CFP: ImageNext (UF conference: Dec. 31; Mar. 26-27)

Just posted to the Comics Scholars Discussion List...

ImageNext:

Visions Past and Future Conference
University of Florida
March 26 and 27, 2010

The University of Florida's College of Liberal Arts and sciences is pleased to announce the 2010 UF Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels, "ImageNext: Visions Past and Future," which will be held in Gainesville, Florida on March 26 and 27. Guest speakers will include UCLA's David Kunzle (The History of the Comic Strip, Father of the Comic Strip: Rodolphe Töpffer), John Porcellino (King Cat), Molly Kiely (Diary of a Dominatrix, That Kind of Girl) and University of Iowa’s Corey Creekmur (Director of the Institute for Cinema and Culture).

This year's conference will focus on "comics" - in their broadest sense, which includes animation, manga, anime, graphic novels, webcomics, political cartoons, and even some "fine art" - that explore human history and alternate histories. Comics discussed may include reimaginings of the past (both personal and cultural), projections of the future and revisions of pre-existing timelines, fictional or historical. Presentations could address comics that represent historical periods and/or genres (i.e. classic comics, steampunk, etc.) or the historical precedents of comics as we now understand them (i.e. political cartoons in nineteenth-century newspapers, narrative paintings, etc.).

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• comics in/as history (Rodolphe Topffer, George Cruikshank, John Leech)
• comics as cultural records (Maus, Persepolis, contemporary comic strips and political cartoons)
• biographical and autobiographical comics (Julie Doucet, Fun Home, With the Light, Epileptic)
• historically based genres (e.g. steampunk and cyberpunk, (post-)apocalyptic narratives)
• multiverses and alternate continuities (Crisis on Infinite Earths, 52, House of M, Marvel Zombies)
• comic book continuity reboots (Marvel, Ultimate Universe, etc.)
• the visual rhetoric of utopias and dystopias (Y The Last Man, Akira)
• the revision and reimagination of the superhero (Watchmen, Kingdom Come, Marvels, Astro City)
• comic adaptations and appropriations of literature ("Classic Comics," manga Shakespeare, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen)

Submit an abstract (250-400 words) of your presentation by December 31, 2009. Send all submissions and questions to visions@grove.ufl.edu. Please include the words "Comics Conference" in your subject heading.

The conference will be held on the University of Florida campus.

Image credit: Dylan Horrocks, from the UF Comics Conferences website.

New Book: Naissances de la bande dessinée - De William Hogarth à Winsor McCay

This newly published book sounds fascinating! I've reproduced the English version of the book announcement below, but be sure to visit the book's official webpage for the French version, a peek at some pages, and a video narrated by Thierry Smolderen which includes lots of early comics.

Naissances de la bande dessinée
De William Hogarth à
Winsor McCay

Thierry Smolderen

24 x 33 cm / 144 pages
Nombreuses ill. en couleur
ISBN : 978-2-87449-082-8
EAN : 9782874490828
29,50 €
The Many Births of Comics

Around 1900 the American newspapers started publishing a new genre full of humour and action that we have no problems in identifying as the comics. And we also know that this comic strip appeared in the same years as the film and the phonograph. Yet what Thierry Smolderen convincingly demonstrates in this wonderful book is that the origins of this new genre are in fact much older, and that one can only understand the comic strip by linking it to the birth of a totally different genre, that of the modern novel, which appears in England during the the 18th Century. It was the satirical work of the painter and engraver William Hogarth that bridged the gap between image and novel and it was Hogarth who made a seminal contribution to a new narrative environment, enabling totally new forms of interaction between the image and the media of the modern era.

During the 19th Century, the new impulse given by Hogarth did not exceed the limits of a particular group of draughtsmen, the so-called humorist-illustrators who devote their immense visual culture to the mere goals of parody. Fascinated by the world of graffiti, children’s drawings and marginal productions, these artists were the very first to seize the opportunities given by the emerging media, schematized and combined by them in a spirit of irony. Since Rodolphe Töpffer, they also enjoyed themselves by criticizing the representations of the industrial world, which they questioned through their reuse of the naïve past of popular visual narratives. The comic strip will be the future emanation of these first experiments.

The Many Births of Comics proposes a new and fresh vision of what we thought we knew already. The book argues that instead of being a new medium that suddenly emerged at the turn of the century, the comic strip is indebted to a much older culture, that of the image to be read, a culture as old as that of the printed image. Seminal elements such as the speech balloon, the clear line and the visual storytelling are part of a genealogy that is much older and richer than event their authors themselves tended to believe. The initial dialogue of the comic strip with the experimental novel of the 18th Century as well as with the book culture of the romantic era, its long lasting cohabitation with the various kinds of illustrated press, its symbiosis with the world of the film, all these elements make the comics the potential workshop par excellence of today’s images.

Thierry Smolderen
Scriptwriter, theorist and Professor at the European School of Visual Arts, Thierry Smolderen is one of today’s top experts in the history of the comic. He has published numerous articles in French magazines (such as 9e Art) as well as American publications (such as Comic Art). The new theoretical foundations on which his research is based on have allowed him to reveal fascinating documents, which until now were unknown. Among his graphic novel plots, one can point out the imagined biography of McCay (illustrated by J-P. Bramanti, Delcourt publications), and the Ghost Money series (illustrated by D. Bertail, Dargaud publications).

CFP: Love and Sex in the Films and Graphic Novels of Alan Moore (11/1/09; 11/11-14/10)

Thanks to Charles Hatfield for the tip!

Call for Papers
Love and Sex in
the Films and Graphic Novels
of Alan Moore
2010 Film & History Conference:
Representations of Love in Film and Television
November 11-14, 2010
Hyatt Regency Milwaukee
www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory
Second Round Deadline: November 1, 2009

Alan Moore has a love-hate relationship with the film industry, yet films based on his work proliferate: From Hell (2001), V for Vendetta (2005), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), and Watchmen (2009). Sex and (possibly) love abound in Moore's novels and in the films grounded, to some extent, in his writing. In V for Vendetta, Moore juxtaposes the love of the computerized state with the more transient love of men and women. In V for Vendetta, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Watchmen, he poses difficult questions about the nature of (super)heroic love for others, and for democracy, nation, and empire. Throughout his work, Moore is attuned to issues of representation, and to how representation demarcates the reality of those who are "loved."

Moore may be the exemplary postmodern graphic novelist, and "his" films are well worth considering for what they say about our particular historical moment, and in *this* particular moment, what they say about various manifestations of love.

This area is open to any paper or panel proposal which examines the representation of love, sex, and ethical relations in any work influenced by, or authored by Moore. Possible topics might include:

• Anarchy as love
• Love, sex, and postcoloniality
• Victorian love
• Postmodern pastiche as a form of love-making
• Love in (loving) the state--fascist love
• Love and the body
• Love in adaptation
• Representing love in film versus sequential art
• Representation and the limits of love
• Loving one another: Thomas Pynchon and Alan Moore
• Freedom as love
• God and (as?) love
• Exposure as love
• Inoperative communities and love

Please send your 200-word proposal by email to the area chair:

Todd Comer, Area Chair
Defiance College
701 North Clinton Street
Defiance OH 43512
Email: tcomer@defiance.edu (email submissions preferred)

Panel proposals for up to four presenters are also welcome, but each presenter must submit his or her own paper proposal. For updates and registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website (www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory).

Early Comics Published in Belgium: A New Blog by Pascal Lefèvre

Internationally regarded comics scholar/historian (and friend) Pascal Lefèvre has announced his new blog. I'll let him describe it, from his initial posting:

This is my research blog on Early Comics published in Belgium before Hergé's Tintin (1929). I've been browsing through Belgian periodicals and popular prints for the last five years and found already scores of examples, but most of them are reprints and translations from abroad. So, this blog will be mainly about early comics from an international perspective. I'm hoping to share parts of my research and foster some dialogue with other researchers. I've lots of plans, various articles are waiting to be published (see [the complete blog post] for former and projected publications). By the end of this year I'll put up also a website about my research.

I became a fan of Pascal's work even before I had the pleasure of meeting him, upon discovering his book (with Jan Baetens) Pour une lecture moderne de la Bande Dessinée in the bookstore of the Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinée [Belgian Comic Strip Center] in Brussels. I await his next post with great anticipation!

Image Credit: Dr. Lefèvre's Academia.edu page.

"Reading Pictures, Burning Comics": Sept. 25 at Columbia University

This event was announced today on SHARP-L, the discussion list for the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing. I'm very pleased to see a topic on comics as part of this distinguished lecture series!

Reading Pictures, Burning Comics:
New Perspectives on the History of Graphic Narrative

Panel discussion with:
David Berona, Plymouth State University
David Hajdu, Columbia University
Mike Kelly, New York University

September 25
Columbia University
523 Butler Library, 5:30-7 pm

The publication of two recent books -- Berona's Wordless Books [our info] (2008) and Hajdu's Ten-Cent Plague [our info] (2008) -- inspired this panel discussion. Moderator, comics scholar, and rare book curator Mike Kelly will lead a discussion with Berona and Hajdu on current scholarship, historical perspectives, and a consideration of the place wordless books, graphic novels, and comics hold in both contemporary culture and the History of the Book.

Inquiries to: Gerald W. Cloud, Librarian for Reference and Research, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University Libraries, 535 West 114th Street, New York, NY 10027. (Ph): 212-854-8481

WIRED 15.11: Manga, Manga and More Manga

The November 2007 issue of WIRED magazine has a bunch of manga-related content, with on-line extras as well. Here are direct links to what's at the website:

• Japan, Ink: Inside the Manga Industrial Complex
• Manga Does Shakespeare
• How Manga Conquered the U.S., a Graphic Guide to Japan's Coolest Export
• This Is Your Brain on Manga
• Manga 101: Enroll Now
  

Of particular interest is How Manga Conquered the U.S., a ten-page article from the magazine, told using manga itself. The web page offers a flash-enabled version - a bit small, although it does include a "magnify" feature. They also offer a downloadable PDF (1.9 MB), which I find easier to read. Hint: Choose "Facing" page layout from the View menu in Acrobat to see the pages side-by-side. You'll need to jump to the end of the document first, as the article's done in the Japanese right-to-left format. And don't miss Manga 101, an interactive info source on manga, including a timeline, frequently asked questions, a short glossary, and more.

If you're interested in manga, be sure to take a look at the magazine. (I've let my subscription to WIRED lapse, sigh, so I'll need to pick up this issue soon.) And don't forget ComicsResearch.org's own manga information!

(Thanks to this BoingBoing post by Cory Doctorow for pointing out the PDF.)

Black Ink Monday

The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists has declared today "Black Ink Monday":

Over the last 20 years, the number of cartoonists on the staff of daily newspapers nationwide has been cut in half. In the last month alone, the Tribune Company (owner of the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and a half-dozen other prominent papers), has forced out well-known and award-winning cartoonists at the LA Times and Baltimore Sun, eliminating their positions entirely. [...]
In an open letter to Tribune CEO Dennis FitzSimons, AAEC President Clay Bennett recently wrote: "There are few journalists in a newsroom who can define the tone and identity of a publication like an editorial cartoonist does. By discarding those who make a newspaper unique, you rob it of its character. By robbing a newspaper of its character, you steal its spirit."

You can view 100 editorial cartoon protests at this page of the AAEC website.

Why should you care about this? Some might put it this way: "It's the First Ammendment, Stupid." Others might note that this "downsizing" trend is happening throughout America; as corporations continue their absorptions, mergers and monoplies, lining their CEOs' pockets by demandinge more work from fewer workers for less cash, the next position to be eliminated could be your own. Still others might take an historical approach, noting that editorial cartooning played an important role in the founding of this very country:


That, of course, is Benjamin Franklin's famous "Join, or Die" cartoon from the May 9, 1754 edition of Franklin's newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette. It's considered the first editorial cartoon in what would eventually become the United States. By trampling on the editorial cartoon tradition, the Tribune Comany tramples on a fundamental piece of what makes America, America.

Here's a story about the recent acquisition of an original print of this cartoon by none other than Steve Geppi, President and Chief Executive Officer of Diamond Comic Distributors. Insert your own joke about monopolization here...

Update: Curiously, there's nary a mention of Black Ink Monday in today's Houston Chronicle; after all the complaints I've heard in Houston about how "liberal" the Chronicle is, I was hoping to see some coverage. They didn't forget to include the Editorial Page's daily "Bible Verse," though. (Curiously, the Bible Verse seems to be just about the only portion of the paper not reproduced on its website. Hmmmm...)

Update Nummer Zwei: For more background on the reasons for Black Ink Monday - and to learn that editorial cartoonist Paul Revere understood the power of revision - check out this animated editorial cartoon by past AAEC President Milt Priggee. It takes a few minutes to watch/read, but it's worth it to get a sort of panoramic view of the current situation. And be sure also to read the enlightening essay "In Defense of Editorial Cartooning" by Chris Lamb (entry for December 9 at Daryl Cagle's blog). Thanks to the Ever-Amazing Elena Steier for telling Milt Priggee about the Blog Machine!