59th International Congress on Medieval Studies

10 May 2024, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, USA

Questioning Signifiers of Authenticity in Medieval Comics for Pedagogical Use

Part of the virtual workshop “Saving the Day at Kalamazoo: Finding Comics for Medievalist Research and Teaching,” sponsored by the Medieval Comics Project.

Two international conferences were held in Europe in 2022 (History in Comics, in Olomouc, Czech Republic) and 2023 (HistorioGRAPHICS, in Munich, Germany) focusing on history in comics. The interdisciplinary discussion often returned to the topic of the role that assertions of authority and authenticity play in the promotion and evaluation of these comics. Wiebke Weber and Hans Martin Rall describe this strategy of “documentary evidence” is an authentication strategy used by documentary or journalistic comics (2017: 389), and can be seen in the inclusion of museum artefacts, real archeological or historical sites, and typical presumptions of the ‘real’ Middle Ages as dirty, violent, and backwards. While an emphasis on authority and authenticity appear on the backs of comic book covers and dominate the visual plane of the narrative, there are few clear guidelines for how to interpret these claims. My earlier research has led to the creation of a rubric for analyzing the visual plane of non-fiction, academic, or documentary comics, which can be adapted to comics which insist on their historical veracity. When focused on the text alone, many analyses fall short of capturing the signifiers of historicity in the illustrations, which so often imply the authenticity and authority which leads teachers to recommend these comics for their classrooms. I will present the modified rubric, and a clear list of common signifiers of authenticity and authority which appear on the visual plane. I would like to provide a clear and applicable framework for busy educators, so they can more efficiently evaluate a comic and prepare how to present it to students so the modern medievalisms are not smuggled in with the claims of absolute accuracy. Comics set in the Middle Ages or adapted from medieval texts certainly have a place in the classroom; they are moreover an opportunity to teach how ideas about history are produced and how these are interwoven with popular culture.

Third International Conference of the journal “Scuola Democratica”

June 3-4-5-6, 2024, University of Cagliari, Italy

Considering the Publication Cycle of Research Comics

Part of the panel “The comicization of academic knowledge: the sequential and invisible artification of science?” Hopefully some publications coming out of this paper in the future!

This paper addresses the practical considerations which are created when comics-formatted research is included in the academic publishing cycle. The author has recently published two articles on the topic, “The Graphic ‘I’” (Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society, 2023), and “Rubric and Metrics for Peer Reviewing Research Comics”(The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship, 2023), has organized a conference and several workshops related to the topic, and is currently acting as a guest editor at The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, co-curating as special issue focused on research comics (expected to be published in 2025). In the current state of the field, it is increasingly urgent to clearly and directly examine practices governing the creation, editing, and distribution of research comics, in order to make a concerted effort to move towards best practice. From the perspectives of a creator of research comics, an editor of research comics, and a scholar reflecting on the practice in the field this paper will outline both the pitfalls and examples of best practice for: submission guidelines in calls for papers, editing workflows, peer review workflows, publication and printing formatting, publisher limits, dissemination of research in comics format, and, finally, reception of research in comics format. Issues related to the particularities of research ethics in comics-based research methods will also be outlined, as illustrations become sensitive in the data collection phase, the write up phase, and the peer review and publishing phases. Examples of current practice are drawn from the work of Neil Cohn, Eszter Szep, Lydia Wysocki, Patrick Murphy, John Swogger, Stuart Medley, Paul Fisher Davies, Nick Sousanis, Marcus Weaver-Hightower, Rachel Marie-Crane Williams, Bruce Mutard, Kay Sohini, and others. Examples of editorial practice are drawn from fully or partly anglophone journals, including Studies in Comics, Inks, The Comics Grid, The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, ImageText, European Comics Studies, and others. In addition to offering examples of current best practice, this paper will aim to highlight which parts of the process are perhaps in greatest need of debate and reflection, in the hopes of generating fruitful discussion for both this conference and beyond.

The Fifteenth Annual International Graphic Novel and Comics Conference
Comics and Technologies

10-12 July 2024, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

Soundscapes that flash forward, flash back

Part of the panel ““Beep-ksssshhhhhhk-vrooop: Sounds of the Future”

Does the sight of a loudspeaker blaring over a barbed-wire fence raise your hackles, even when set on one of Jupiter’s moons? How many laser blasts before the page becomes deafeningly reminiscent of trench warfare? How many frames of clip-clop-ing horse hooves are needed to emphasize that the home planet was charming and rustic? By looking at the staging of soundscapes in sci-fi and futuristic comics, I would like to outline a possible methodology to bridge sound studies and memory studies with comics-based research.

This paper will combine Ian Hague’s framework for describing sound phenomena, Geraint D’Arcy’s conception of mise-en-scene in comics to structure the staging the soundscape on the page, and it will contextualize the soundscape into the existing practices of sound in cultural memory, building on the work of Karin Bijsterveld and Carolyn Birdsall. I will look at how comics set in a futuristic storyworld draw upon received practices of visualization already established in the storytelling of history to create soundscapes which echo medieval and 20th century warfare, urban and rural settings, and landscapes. This is not to argue that comics imagining the future lack originality; rather, by utilizing the shorthand indicators of established soundscapes, futuristic comics can more readily present an atmosphere which is immediately accessible and readable. In this way, the truely innovative, new vrooooops of the storyworld stand out with dazzling strangeness, buttressed by the well-known and remembered. This paper utilizes examples from series such as Promethea, Judge Dredd, The Incal, Bitch Planet and The Mercenary to demonstrate a range of soundscapes which reach to the past to represent a sci-fi alternative present or future.

Comics and Film: an Uncanny Relationship

August 23, 2024, FAMU, Prague, Czech Republic

Staging historicised space in films and comics – case study of Poe

This paper proposes not a comparison but a contextualization of adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Mask of Red Death and The Pit and the Pendulum into comics and film particularly in the 1960s, as a wave of medievalism was rising in popular culture. Though an examination of the staging of affect, bridging the shared vocabulary of ‘mise-en-scene’ as it appears in both comics studies and film studies, this paper will consider how pacing, color, sound, and frame or panel composition are employed to express the historic tone of the narrative. Contrary to the assumption that comics are mere storyboard adaptation of films, this paper will highlight the Corman-Poe film cycle and comics from the same time period to outline comics-specific innovations. Both media employ different strategies to visualize the historic atmosphere key to the narrative.

Geraint D’Arcy’s concept of the mise-en-scene translated to comics studies (2020) will provide the theoretical anchor for this juxtaposition, while the methodological approach to affect will be drawn from the pathic aesthetics of Tonino Griffero (2019). Mieke Bal’s approach to cultural analysis (2012) will lead the way to consider not just the historic text but the historicization of the mise-en-scene in film and comics, with sensitivity to their status as products of popular culture and mass consumption. The specific historicization seen in these adaptations of Poe draw heavily on concepts of medievalism, which will be examined through the work of Nicholas Haydock on medievalism in film (2008) and David Matthew’s history of medievalism in popular culture (2015).