Call For Papers: The Future in Comics, Stockholm, Sweden

Call For Papers: The Future in Comics

 

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

 

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

 

Call for papers, deadline/ Notification of acceptance: 15^th of April, 2015/10^th 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 30^th 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 15^th of May.

IJOCA 16:2 Correction

Pedro Moura informs us that the review of Dale Jacobs' book Graphic Encounters, Comics and the Sponshorship of Multimodal Literacy on pages 667-670 credited to him was co-written with Conceição Pereira. The editors regret the omission.

Statement on the murders at Charlie Hebdo

Photo (cc) Flickr user Birgit Speulman https://www.flickr.com/photos/birgitspeulman/16204902876

The Comic Art Working Group of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) and the International Journal of Comic Art (IJOCA) strongly condemn the murders of cartoonists, journalists, and other staff members of Charlie Hebdo and loudly applaud the Je suis Charlie demonstrations and other actions and statements supportive of the magazine. We believe that the sword (or gun) can never be permitted to be mightier than the pen.

New International Journal of Comic Art issue is shipping to subscribers

Go to http://www.ijoca.com to order a copy or renew your subscription for 2015.

Looking for that perfect gift for a comics uber-scholar?

At Lulu, there's a couple of items that may be of interest:

International Journal of Comic Art 1:1 (reprint)

By John Lent

Biographical Sketches of Cartoonists & Illustrators in the Swann Collection of the Library of Congress

By Sara Duke

Here's the 30% off message:

We're just as excited about the season as you are, so we're offering you one last chance to get 30% off all print books.

Use promo code KRBM2 now until 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 15, and get great reads for everyone you know.

New Book - Asian Comics by John Lent

Asian Comics
By John A. Lent
University Press of Mississippi
ISBN 978-1-62846-158-9, hardback, $60

For Immediate Release

The first comprehensive overview of comics production and creativity in Asia

Asian Comics (University Press of Mississippi) dispels the myth that outside of Japan, the continent is nearly devoid of comic strips and comic books. Relying on his fifty years of Asian mass communication and comic art research, during which he traveled to Asia at least seventy-eight times, and visited many studios and workplaces, John A. Lent  shows that nearly every country had a golden age of cartooning and, recently, has witnessed a rejuvenation of the art form.

Organized by regions of East, Southeast, and South Asia, Asian Comics provides detailed information on comics of sixteen countries including their histories, key personnel, characters, contemporary status, problems, trends, and issues. As only Japanese comics output has received close and by now voluminous scrutiny, Asian Comics tells the story of the major comics creators outside of Japan.  The nations covered here include China, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

This book is the first comprehensive overview of Asian comics books and magazines (both mainstream and alternative), graphic novels, newspaper comic strips and gag panels, and cartoon/humor magazines. Lent has done exhaustive research on the subject and the volume is crammed with facts, fascinating anecdotes, and interview quotes from many pioneering masters, as well as younger artists.

Readers may be surprised to learn that Indonesia had a self-named graphic novel in 1965, that the revered King of Thailand solicited the drawing skills of a famous cartoonist to illustrate his books, that sexual and scatological cartoon magazines have thrived during Nepal's annual Cow Festival, or that a member of royalty, a national leader, and the founding heads of state in four countries drew those nations' first cartoons.

Liberally illustrated in some cases, with rarely seen images, and well documented with plentiful bibliographies, Asian Comics is a rich resource that will be of much interest to many types of audiences.

John A. Lent has founded and chaired or edited numerous organizations and periodicals, including Asia and Pacific Animation and Comics Association, Asian Research Center on Animation and Comic Art, Asian Popular Culture group of the Popular Culture Association, Asian Cinema Studies Society, Malaysia/Singapore/Brunei Studies Group, the International Journal of Comic Art, and Asian Cinema. He is the author or editor of seventy-six books.

—30—

For more information contact Clint Kimberling, Publicist, ckimberling@mississippi.edu
Read more about Asian Comics at http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/1705

 

PSA: Help support Asian comics at Michigan State University's Comic Art Collection

Asian Comics Cataloging at Michigan State University

reprinted from Insight May 2014 - http://img.lib.msu.edu/giving/insight/Insight_May2014.pdf

"I always recommend the MSU Comic Art Collection to fellow comic researchers since it is the world's most comprehensive and internationally oriented collection in the field." Matthias Harbeck, doctoral candidate, Carl von Ossietzky Universität, Oldenburg, Germany

Help make our Asian comics accessible!

 

Comics are truly a global phenomenon, and an important goal of our Comic Art Collection is to document how cultures around the world have adopted and transformed the medium.

That's why our collection ranges from Golden Age adventure strips to South American fotonovelas, and from Japanese manga to a nearly complete run of THE 99 – the world's first comic series with Muslim superheroes.

However, it's not enough to acquire these diverse materials. It's essential to catalog them as well, so users near and far can determine what we have available.

Thanks to recent gifts, we have far more Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese comics waiting to be cataloged than we can handle – even with the broad range of language skills among the cataloging team!

Fortunately, help is available. We can send the work to an outside contractor, Backstage, which performs research-level cataloging in some 70 different languages. Backstage can complete about 150 of the most needed items for $5000 – and we have already have a generous gift of $1000 to start us off.

The Comic Art Collection is heavily used by MSU students and faculty working in the fields of history, literature, and cultural studies. Help us support their research by putting more Asian comics on the shelf!

Below is a link to a giving page that allows one to make a donation to support the cataloging of our Asian Comics.  Thanks for your interest and help with this project.

https://givingto.msu.edu/gift/?sid=1625