CFP: The Graphic Novels and Comics Conference - MMU, UK, July 2011 [23.08.2010]
The Graphic Novels and Comics Conference
Manchester Metropolitan University: 5th and 6th July 2011
Audiences and Readership / Space and Time
Audiences and Readership
At the Graphic Novels and Comics Conference 2010, a major issue identified by the plenary panel as crucial for future directions regarding comics research was that of audiences and readership. Martin Barker, who pioneered and championed comics research when it was unfashionable reinforced this issue when reviewing the conference in the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics noting, ‘it is striking to me…that no-one is currently following through to ask any of the questions we can and should, about readers, collectors, reviewers, circuits of reception, or even the longer-term shifting public status of comics.’ Whilst there has been some excellent work researching comics audiences and readership, this is currently, as Martin suggests, a largely neglected area. In summarising work in this area, Barker’s works on ideology (1989), readers (1993, 1997) and censorship (1984) examine the ways audiences consume such texts. Gibson’s work on female comics readers (2003a &b) demonstrates the ways comics influence identity construction and the transgressive reading practices of some female fans. She has also written on historical children’s comic collecting in Britain (2008) and tentatively begun work on British manga audiences (2007). In addition, Wright’s work on the development of the comics industry and distribution practices shows how audiences are influenced by but also influence comics creation and production (2001). However, as Martin suggested there is scope for many more sustained explorations of comics audiences and readership.
The aim of this conference, therefore, is to open up debates in comics audiences and readership. A longer term aim is to produce a special themed issue of The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics on these topics. Accordingly we are looking for papers in (but not confined to) the following areas surrounding audiences and readership:
Fandom, niche markets and subcultures
• Gendered identities (fanboys, women comics readers, encoded readership, manga readership)
• Subcultural reception and consumption – e.g. fractured identities, responses and poaching of specific texts, slash, cosplay, comicons
• Comics shops and their clientele
• Online comics production and production
• Comics collecting and collections
• Children, childhood and comics
• Library collections
Censorship
• Children perceived as a problematic audience
• Moral panics (e.g. horror comics, underground comics such as the work of Crumb)
• Specific case studies – e.g. Mike Diana and the Boiled Angel case
• National and local collection policies for library and other collections
Globalization, localities
• Hybrid identities
• Relationship between dominant Americanised texts vs localised texts
• Localities and small press comics production
• Subcultures on the internet
• Local responses to global texts
Readership
• Embodied readership
• Encoded readership and negotiated identities
• Reading practices
We are also interested in papers on research methods and theories in audiences and readership including:
• Assessing the effectiveness of qualitative and quantitative methods (focus groups, interview methods, snowballing, internet rhetoric, etc)
• Ideological, rhetorical, discursive analytical methods
• Reception theory – e.g. encoding/decoding
Space and Time
Comics’ flexible use of space and time allow for a wide range of creative approaches to storytelling. In accordance with Studies in Comics’ pursuit of articulating a specific theory of comics, we also invite papers that discuss the representation of space and time in non-European comics. The aim of this is to enhance the conference themes by including papers that fall outside the remit of the Bande Dessinée conference days, and to publish selected papers in a future issue of Studies in Comics.
Accordingly we also welcome papers in (but not confined to) the following areas:
• Uses of sequential or panoramic panels
• Distortion or manipulation of time
• Critiques of narratological approaches
• Representations of the past and future
• Methods of capturing the present
• Temporality and science fiction influences
• Aesthetics and the depiction of space
• Philosophical or scientific approaches to temporality and spatiality in comics
Please send abstracts of 250 words to comicsconference@gmail.com to reach us by December 1st 2010. Proposals for panels are also welcomed. Please indicate in the heading of your email whether your submission deals with “AUDIENCE” or “SIC-SPACE/TIME”.
Bibliography
Martin Barker, (1989) Comics: Ideology, Power and the Critics. Manchester University Press.
Martin Barker, (1984) A Haunt of Fears: The Strange History of the British Horror Comics Campaign. London: Pluto Press.
Martin Barker, (1993) Seeing how you can see: On being a fan of 2000AD. In: Buckingham, D. (ed.) Reading Audiences: Young People and the Media, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 160-180.
Martin Barker, (1997) Taking an extreme case: Understanding a Fascist fan of Judge Dredd. In: Cartmell, D., Hunter I.Q., Kaye, H. & Whelehan, I. (eds.) Trash Aesthetics: Popular Culture and its Audience, London: Pluto Press, pp. 14-30.
David Buckingham (ed) (1993) Reading Audiences: Young People and the Media. Manchester & New York: Manchester University Press
Mel Gibson (2007) ‘“What is this mango, anyway?” Manga and younger readers in Ireland and Britain’. INIS. The magazine of Children’s Books Ireland, Dublin: CBI.
Mel Gibson (2003a) ‘'You can’t read them, they’re for boys!’ British Girls, American Superhero Comics and Identity'. International Journal of Comic Art Vol.5. No.1. Spring.
Mel Gibson (2003b) ‘What became of Bunty?’ The emergence, evolution and disappearance of the girls' comic in post-war Britain. In Bearne, E. and Styles, M. (eds.) Art, Narrative & Childhood. Trentham Books.
Mel Gibson (2008) What you read and where you read it, how you get it, how you keep it: Children, comics and historical cultural practice. Popular Narrative Media, Volume 1, Issue 2, Autumn 2008, pp 151-167
Angela McRobbie (1991) Feminism and Youth Culture: From Jackie to Just Seventeen, London: Macmillan.
Nyberg, A. K. (1998) Seal of Approval: The History of the Comics Code. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Pustz, Matthew J. (1999) Comic Book Culture: Fanboys and True Believers. University Press of Mississippi
Spigel, Lynn. (1993) Seducing the Innocent. In: Solomon, W.S. & McChesney, R.W. (eds.) Ruthless Criticism: New Perspectives in U.S. Communications History, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 264-265.
Frederick Wertham. (1954) The Seduction of the Innocent. New York: Rinehart.
Bradford W Wright (2001) Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press.
