lamps throughout the basement, towering over the tight rows of file cabinets being daily stuffed with an increasingly definitive clip file of the entire cavalcade of American newspaper comic strips as it emerged from the busy scissors and box cutters upstairs.

 

The growing strip collection early on served to fill the pages of previously impossible book collections of major strip art, from the 24-volume Hyperion Collection of many classic strips' beginning years, ranging from "The Bungle Family" to "Barney Google," through Woody Gelman's Nostalgia Press volumes to the Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, all edited at the Academy during its first decade of operation and all opening many amazed eyes to treasures hitherto buried willy-nilly in virtually inaccessible bound newspaper files. Donations from cartoonists and collectors were welcome arrivals during this time, including such one-of-a-kind items as a fine collection of the 1890s Hearst Sunday comic sections from the New York Journal, bound together as the comics editor's own reference file and later discovered and treasured by the pioneering comic collector Ernie McGee -- a file which alone made possible the later definitive complete Yellow Kid book reprint. Some fine original art by Herriman, Swinnerton, Segar, Tuthill, Caniff, Crane, Wolverton, and others reached the Academy walls, as well as a stunning private collection of movie posters, ad and review pages from the forties and earlier, filling a half-dozen file cabinets and also adding to Academy decor.

 

On my own hook I expanded the range of the Academy coverage of comic art (using "comic" in the Greek sense of "popular") to include sizable collections of 19th century cartoon-illustrated novels, from Dickens to hackerey; Victorian and Georgian sensational fiction (Haggard, Hodgson, etc.); 20th century science fiction and crime fiction in both hardcover andpaperback avatars; pulp magazines (all of the sf pulps plus full runs of The Spider, Weird Tales, Black Mask, and the like); book collections of newspaper and magazine gag cartoons; early comic strip book collections from the 1930s and before, and extensive files of dime novels and penny dreadfuls, together with reference material on all of these items. Within the newspaper extracts, I assembled large files of graphic and textual data dealing with such subjects as editorial cartoons, columnists, Ring Lardner, and (!) Sherlock Holmes, the latter resulting in a sizable volume of illustrative art and pastiche called Sherlock Holmes in America, including multifarious comic strip usages of the Holmes image and persona. These files also aided in the preparation of such works as The Index to the Detective, Mystery, and Espionage Pulps and the Dictionary of Literary Biography, while the Academy itself is continually active in the editing and publishing of classic comic strip collections, currently focusing on the complete reprinting of George Herriman's comic strip oeuvre.

 

Eventually the rumbling arrival of truckloads of newspaper volumes from New York, Washington, Columbus, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Sacramento eased as the lodes were exhausted, and the Academy relaxed into full-time curatorial work in the collections, which in the case of the now complete file of nationally-syndicated comic strips from 1896 on consisted of comparing multiple copies of many episodes to find the best-printed andbest-colored episodes to make up the definitive files of each strip title. Many items from these files went to museum exhibits of classic comic strip art, offsetting the sometimes otherwise dull arrays of black and white original art with examples of the same work as published in color. Copies of long daily and Sunday strip runs were made for collectors at reasonable prices, as were duplicate copies, all duly bound with repro'd color covers, of memorable pulp magazines (which have now become collectible items in their own right).

In this headlong, hectic, desperate, coast-to-coast salvation of America's comic strip heritage from the jaws of institutional destruction, ironically emerged what could never have existed before -- a complete, nationally accessible collection of the American syndicated newspaper comic strip in its millions of daily episodes, organized by title and artist from its 1896 beginning to the present on crisp, long-lasting newsprint, in the best selected copy of each episode, an unparalleled treasure for the ages. All brought about, of course, by perseverance, dumb luck, and an undying love for the precious stuff held by a couple of dozen devoted students, collectors, and a handful of clear-eyed librarians who channeled their staff-doomed newspaper to our rescuing hand again and again.

 

It's all yours -- everybody's -- now, to read and copy and research by request at two temporarily separated locales. The first, and the largest repository with all of the newspaper files and the great bulk of the comic strip material, is located at Ohio State University Special Collections, Columbus, Ohio, under the dedicated supervision of Lucy Caswell, Curator of the collection, and the tireless, devoted organizational work of librarian Amy McCrory, who still faces truckloads of the Academy files remaining to be offloaded and merged with the enormous body of material already organized and accessible. (The movement of the Academy collection to Ohio State resulted from the inspired suggestion of Art Spiegelman to Lucy Caswell (thanks again, Art!); it was more than I wanted to handle and try to house as I entered my seventies, and the facilities and staff at Ohio State seemed ideal for the permanent home of the collection -- as they have proved to be.) The second, and now much smaller portion of the original collection, continuing to be housed at the SFACA center in Santa Cruz, California, is being curated by me until a number of ongoing strip reprint projects have been completed. As these reach fruition, the residual files are shipped to Columbus for formal integration with the main collection. Here at Santa Cruz can be found much of the pulp collection, primarily concerned with hero pulps, detective, and crime titles, and oddities of all kinds; the dime novel and penny dreadful volumes; children's books, and a number of comic strip runs, including "The Bungle Family," "Barney Google," "Thimble Theatre," "Dick Tracy," "Mickey Mouse," "Polly and Her Pals," all newspaper comic sections from 1896 through 1914, all daily and Sunday Herriman strip runs, "Little Orphan Annie," and others, feeding into a number of continuing reprint book collections and illustrating articles on crucial aspects of comic strip art. By 2010 the collection should be completely housed at the Ohio State research center, just 50 years after the San Francisco Public Library decided to clear away the unwanted detritus of a half-century accumulation of old newspaper files and sparked my application for the non-profit wherewithal to gather it all up for good old posterity. To echo Clare Briggs, it's been a grand and glorious feeling, all the way!

REMINDER: JOHN A. LENT SCHOLARSHIP IN COMICS STUDIES DEADLINE APPROACHING

REMINDER: JOHN A. LENT SCHOLARSHIP IN COMICS STUDIES DEADLINE APPROACHING

The International Comic Arts Forum (ICAF) is proud to hold each year
the John A. Lent Scholarship in Comics Studies competition. The Lent
Scholarship, named for pioneering teacher and researcher Dr. John
Lent, is offered to encourage student research into comic art. ICAF
awards the Lent Scholarship to a current student who has authored, or
is in the process of authoring, a substantial research-based writing
project about comics. (Preference is given to master's theses and
doctoral dissertations, but all students of comics are encouraged to
apply.)

The Scholarship is subject to the condition that the recipient present
a half-hour talk, based on her or his research, during ICAF, held this
year September 29 - October 1 at the Center for Cartoon Studies in
White River Junction, VT. The award consists of up to US$500 in kind
to offset the cost of travel to and/or accommodations at the
conference. A commemorative letter and plaque are also awarded. No
cash is awarded.

Applicants must be students, or must show acceptance into an academic
program, at the time of application. For example, applicants for ICAF
2011 would have to show proof of student status for the academic year
2010-2011, or proof that they have been accepted into an academic
program beginning in academic year 2011-2012.

The Scholarship competition is adjudicated by a three-person committee
chosen from among the members of ICAF's Executive Committee.
Applications should consist of the following written materials, sent
electronically in PDF form:

   * A self-contained excerpt from the project in question, not to
exceed twenty (20) double-spaced pages of typescript.
   * A brief cover letter, introducing the applicant and explaining
the nature of the project.
   * The applicant's professional resume.
   * A brief letter of reference, on school letterhead, from a
teacher or academic advisor (preferably thesis director), establishing
the applicant's student status and speaking to her/his qualifications
as a researcher and presenter.

PLEASE NOTE that applications for the Lent Scholarship are handled
entirely separately from ICAF's general Call for Proposals. Students
who submit abstracts to the general CFP are welcome to apply
separately for the Lent Award.

The deadline for the next Lent Scholarship is June 10, 2011. Please
send application materials via email to José Alaniz
(josealaniz23@gmail.com) of the ICAF Executive Committee.

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!!

For more on this year's ICAF conference, see
http://www.internationalcomicartsforum.org/2011-conference-info.html .

New issue - IJOCA 12:2/3 is out

The latest issue of the International Journal of Comic Art #12:2/3 is out. 712 pages in this issue. It's time to renew for 2012 at $45 / year.

Table of Contents:
John A. Lent 1 Editor’s Note

Fabrice Leroy 2 Yves Chaland and Lue Cornillon’s Rewriting of Classical Belgian Comics in Captivant: From Graphic Homage to Implicit Criticism

Giancarla Unser-Schutz 25 Exploring the Role of Language in Manga: Text Types, Their Usages, and Their Distributions

Rick Marschall 44 Nurturing the Butterfly: My Life in Comic Art Studies

Derik A. Badman 91 Talking, Thinking, and Seeing in Pictures: Narration, Focalization, and Ocularization in Comics Narratives

Enrique Garcia 112 Coon Imagery in Will Eisner’s The Spirit and Yolanda Vargas Dulché’s Memín Pinguín and Its Legacy in the Contemporary United States and Mexican Comic Book Industries

Kerry Soper 125 From Jive Crows in “Dumbo” to Bumbazine and “Pogo”: Walt Kelly and the Conflicted Politics Reracinating African American Types in Mid-20th Century Comics

Robert Furlong and Christophe Cassiau-Haurie 150 Comic Books, Politics, and Manipulation: The Case of Repiblik Zanimo, the First Comic Strip and Book in Creole

Grazyna Gajewsk 159 Between History and Memory – Marzi: Children Should Be Seen and Not Heard Marzena Sowa and Sylvain Savoia

Matthew M. Chew and Lu Chen 171 Media Institutional Contexts of the Emergence and Development of Xinmanhua in China

Jörn Ahrens 192 The Father’s Art of Crime: Igort’s 5 Is the Perfect Number

Marco Pellitteri 209 Comics Reading and Attitudes of Openness toward the Other: The Italian-Speaking Teenagers’ Case in South Tyrol

Iren Ozgur 248 Have You Heard the One about the Islamist Humor Magazine?

Weidan Cao 251 The Mountains and the Moon, the Willows and the Swallows: A Hybrid Semiotic Analysis of Feng Zikai’s “New Paintings for Old Poems”

Candida Rifkind 268 A Stranger in an Strange Land? Guy Delisle Redraws the Travelogue

Daniel Stein 291 The Long Shadow of Wilhelm Busch: “Max & Moritz” and German Comics

Hannah Miodrag 309 Fragmented Text: The Spatial Arrangement of Words in Comics

Christopher Eklund 328 Toward an Ethicoaesthetics of Comics: A Critical Manifesto

Muliyadi Mahamood 336 The Malaysian Humor Magazine Gila-Gila: An Appreciation

Roy Bearden-White 354 Inheriting Trauma in Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth

Philippe Gauthier 367 On “Institutionalization”: From Cinema to Comics

Marc A. Londo 376 Mr. Tap and His African-American Cartoons of the 1940s/1950s

Marcia R. Ristaino 395 Two Linked by Another, Ding Cong: Interviews with Betty McIntosh and Shen Jun

Shelley Drake Hawks 402 Ding Cong’s “True Story of Ah Q” in Art and Life

John A. Lent and Xu Ying 425 Fengjing – The Town That Claimed Ding Cong

Phillip Troutman 432 The Discourse of Comics Scholarship: A Rhetorical Analysis of Research Article Introductions

Ross Murray 445 Referencing Comics: A Comprehensive Citation Guide

Sylvain Rheault 459 Curvy Alterations in “Gaston” by Franquin

Miriam Peña-Pimentel 469 Baroque Features in Japanese Hentai

Yuko Nakamura 487 What Does the “Sky” Say? – Distinctive Characteristics of Manga and What the Sky Represents in It

B.S. Jamuna 509 Strategic Positioning and Re-presentations of Women in Indian Comics

Meena Ahmed 525 Exploring the Dimensions of Political Cartoons: A Case Study of Pakistan

Camila Figueiredo 543 Tunes Across Media: The Intermedial Transposition of Music in Watchmen

Rania M. R. Saleh 552 Making History Come Alive Through Political Cartoons

Bill Kartalopoulos 565 Taking and Making Liberties: Narratives of Comics History

Toni Masdiono 577 An Indonesian Bid for the First Graphic Novel

John A. Lent 581 In Remembrance of Five Major Comic Art Personalities

Perucho Mejia Garcia 588 Ismael Roldan Torres (1964-2009) of Colombia: A Memorial Tribute

Zheng Huagai 598 Tributes to Two Famous, Anti-Japanese War Cartoonists: Zhang Ding and Te Wei

John A. Lent 614 The Printed Word

620 Book Reviews

644 Exhibition and Media Reviews

696 Correction

697 Portfolio

Comics scholarship issue of the French web journal Transatlantica online now

Transatlantica 1 | 2010American Shakespeare / Comic BooksThere's an article I wrote a couple of years ago on the state of comics bibliography, but there's other good stuff in this French look at American culture.

Independent nature of IJOCA clarification

John Lent would like to note that IJoCA isn't affiliated with any institution, but is an independent journal founded and funded by him and the subscribers. Recently, he seen an erroneous institutional affiliation appear in print so would like to take this opportunity to correct the misapprehension.

IJOCA 12-2 Review deadline fast approaching

If you were planning on doing an exhibit or media review for the Fall 2010 issue, try to get it in to Mike Rhode in the next few days, or at least let him know where you stand. He needs to turn them in to John Lent by the end of the month.

Graphic Novels and Comics in Libraries and Archives book received

This came in mail yesterday, and I'll have a review of it in 12:2.

Graphic Novels and Comics in Libraries and Archives
Essays on Readers, Research, History and Cataloging
Edited by Robert G. Weiner
Forewords by Elizabeth Figa and Derek Parker Royal; Afterword by Stephen Weiner
McFarland
ISBN 978-0-7864-4302-4
12 illustrations, 16 charts, notes, bibliographies, index
288pp. softcover (7 x 10) 2010
$45.00

PR: April Fool's Day comedy concert to benefit the ToonSeum.

Comics For Comics: A comedy concert to benefit the ToonSeum.

Pittsburgh, PA,-"Comics For Comics II"

April 1st 2010

The ToonSeum is hosting its second Comics for Comics: A Concert to Benefit the ToonSeum. Join Pittsburghs cartooning elite for an evening of laughs with performances by Sean Collier, Gab Bonesso and featuring Gene Collier. The event will take place on April 1st at 9pm at Little Es in Downtown Pittsburgh. The evening will also feature a pre-party from 7:30-8:30 at the ToonSeum.

"Comics for Comics was inspired by a similar event for The Museum of Cartoon Art in San Francisco", said Joe Wos, the founder and Executive Director of the ToonSeum. "We had such a great response to Gene Collier we felt we had to do it again. Were also happy to be supported by Downtown businesses such as our hosts and neighbors at Little Es."

Comics for Comics will feature headliner Gene Collier. Gene has written sports, politics, and media criticism in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia for over 30 years and has twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, losing spectacularly both times. A popular guest on area radio stations (including the WDVE Radio's Morning Show), Genes quips about Pittsburgh and its sports teams over the years have earned him a wide audience and a couple of anonymous threats.

The event is produced by Gerry Collier.
Join us the ToonSeum Thursday April 1st (April Fools Day) with a reception at the ToonSeum from 7:30-8:30, followed by the comedy concert at 9pm.
Tickets are $25 dollars and may be purchased online at www.comicsforcomics.com

Reception at the ToonSeum
945 Liberty Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15222

Comics 4 Comics at Little Es
949 Liberty Avenue, Second Floor

ICAF postponed until 2011

30 March 2010

Announcement from The International Comic Arts Forum (ICAF)

The International Comic Arts Forum (ICAF), the foremost gathering for international comics studies and scholarship, has decided to postpone its annual conference for 2010 until 2011.  

The 2011 conference will observe the 15th Anniversary of ICAF, and the Executive Committee has concluded that postponing for the 2010 calendar year will allow the organization to plan for a large and special 2011 event.

Please stay tuned for more details soon.  For interested students and scholars, the CFP will be released later this year, as will more details on the 15th Anniversary Themes, Guests, and Special Events.

Please bookmark our website:
ICAF website: http://internationalcomicartsforum.org

Any inquiries may be directed to Professor Cecile Danehy, Executive Committee Co-Chair, at cdanehy@wheatonma.edu

Rich Kreiner on IJOCA 12-1

Rich Kreiner’s Yearlong Best of the Year: International Journal of Comic Art Vol.12 #1. TCJ.com (March 27 2010) is a nice look at the current issue.

IJOCA 12-1 is out

537 pages of comic scholarship from around the world for $15 ($45/year for 3 issues)

Alan Moore Magus Conference - The University of Northampton 28th-29th May

Registration is now open for the Magus:  Transdisciplinary Approaches to the Work of Alan Moore conference.  It will take place on Friday 28th and Saturday 29th May 2010 at the University of Northampton, UK.  Paul Gravett will be providing the keynote speech and a full programme will be available from the website over the next week. 

For more information go to the conference website at:

 

http://www2.northampton.ac.uk/arts/home/AlanMoore 

 

or email me at

 

nathan.wiseman-trowse@northampton.ac.uk.

 

All the best

Nathan Wiseman-Trowse

 

PR: Festival Image (French Comics and Animation Festival)- Alliance Francaise de Washington

Franco-American comics in Washington.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

The Alliance Française de Washington, MICA's Illustration and Experimental Animation Departments present

 

From April 16 to 24, 2010

 

Festival Imagé

French Comics and Animation Festival

Baltimore-Washington DC (USA)

The Alliance Française de Washington and The Maryland Institute College of Arts (MICA) are inaugurating their partnership with the Festival Imagé, first festival in the USA, which promotes the new generation of French artists working in comics and animated films.

 

From April 16 to 24, meetings, author-led workshops, and screenings of animated films will stress the similarities and differences which exist in "bande dessinée" and animated film between both sides of the Atlantic.

 

Five comics artists, four comic book publishers from both France and the US, as well as various comics connoisseurs and a series of events prepared by DC-based comics artists and students of MICA – America's oldest art school– will help animate this exceptional 10-day festival dedicated to sequential art.

 

The festival will engage a wide audience of amateurs, children, art students, Francophiles, and comic's aficionados of the "9ème Art" through the creativity and vitality of this made-in-France artistic format where more than 5000 titles are published each year.

 

Having been involved in the Festival Imagé since its inception, MICA's animation students will also have the chance to introduce their view of French culture through their own animated shorts, to be shown at two successive screenings.

During these two consecutive days, animated films from both MICA students and students from one of the most famous French schools, SUPINFOCOM, will be showcased in Baltimore and Washington.

 

A French author will also be visiting one of DC's underprivileged elementary schools through the Alliance Française's Outreach Program to share his passion with children.

 

On their side, students from MICA and local illustrators will meet French and US publishers and present their work through exhibitions during the professional forum.

This forum will offer a chance to create artistic ties and professional opportunities to be published in the USA but also in France.

 

Last but not least, French and American illustrators will launch a creative dialogue during the entire Festival Imagé with an interactive and collective production to be revealed during the festival's closing party.

 

Prepare to be overwhelmed by a new generation of talented and productive artists who interpret the daily complexities of modern society through an incredible variety of styles and artistic universes.

 

"Strike your imagination!"

 

Festival Imagé Program

 

 -Friday April 16 at MICA:

 

7:30 pm: Opening reception

8 pm: Panel discussion with Nicolas Nemiri, Antoine Dodé, Alain Corbel, and Laurence Arcadias. Moderated by José Villarrubia.

Beginning of the contest

At MICA/ Free

 

-Saturday April 17 at AFDC, 2 pm

Workshop with Antoine Dodé

http://www.antoinedode.com/

At the Alliance Française/ Free

 

 

-Monday April 19 at MICA, 8 pm

 

Lecture by José Villarrubia: "Colors in Comics"

 At MICA/ Free

 

 

-Tuesday April 20 at AFDC, 6:30 pm

 

Opening reception of the exhibition Les Trois Ombres by Cyril Pedrosa

Workshop with Domitille Collardey

http://www.domitille-collardey.com/ink.html

 At the Alliance Française/ Free for MICA students and AF members - General Admission $8

 

-Wednesday April 21st at MICA, 7 pm

Presentation: Laurence Arcadias

Short Films from SUPINFOCOM and MICA students

 At MICA/ Free

 

 

-Thursday April 22nd at Letelier Theater, 7 pm

Short Films from SUPINFOCOM and MICA students

At Letelier Theater 3251 Prospect Street, NW, Upper Courtyard, Washington DC

Free for MICA students and AF members - General Admission $8

 

-Friday April 23rd at AFDC, 6:30 pm

Lecture by Pascal Fioretto: "Humor in comics"

 At the Alliance Française/ free for MICA students and AF members - General admission: $8

 

-Saturday April 24th at MICA:

2:00 Alain Corbel presents his students work:

Exhibition "Gargantua"

2:30 pm: Workshop with Cyril Pedrosa http://www.firstsecondbooks.com/threeShadows.html

4 pm: Professional Forum with publishers from France and the US

Contest Results

6:30 pm: Closing Party

At MICA/ Free

 

 

---

Artists and speakers 

 

 

Antoine Dodé was born in Amiens and lived there until he moved to Belgium to study illustration at the Saint Luc School of Art. He is best known in the French and Belgian market for his character Armelle, who has been featured in two graphic novels published under Carabas Revolution (Semic): "Armelle and the Bird" and "Armelle and My Uncle."

 http://www.antoinedode.com/

 

José Villarrubia was born in Madrid, Spain, but is a long time Baltimore resident. A professor of the Illustration Department at MICA, José is best known for his coloring work in comics for Marvel, DC, Dark Horse and other companies and for his collaborations with author Alan Moore.

Domitille Collardey (born 1981) is best known for founding the Chicou-Chicou comics collective with Aude Picault. She currently lives in Paris and Brooklyn, NY. Domitille graduated from les Arts Decoratifs de Paris in 2004.  

She is currently working on an adaptation of Jean Teulé's novel "The Suicide Shop" for French publisher Delcourt, with Olivier Ka.

She also works for various press publications, such as Technikart, Beaux Arts Magazine, and Double.

 http://www.domitille-collardey.com/ink.html

 Pascal Fioretto Although he was a math whiz early on, having majored in chemistry at the Ecole normale supérieure of Chemistry, he also displayed a strong interest in literature and writing, which he finally gave in to. Catching the attention of cartoonist Marcel Gotlib, Fioretto then lent his wit to Fluide Glacial, a French monthly publication appealing to any and all lovers of truly tasteless jokes and irreverent humor.

Cyril Pedrosa began his career in animation, working on the Disney films "Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "Hercules." He has since become a rising star in a new kind of graphic storytelling, combining the influences of animation and the literary traditions of Borges, Garcia Marquez, and Tolkien to create a unique visual signature. 

http://www.firstsecondbooks.com/threeShadows.html

Nicolas Nemiri is a French comics author and illustrator who has always been very much inspired by Japanese manga. His artistic style is unique in that it blends manga with French esthetics. Nicolas is actually working on the 3rd album of his series "Je suis morte" created with writer Jean-David Morvan, a sci-fi story where teenagers are dealing with life, death and eternity.

http://www.nemiri.com/

 

Alain Corbel. With comic creator Eric Lambe, he produced Mokka and Pelure Amere, two modern comic strip magazines that influenced many authors and publishers in France and Belgium like Amok, Freon and La Cinquieme Couche. He works as an illustrator, comic strip artist, and storywriter. He is also teacher at MICA, Illustration Department. He did many books published in France and Portugal. He has a passion for Africa where he organizes regularly with the Portuguese NGO ACEP  illustration/writing workshops.   http://www.alaincorbel.in-netz.com/  http://obaraleixo.blogspot.com/

 Laurence Arcadias teaches animation at MICA and is the Co- chair of the Animation department.

She started her career in Paris as an illustrator and animator. She directed a TV show: "Alex", best animated TV series in Annecy festival and spent 3 years as Animator in Residence at Apple. She also worked for several companies such as hotwired, Kodak, Leapfrog…Her films have been screened internationally.

http://www.arcadias.tv

Located in the north of France, SUPINFOCOM is a unique school, made of passionate people for passionate students, armed with an educational experience and managed by a united team, a demanding school, which innovates, supports the students towards their professional future by developing their artistic sensitivity, and opens unclear ways. After 20 years of existence and 1246 graduates, SUPINFOCOM is still filled with the enthusiasm of pioneers and enriched with collective experience. http://www.supinfocom.org/

 

With the support of the Maryland Institute College of Art's Office of Academic Services, the office of Research and the Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Faculty.             

 

 

Please include Festival Imagé, from April 16 to 24 in your cultural events listing. Do not hesitate to contact me directly if you want to attend or cover this event.

 

WHAT: Festival Imagé  French Comics and Animation Festival

 

WHEN: From April 16 to 24, 2010

 

WHERE: At the Alliance Française 2142 Wyoming Avenue, NW, Washington DC 20008

                 MICA 1300 W. Mount Royal Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland 21217

And Letelier Theater 3251 Prospect Street, NW Upper Courtyard Washington DC 20007

 

 COST: All of the events are free for MICA students and Alliance Française members 

Events at the Alliance Française and Letelier Theater: free for MICA students and AF members - General Admission $8

 

 Information/reservation:  Alliance Française 202-234-7911 - MICA 410-225-2300

 

 

The Alliance Française is the largest network of French language and cultural centers in the world. Founded in 1949, the Alliance Française de Washington offers French classes for all levels, numerous cultural events throughout the year, and a multi-media library open to all members.  For more information visit www.francedc.org

You can download our press kit here: http://www.francedc.org/en/Article.aspx?id=460

 

L'Alliance Française de Washington is on Facebook! Join our group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4811854756

 

We are also on Twitter! http://twitter.com/FranceDC

 

 

 

 

 

Sonia Lahcene
Cultural Assistant
_______________________________________
Alliance Française de Washington
2142 Wyoming Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20008
tel: (202) 234-7911 ext 16
fax: (202) 234-0125
www.francedc.org
 
To subscribe to our email list and receive our messages on cultural activities, please go to  www.francedc.org then "sign up for our e-newsletter".

You can also join our Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4811854756