ImageTexT posts news and updates relevant to our issues, CFPs, and the comics program at UF. We also publish CFPs, event announcements, and book notices of interest to the comics studies community.To stay updated, subscribe to an RSS feed (learn about RSS), or sign up to receive announcements by email. To see your announcement here, please contact us.
From the Sequential Artists Workshop:
SAW (The Sequential Artists Workshop) is accepting applications for its single-year intensive program, perfect for serious students of comic book storytelling and sequential art. Whether your interest is personal stories, graphic novels, or genre comics or whether your concern is for entertainment, literary depth, or personal expression, then our program is for you.
An announcement from SAW, the Sequential Artists Workshop:
John Porcellino's Workshop is up and running and we're already making arrangements for our attendees. The early-bird price of $250 will go up at the end of the year, so get in now. See more info on the SAW website, here, or just sign up, here
For attendees, we have a separate message:
The following is an announcement by the Sequential Artists Workshop:
New classes in January
Announcing a brief 5-week introductory Comics Workshop Class for Adults
Jan 12-Feb 16 (we'll skip Jan 26 to visit Gene Yang at the Alachua County Library.)
We'll try to cover everything (see below) but what we don't cover we'll offer in later, more intensive adult classes, beginning in April.
Go to http://www.sequentialartistsworkshop.org/classes/ to register using PayPal, or email us about other methods.
A teen class starting Jan 7 will begin at The Doris Center in Gainesville.
ImageTexT is currently seeking submissions for a special issue on Shakespeare and Visual Rhetoric, to be released in Fall 2012. The issue will be guest edited by Richard Burt (Medieval and Early Modern Film and Media, Unspeakable Shaxxxspeares) and co-edited by ImageTexT production editor, Katherine Shaeffer.
The works of William Shakespeare comprise one of the most widely (and consistently) revised, adapted, rewritten and reappropriated bodies of writing by a single author in the world. ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies seeks to take advantage of this figure's continual prominence in popular media by examining the visual heritage of Shakespeare from a perspective which prioritizes the association of word with image. In 2012, ImageTexT will be producing a special issue devoted to investigating the intersection between Shakespeare and visual rhetoric. The analysis of comics based on Shakespeare's work will of course be welcome in this issue, but we are also looking for articles that expand the thinking of the word/image relationship beyond the comic book.
Publisher Mohawk Media has today released a graphic novel featuring all-new action hero, Tough Guy.
The British team of writer Chris Bunting and artist Steve Beckett is joined by American art legend Herb Trimpe.
Writer Chris Bunting says: "The comic book world was in dire need of a true all-ages character. Enter Tough Guy. While he has to contend with a modern threat in the form of a terrorist organisation, he still has one foot in the past, when comic books were more concerned with entertaining than being edgy.
"There isn't an artist more qualified to illustrate the cover than Herb Trimpe, whose art has graced some of the most entertaining comic books. Like the eponymous character, Herb Trimpe's art pulls no punches."
The scholarship surrounding comics and graphic novels has proliferated over the past several years, as has studies focusing on particular comics themes or visual texts created by certain ethnic communities. In light of these convergent fields of inquiry, I am pulling together a diverse edited collection of essays devoted to comics and Jewishness. The scope of this book will take in the theoretical, literary, and socio-historical contexts of comics and its links to Jewish identity, history, and discourse. This will be an expansion of the "Jewish Comics" special issue of Shofar that was published in Winter 2011 (vol. 29, no. 2).
I am particularly interested in essays that focus on writers and topics that have received little or no coverage in the scholarship.
“I love you, but why must you love the law? 'Tis plain for all to see that she's a whore...that virtuous persons have no need to woo; that villains screw, then studiously ignore.”
-Alan Moore, V for Vendetta
Comics and graphic novels are gripped by issues of law, legality, order, and justice. However legal scholarship, even in the emerging field of law and popular culture, has yet to return the obsession, studiously ignoring the insight and opportunity comics provide for illuminating, developing, and critiquing law. The goal of Volume 16 of Law Text Culture will be to rectify this villainous oversight.
UF Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels
In any crisis, whether economic or cultural, there is a sense of an unimaginable danger right around the corner. These unknown and unfathomable terrors fascinate the imagination and dramatically play out our anxieties in a more cognitively relatable form—we attempt to embody them, to transplant them, or to make them somehow tangible—yet the underlying terror persists. The narratives and mediums we channel our terrors into become our monsters.
In the midst of the first true economic crisis of the 21st century, we return to these sites with renewed curiosity. How can we depict the sublime terror of our anxieties? How can we convey our unabashed horror through image and text, and communicate those feelings? Why do we keep trying to re-imagine the same monstrous templates, especially when the tools of a craft are perpetually unable to represent the unimaginable?
The 9th University of Florida Comics Conference hopes to address these issues by welcoming any and all explorations into the representation of monsters in a visual/textual form. We are especially interested in how text augments the imaginative image (or vice versa) and approaches horror in ways that help the conscious mind endure and (hopefully) resolve the trauma that the unknown antagonizes within us. From traditional genres to new horizons of horror, we seek to examine the monsters of media and attempt to understand how the medium influences the message.
Occupy Comics is a new initiative combining comic art with activism in support of the "99%".
Occupy Wall Street has inspired Occupy Comics, a movement designed to support the occupiers through the creation of comic books. The digital and print runs of Occupy Comics will be funded by donations (the project is accpting pledges now), and all of the creators and executives responsible for the comic's creation will be, in turn, donating their proceeds to the Wall Street occupiers. For more information, including details on publishing, distribution and donation, see the project's page on kickstarter.
9 November 2011, Gainesville FL
ImageTexT Interdisciplinary Comics Scholarship Journal hereby announces the release of its latest issue, volume 6 number 1. It, along with our archive of back-issues, can be accessed from our main page at http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/.
Issue 6.1 is ImageTexT’s first general issue since the winter of 2010. We are proud to present five feature articles:
Jim Kakalios, the author of The Physics of Superheroes, will be giving a talk on November 17 in the Physics department at 4:00pm in room 2002 of the New Physics Building (2002 NPB).
SAW, or the Sequential Artists Workshop, has made the following announcements:
John Porcellino Workshop
Dreams, Visions and Inspiration: A Week-Long Intensive with John Porcellino
March 5-9, 2012
John Porcellino will guide students in this 5-day workshop from blank page to completing their own mini-comic. In this week-long workshop, students will work with John from morning to evening, creating small works that they will then publish on Friday. Students will learn how John works, plans, looks to his sketches and notes for ideas and his vast stores of culture, art and nature for inspiration. March 5-9, 2012, at SAW.
Single-Year Intensive Program Announced
SAW is looking for serious students of comic book storytelling and sequential art. Whether your interest is personal stories, graphic novels, or genre comics or whether your concern is for entertainment, literary depth, or personal expression, then our program is for you. We have taught comics to illustration students and writers and English teachers, fine arts students, truck drivers, museum guards, scriptwriters, graphic designers, etc. In short, if you have passion and a dedication to learning sequential art, then the SAW single-year intensive is for you. Our single-year program is designed to challenge students both technically and intellectually. Single-year students will learn the basics of cartooning and narrative art. As they gain skills and craft from our faculty, we will also challenge and guide them into new ideas and solutions that will turn them into artists. All students will create a final publication of their own.
More information on the SAW website, hereGeekGirlCon is a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness of and engaging in dialogue about the contributions of girls and women in the sciences, science fiction, comics, gaming, blogging, and related Geek culture. Their first annual convention will be held in Seattle on 8 and 9 October 2011 at the Seattle Center Northwest Rooms.
In keeping with the themes of the con, this panel will examine where we’ve been, how far we’ve come, and how much further we have yet to go in terms of feminist representation in Geek culture. The panel co-opts the Serenity catchphrase "can’t stop the signal" to represent the breadth of geek girl presence as well as the fact that we are no longer willing to let our voices go unheard.
ImageTexT is currently seeking reviewers for the following new book titles:
ImageTexT is also seeking reviewers for the following less recent titles:
ImageTexT recently received the following letter from the founders of The Sequential Artists Workshop, a new comix art school that will be located in Gainesville, Florida. We are very excited about this project, and decided to cross-post the Workshop's announcement here. The letter itself follows:
Dear colleagues, students, and friends,
If you haven't yet heard about The Sequential Artists Workshop or SAW, our soon-to-be comix art school in Gainesvile, Florida, we want to tell you about it now, and also thank those who have contributed to our fundraiser at http://www.indiegogo.com/Creating-The-Sequential-Artists-Workshop
(July 1 – July 4, Los Angeles, CA)
DEADLINE: May 20, 2011
The continuing popularizing of Japanese comics and animation outside Japan has been a topic of interest to scholars across a wide range of disciplines, fields and approaches. However, much of the English-language research and writing on anime and manga has taken place on an ad-hoc basis, and until recently, there has been relatively little sense of a persistent community of anime/manga scholars.
Capitalizing on the growing prominence of scholarly approaches to Japanese popular culture, Anime Expo, the largest and most popular gathering for fans of Japanese visual culture in the U.S. will be hosting a track of themed sessions exploring how anime and manga can have a place in scholarly discussion. AX 2011 will be held from July 1 to July 4 at the Los Angeles Convention Center (Los Angeles, CA).
On behalf of Donald Ault and the Editorial Staff of ImageTexT, I am pleased to announce that ImageTexT Volume 5, Issue 4 is now available: http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archives/v5_4/
This specual issue of ImageTexT, "Alan Moore and Adaptation" is edited by Rex Krueger and Katherine Shaeffer. The issue interrogates the relationship of Alan Moore's acclaimed work in comics to the process of adaptation. It seeks to explore not only how Moore's comics have been adapted, but how Moore's comics frequently function as adaptation in their own right.
"Alan Moore and Adaptation" features articles by Colin Beineke, Megan A.Condis, Vyshali Manivannan, Paul Petrovic and Jack Teiwes, as well as reviews by Eric L. Berlatsky, Ellen Grabiner, Mervi Miettinen, Laura Perna, Matthew Pustz, Caleb Simmons and Anastasia Ulanowicz.
ImageTexT is currently seeking reviewers for the following new book titles:
May 4-6, University of Toronto
Human beings often display worlds to others in performances that engage and generate images. The spectacle of performance leads to many kinds of reflection - from performativity to epistemology, from theories of history to literary and aesthetic theory, from cultural criticism to palaeography. It extends ultimately to examining the role of reflection (speculation) and criticism of images and their worlds.
We are again soliciting papers on a wide range of issues that fall generally under the rubric of "image and spectacle". The focus of the New Narrative has been graphic novels, comic art, and related visual media; but we also welcome papers from a variety of fields: English, Philosophy, History, Art, Film, Cultural Studies, and Political Science (among others).
The following is from a promotional flyer for SANE journal: sequential art narrative in education:
SANE journal: sequential art narrative in education (ISSN 2153-2613) seeks research, essays, articles, reviews and rationales for teaching comics, comix, graphica, graphia, sequential art narrative – whatever you want to call images in sequence used to tell a story! If you use comics in your classroom, k-graduate school, or research the intersections of comics and literacy, we want to help you publish your work.
Guest Editors, Christopher Gonzalez and Derek Parker Royal
For nearly thirty years the Hernandez brothers (Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario) have created comics that have expanded beyond superhero and sci-fi, bringing so-called "alternative" comics to the fore. Their fictive worlds are as sprawling and complex as Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County, and more scholars are beginning to take a closer look at their comics, specifically Love and Rockets. In keeping with this interest, ImageTexT will devote a special issue to the works of the Hernandez Brothers.
Update: Deadline extended to July 9, 2010.
The Purdue Comparative Literature Program presents the 2010 Conference
Graphic Engagement: The Politics of Comics and Animation
Purdue University · West Lafayette, IN
September 2-4, 2010
The Purdue University Comparative Literature Program welcomes papers that explore the ways in which comics and film animation engage us politically and profoundly influence the way we define gender, race, religion, class, and nationhood. "Political" can be defined broadly, relating not only to affairs of state, but also the praxis of visual narrative and ways it affects individual identity and community dynamics.
Update: Submission deadline extended to July 31, 2010
Editors: Heinz Insu Fenkl and Stephanie Boluk
Abstract deadline: July 31, 2010
This is an important and timely special issue of ImageTexT, particularly given the current political and economic conditions in the DPRK.
ImageTexT is currently seeking reviewers for the following new book titles:
On behalf of Donald Ault and the Editorial Staff of ImageTexT, I am pleased to announce that ImageTexT Volume 5, Issue 2 is now available: http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archives/v5_2/
This specual issue of ImageTexT, "Anime and Utopia" is edited by Phillip E. Wegner. The issue gathers perspectives from the fields of comics and visual rhetoric and utopian studies in order to interrogate significant works of Japanese anime. "Anime and Utopia" features articles by Matthew Stoddard, Anthony Lioi, Phillip E. Wegner and John Leavey and reviews by Megan Condis, Tania Darlington and Tof Eklund.
ImageTexT is currently seeking reviewers for the following new book titles:
The 2010 annual University of Florida Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels, "ImageNext: Visions Past and Future," will be held on March 26th and 27th.
For nearly thirty years the Hernandez brothers (Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario) have created comics that have expanded beyond superhero and sci-fi, bringing so-called “alternative” comics to the fore. Their fictive worlds are as sprawling and complex as Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, and more scholars are beginning to take a closer look at their comics, specifically Love and Rockets. In keeping with this interest, ImageTexT will devote a special issue to the works of the Hernandez Brothers. This volume will seek to explore a multitude of theoretical perspectives that may further illuminate the brothers’ oeuvre.
Deadline for submissions: April 1st, 2010
ImageTexT is still accepting submissions for an an upcoming special issue on the work of Alan Moore and adaptation.
Throughout his career, Moore has displayed a willingness to adapt and appropriate the plots, characters, settings, and themes from traditional narratives and the works of other authors into his own writing. Additionally, Moore's work itself continues to be the focus of adaptation, typically in the form of big-budget Hollywood films. We are seeking articles that deal with the work of Alan Moore and adaptation in any and every sense, whether that means analyzing the transitions of comics like Watchmen and V for Vendetta into film or analyzing the incorporation of folk tale and literature elements in works like Lost Girls and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
The Purdue Comparative Literature Program presents the 2010 Conference, Graphic Engagement: The Politics of Comics and Animation
Purdue University – West Lafayette, IN
September 2-4, 2010
Comics and film animation are potent media that can have an effect far different from that of more traditional forms of literature. They are composite texts whose mixtures of image, word, and sound offer a more immediate exchange between author(s) and audience, where the visuals directly confront us and demand a reader response in ways that prose narrative does not. The resulting effects can have profound ideological consequences. Either in the form of a comics memoir, a Disney adaptation, a superhero saga, or a single-panel cartoon, graphic narratives shape the way we frame ourselves in terms of gender, race, religion, class, and nationhood.
University of Copenhagen, Denmark, 21 May 2010
This academic conference is presented in collaboration with Copenhagen's comics biennial, the international comics festival komiks.dk in Øksnehallen, Copenhagen, 22-23 May.
As an independent part of the festival's programme, it aims to present the status of international research in contemporary comics both to an academic and a general audience, and will form part of a broader range of programming in the city in the days surrounding the festival, celebrating comics and comics culture.
ImageTexT is currently seeking reviewers for the following new book titles:
In his 1976 essay 'Science Fiction and Allied Literature,' David Ketterer wrote 'it is rather surprising that the considerable affinity which exists between Surrealism and SF has not attracted more attention.' This observation was repeated in 1997 by Roger Bozzetto and Arthur B. Evans, who lamented that the relations between Surrealism and science fiction 'continue to be largely unexplored in SF scholarship,' and that 'there currently exists no in-depth study of SF and Surrealism.' The points of contact and areas of overlap, along with the influences, differences, and antagonisms that lie between Surrealism, science fiction, and the related literature of the comic book will be explored in this conference to be held 22 January 2011 at The Courtauld Institute of Art, London.
On behalf of Donald Ault and the Editorial Staff of ImageTexT, I am pleased to announce that ImageTexT Volume 5, Issue 1 is now available.
This General Issue features articles from Juda Bennett and Cassandra Jackson, Brandy Ball Blake, Frank Bramlett, Theo Finigan, DT Kofoed, Aaron Mauro and Benjamin Stevens, and a review by Terry Harpold.
17th June 2010
School of Advanced Study, Institute of English
Studies, University of London
Confirmed keynote lectures by
Paul Gravett and Marc Zaffran
This one-day interdisciplinary conference aims to explore medical narrative in graphic novels and comics.
Futures of Digital Studies 2010
University of Florida, February 25-27
The conference is meant to bring in conversation digital artists and digital theorists.
Beside conference panels scheduled on Thursday and Friday February 25-26, a round table videoconference featuring transnational connections with renowned scholars from US, Canada and Europe (Katherine Hayles, Nick Montfort, Lev Manovich, Jerome McGann, Matthew Kirschnbaum, Arthur Kroker, Rita Raley and others) is scheduled on Saturday, February 27th at the Digital Worlds Institute to discuss the future developments of the field both on the theoretical and institutional level.
Multi-Disciplinary Postgraduate Symposium hosted by the Department of English & Creative Writing, Lancaster University
12th June 2010
Keynote Speakers: Professor Terry Eagleton, of Lancaster University and Andy Diggle (AndyDiggle.com), comic-book writer and former editor of 2000 AD.
Featuring art installations by Christine Dawson
Call for Papers:
Visual and multi-modal texts are an integral element of both popular and literary culture, contemporary and past. This conference invites papers which engage with the notion of text and image, through, for example critical examination of graphic novels, television, film, illustrated texts or adaptations.
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).
ImageTexT is pleased to announce an upcoming special issue on the work of Alan Moore and adaptation. Throughout his career, Moore has displayed a willingness to adapt and appropriate the plots, characters, settings, and themes from traditional narratives and the works of other authors into his own writing. Additionally, Moore's work itself continues to be the focus of adaptation, typically in the form of big-budget Hollywood films. We are seeking articles that deal with the work of Alan Moore and adaptation in any and every sense, whether that means analyzing the transitions of comics like Watchmen and V for Vendetta into film or analyzing the incorporation of folk tale and literature elements in works like Lost Girls and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS:
THE JOHN A. LENT SCHOLARSHIP IN COMICS STUDIES,
INTERNATIONAL COMICS ARTS FORUM
The International Comic Arts Forum (ICAF) is proud to announce once again the annual John A. Lent Scholarship competition. The Lent Scholarship, named for pioneering teacher and researcher Dr. John A. 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.)
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