In September 2017 Room 2084 was installed at London College of Communication (LCC) to display a s... more In September 2017 Room 2084 was installed at London College of Communication (LCC) to display a selection of objects from the personal archives and collections of staff and students in the Design School during the London Design Festival. The aim of this display was to examine the role such objects play in the research and practice of the school and how these relate to the collection policies of the institution’s archives and special collections. To this end ‘trials’ were held throughout the durations of the show where members of staff would ‘defend’ their objects to a ‘jury’ who would determine if the items were worthy of inclusion the institution’s own archive to become the focus of study in the future. Our paper offers a reflective evaluation of the value of performing to an audience, within an exhibition setting, an archive selection procedure based on criteria set by Schellenberg and Jenkinson. Our analysis was influenced by a number of interviews, post-event, with archivists an...
Some of the foundational texts of Comics Studies of the 1960s and 70s emerged from Art History, r... more Some of the foundational texts of Comics Studies of the 1960s and 70s emerged from Art History, registering the dramatic shifts that discipline itself underwent in this period, as traditional approaches in this field were challenged. Although subsequently the study of comics remained marginal to the discipline, recently there has been renewed interest in comics among art historians. At the same time, art historical methodologies have informed some recent comics scholarship (whether implicitly or explicitly), particularly that placing greater emphasis on the form’s graphic, material and aesthetic dimensions. This paper will re-examine the ‘hidden’ history of comics scholarship by art historians such as Pierre Couperie, Ernst Gombrich and David Kunzle, from the 1960s to the 1990s, which was informed both by traditions of stylistic analysis and iconology, and the emerging fields of cultural history and the social history of art. It will also map the contemporary engagement of comics scholars with issues of abstraction and formalism that draws on Modernist theory and the avant-gardes of the early 20th century. In conclusion, it will consider models for adopting art historical approaches in comics scholarship on the basis of existing academic work, and seek to provoke further exploration of comics from diverse art historical perspectives
In Number 7 (1976–1977) of the politically and socially engaged comix magazine Slow Death, Jaxon’... more In Number 7 (1976–1977) of the politically and socially engaged comix magazine Slow Death, Jaxon’s shocking story ‘Nits Make Lice’ explores the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, a brutal attack on a peaceful encampment of Cheyenne Indians by Colorado militia. Jaxon (pen name of artist Jack Jackson) depicts the events in detailed black-and-white images, not eschewing the explicit representation of (sexual) violence. The story conforms to the thematic and stylistic elements of the underground comix, but it also departs from the movement through its serious tone and realistically drawn images. In analysing this comic strip in Comic Books as History, Joseph Witek asks us if the truth can be too awful to be seen: ‘Is there an aesthetics of atrocity?’ (1989, 67). This chapter explores these ‘atrocity panels’ within the context of underground comix and the central tenets of Slow Death, demonstrating the balancing act that Jaxon is engaged in. It analyses how Jaxon frames the violent attack on t...
This book is part of a nuanced two-volume examination of the ways in which violence in comics is ... more This book is part of a nuanced two-volume examination of the ways in which violence in comics is presented in different texts, genres, cultures and contexts. Representing Acts of Violence in Comics raises questions about depiction and the act of showing violence, and discusses the ways in which individual moments of violence develop, and are both represented and embodied in comics and graphic novels. Contributors consider the impact of gendered and sexual violence, and examine the ways in which violent acts can be rendered palatable (for example through humour) but also how comics can represent trauma and long lasting repercussions for both perpetrators and victims. This will be a key text and essential reference for scholars and students at all levels in Comics Studies, and Cultural and Media Studies more generally.
This overview compares and contrasts the development of critical discourses, in French and Englis... more This overview compares and contrasts the development of critical discourses, in French and English, concerning the origins of the formal aspects of comic books in earlier artistic practices. The key texts examined here show how art-historical approaches towards the study of comic books developed in the 1960s in France and in the 1970s in the English-speaking world. Central to any evaluation of art-historical approaches to the study of comic books are the two volumes of David Kunzle’s The History of the Comic Strip, published in 1973 and 1990 respectively, which still stand out as the most substantial body of scholarship on the emergence of the form in any language. The concluding sections of this overview consider the continuing impact of this early scholarship and how the ideas presented have been critically revised in academic texts from the 1990s to the present-day as Comics Studies has emerged as a discipline internationally.
This paper examines the use of oral history in text-based site-specific public art practice. It h... more This paper examines the use of oral history in text-based site-specific public art practice. It highlights the features these two activities share and examines potential tensions when such artworks use oral history records as a key component in the final outcome. These issues are examined with direct reference to two projects, “Witness” and “Prisoner of War”, by the artist Bettina Furnee. Oral histories, in aiming to record and archive people’s accounts of past events, must make reference to time and place. They are a record in the present time and place of events that move fluidly across both time and place through the act of recounting. It is argued that these features are also evident in site-specific art practices which similarly reference the history of place while being firmly located in the present moment of creation and/or reception. Whilst oral history and site-specific public art share the features outlined above, the artworks examined in this paper highlight issues within...
This book focuses on the Rotterdam based graphic design group Hard Werken (active 1979-94) and th... more This book focuses on the Rotterdam based graphic design group Hard Werken (active 1979-94) and their innovative interdisciplinary practice. The group has received some attention but there is no detailed and critical analysis of their work. Although historical in nature this publication also focuses on the present. Hard Werken was innovative in working both collaboratively and primarily for the cultural and creative industries. These areas have become significant for leading contemporary graphic design practices and the impact of Hard Werken is be evaluated in these terms. See also http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/12175/
The selected articles collected together in this special issue have their origins in papers prese... more The selected articles collected together in this special issue have their origins in papers presented at ‘Graphic Gothic’ the Seventh International Conference of Graphic Novels and Comics, a collaboration between the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, Studies in Comics (Intellect Books) and the Gothic Studies Network held at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2016. The Call for Papers suggested submissions would be welcomed that: examine Gothic icons and architypes such as ‘vampires, zombies, witches, monsters, ghosts, and everything else!’, explore the symbols and structures that abound in Gothic narratives (the crypt, the grotesque, the Other...) and consider theoretical perspectives including the uncanny and the abject. Many of these suggested themes have made their way into this volume and collectively demonstrate that significant comic book genres and conventions have their origins in the tropes of Gothic literature and art. The advent of the Gothic novel saw the emergenc...
Living the Dream employs the character Konijntje vanme Man to consider the impact lockdown had on... more Living the Dream employs the character Konijntje vanme Man to consider the impact lockdown had on a devoted comic book fan, lecturer and family man. Konijntje vanme Man was originally used in comic book form to create a narrative for Thierry Chessum’s PhD thesis Graphic Interrogation in Psychosocial Research: Deleuze and Comics and Middle-aged Men in which Thierry used comic books created by middle-aged men to elicit discussion of their relationships. Living the Dream takes images from the comic created for Thierry and repurposes them to explore the use of collage and ‘self-swiping’ as part of my current research into notions of style and cultural history in evaluating the work of Jack Kirby from an art-historical perspective.
In September 2017 Room 2084 was installed at London College of Communication (LCC) to display a s... more In September 2017 Room 2084 was installed at London College of Communication (LCC) to display a selection of objects from the personal archives and collections of staff and students in the Design School during the London Design Festival. The aim of this display was to examine the role such objects play in the research and practice of the school and how these relate to the collection policies of the institution’s archives and special collections. To this end ‘trials’ were held throughout the durations of the show where members of staff would ‘defend’ their objects to a ‘jury’ who would determine if the items were worthy of inclusion the institution’s own archive to become the focus of study in the future. Our paper offers a reflective evaluation of the value of performing to an audience, within an exhibition setting, an archive selection procedure based on criteria set by Schellenberg and Jenkinson. Our analysis was influenced by a number of interviews, post-event, with archivists an...
Some of the foundational texts of Comics Studies of the 1960s and 70s emerged from Art History, r... more Some of the foundational texts of Comics Studies of the 1960s and 70s emerged from Art History, registering the dramatic shifts that discipline itself underwent in this period, as traditional approaches in this field were challenged. Although subsequently the study of comics remained marginal to the discipline, recently there has been renewed interest in comics among art historians. At the same time, art historical methodologies have informed some recent comics scholarship (whether implicitly or explicitly), particularly that placing greater emphasis on the form’s graphic, material and aesthetic dimensions. This paper will re-examine the ‘hidden’ history of comics scholarship by art historians such as Pierre Couperie, Ernst Gombrich and David Kunzle, from the 1960s to the 1990s, which was informed both by traditions of stylistic analysis and iconology, and the emerging fields of cultural history and the social history of art. It will also map the contemporary engagement of comics scholars with issues of abstraction and formalism that draws on Modernist theory and the avant-gardes of the early 20th century. In conclusion, it will consider models for adopting art historical approaches in comics scholarship on the basis of existing academic work, and seek to provoke further exploration of comics from diverse art historical perspectives
In Number 7 (1976–1977) of the politically and socially engaged comix magazine Slow Death, Jaxon’... more In Number 7 (1976–1977) of the politically and socially engaged comix magazine Slow Death, Jaxon’s shocking story ‘Nits Make Lice’ explores the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, a brutal attack on a peaceful encampment of Cheyenne Indians by Colorado militia. Jaxon (pen name of artist Jack Jackson) depicts the events in detailed black-and-white images, not eschewing the explicit representation of (sexual) violence. The story conforms to the thematic and stylistic elements of the underground comix, but it also departs from the movement through its serious tone and realistically drawn images. In analysing this comic strip in Comic Books as History, Joseph Witek asks us if the truth can be too awful to be seen: ‘Is there an aesthetics of atrocity?’ (1989, 67). This chapter explores these ‘atrocity panels’ within the context of underground comix and the central tenets of Slow Death, demonstrating the balancing act that Jaxon is engaged in. It analyses how Jaxon frames the violent attack on t...
This book is part of a nuanced two-volume examination of the ways in which violence in comics is ... more This book is part of a nuanced two-volume examination of the ways in which violence in comics is presented in different texts, genres, cultures and contexts. Representing Acts of Violence in Comics raises questions about depiction and the act of showing violence, and discusses the ways in which individual moments of violence develop, and are both represented and embodied in comics and graphic novels. Contributors consider the impact of gendered and sexual violence, and examine the ways in which violent acts can be rendered palatable (for example through humour) but also how comics can represent trauma and long lasting repercussions for both perpetrators and victims. This will be a key text and essential reference for scholars and students at all levels in Comics Studies, and Cultural and Media Studies more generally.
This overview compares and contrasts the development of critical discourses, in French and Englis... more This overview compares and contrasts the development of critical discourses, in French and English, concerning the origins of the formal aspects of comic books in earlier artistic practices. The key texts examined here show how art-historical approaches towards the study of comic books developed in the 1960s in France and in the 1970s in the English-speaking world. Central to any evaluation of art-historical approaches to the study of comic books are the two volumes of David Kunzle’s The History of the Comic Strip, published in 1973 and 1990 respectively, which still stand out as the most substantial body of scholarship on the emergence of the form in any language. The concluding sections of this overview consider the continuing impact of this early scholarship and how the ideas presented have been critically revised in academic texts from the 1990s to the present-day as Comics Studies has emerged as a discipline internationally.
This paper examines the use of oral history in text-based site-specific public art practice. It h... more This paper examines the use of oral history in text-based site-specific public art practice. It highlights the features these two activities share and examines potential tensions when such artworks use oral history records as a key component in the final outcome. These issues are examined with direct reference to two projects, “Witness” and “Prisoner of War”, by the artist Bettina Furnee. Oral histories, in aiming to record and archive people’s accounts of past events, must make reference to time and place. They are a record in the present time and place of events that move fluidly across both time and place through the act of recounting. It is argued that these features are also evident in site-specific art practices which similarly reference the history of place while being firmly located in the present moment of creation and/or reception. Whilst oral history and site-specific public art share the features outlined above, the artworks examined in this paper highlight issues within...
This book focuses on the Rotterdam based graphic design group Hard Werken (active 1979-94) and th... more This book focuses on the Rotterdam based graphic design group Hard Werken (active 1979-94) and their innovative interdisciplinary practice. The group has received some attention but there is no detailed and critical analysis of their work. Although historical in nature this publication also focuses on the present. Hard Werken was innovative in working both collaboratively and primarily for the cultural and creative industries. These areas have become significant for leading contemporary graphic design practices and the impact of Hard Werken is be evaluated in these terms. See also http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/12175/
The selected articles collected together in this special issue have their origins in papers prese... more The selected articles collected together in this special issue have their origins in papers presented at ‘Graphic Gothic’ the Seventh International Conference of Graphic Novels and Comics, a collaboration between the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, Studies in Comics (Intellect Books) and the Gothic Studies Network held at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2016. The Call for Papers suggested submissions would be welcomed that: examine Gothic icons and architypes such as ‘vampires, zombies, witches, monsters, ghosts, and everything else!’, explore the symbols and structures that abound in Gothic narratives (the crypt, the grotesque, the Other...) and consider theoretical perspectives including the uncanny and the abject. Many of these suggested themes have made their way into this volume and collectively demonstrate that significant comic book genres and conventions have their origins in the tropes of Gothic literature and art. The advent of the Gothic novel saw the emergenc...
Living the Dream employs the character Konijntje vanme Man to consider the impact lockdown had on... more Living the Dream employs the character Konijntje vanme Man to consider the impact lockdown had on a devoted comic book fan, lecturer and family man. Konijntje vanme Man was originally used in comic book form to create a narrative for Thierry Chessum’s PhD thesis Graphic Interrogation in Psychosocial Research: Deleuze and Comics and Middle-aged Men in which Thierry used comic books created by middle-aged men to elicit discussion of their relationships. Living the Dream takes images from the comic created for Thierry and repurposes them to explore the use of collage and ‘self-swiping’ as part of my current research into notions of style and cultural history in evaluating the work of Jack Kirby from an art-historical perspective.
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