Comics and Graphic Novels

Reinhard Kleist' s graphic novel The Boxer tells the story of Holocaust survivor Harry Haft and his participation in forced boxing matches in Nazi concentration camps. Throughout the work, Kleist works against clear delineations of right and wrong by offering what I term 'nuancing gestures'. Haft is a morally complex protagonist who works against the image of the heroic and sanctimonious survivor, and Kleist identifies other characters that challenge comforting notions of good and bad. The work uses visual correspondences between panels to highlight cycles of interpersonal violence, showing how issues of complicity are carried forward later in life. Furthermore, the graphic novel depicts in vivid detail how traumatic intrusions disrupt Haft' s daily life. This article explores how The Boxer' s particular stylistic rendering of moral ambiguity, complicity, and the longer lasting effects of trauma raises new insights about how the medium of comics can navigate a sensitive and complex Holocaust narrative.

An article about Anders Nilsen's work, Don't Go Where I Can't Follow, in the context of grief theory and the literature of grief. The article can be found in the edited collection, Pathographics: Narrative, Aesthetics, Contention, Community (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2020), and it was edited by Susan Merrill Squier and Irmela Marei Krüger-Fürhoff.

RÉSUMÉ

Notre recherche étudie les particularités esthétiques et matérialistes de l’œuvre du bédéiste américain Jack Kirby (1917-1994) et la manière dont elles répondent d’agencements qui visent à déconstruire et reconstruire les formes sur la page. Contemporain de Will Eisner, Kirby est largement considéré comme l'auteur et dessinateur le plus influent de son époque, co-signant les premières aventures de certains des super-héros qui perdurent et qui sont aujourd’hui la manne de l’industrie hollywoodienne (Captain America, les Fantastic Four, Hulk, etc.). Son œuvre protéiforme est composée de superpositions de textures, d’objets récupérés, de figures déviées et trouve dans son rapport à la matière les principaux axiomes qui la définissent. Cherchant dans son travail à cerner les fonctions des nombreux amoncellements de points noirs (baptisés kirby dots par la critique et l’industrie), nous nous écartons des modèles d’analyse sémiologiques pour constituer une approche écosophique de la bande dessinée. Dans cette dernière, nous avons recours à la schizo-analyse théorisée par Gilles Deleuze et Félix Guattari dans leur ouvrage L’Anti-Œdipe (1972) afin de cerner les conditions de la production de sens et de non-sens du point kirbyen. Pour ce faire, nous proposons de reconsidérer la BD comme une écologie séquentialisée, composée de cases sans icônes, c’est-à-dire d’un espace pris au plus près de la planche, pour soi et en soi, sans rapport de causalité fixe ou de structure prédéterminée. Nous envisageons ensuite les territorialités archaïques de la bande dessinée pour mieux définir son ontogénie, puis pour étudier les rapports machiniques et schizos qu’entretiennent entre eux les différents espaces (que nous distinguons en espaces striés et en espaces lisses) ainsi que les différents traits de la planche. Finalement, nous expliquerons en quoi le point kirbyen apparaît comme une machine abstraite, c’est-à-dire une instance capable d’auto-générer, d’auto-poïétiser, son propre mystère représentationnel.

ABSTRACT

Our research examines the aesthetic and materialistic features of the work of American comic book artist Jack Kirby (1917-1994) and how they respond to arrangements designed to deconstruct and reconstruct forms and shapes on the page. Contemporary of Will Eisner, Kirby is widely regarded as  one of the most influential author and illustrator of his time, co-signing the very first adventures of some superheroes that still exist today both in print and as Hollywood’s new treasure trove (i. e. Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Hulk, etc.). His protean work is composed of heavy textures and superposition of (re)covered objects and deflected figures that find in its stance towards materiality its defining axioms. Seeking in its work to identify the functions of the many piles of black dots (baptized by critics and artists as the kirby dot), we depart structural analysis models to constitute an ecosophical approach to comics. We’ll then use the schizoanalysis theorized by Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) and Felix Guattari (1930-1992) in their book Anti-Oedipus (1972) to identify the nature of the significant and asignifiant sign production associated to the kirby dots. To do this, we’ll reconsider the comic book (and the bande dessinée at large) as a sequencialised ecology, composed of panels without icons, that is to say of spaces and existential territories taken as close to the page – for itself and in itself – without causal relationships or predetermined structures. We’ll analyse the archaic territorialities of comics to better define what could be their ontogeny and the nature of its machinic and schizo relationships as the various spaces (which we distinguish in striated and smooth spaces) and the different pen strokes of the board become intertwined. Finally, we’ll explain how the kirby dot appears as an abstract machine, meaning an instance capable of auto-generating and auto-poietising its own representational mystery.

From its creation in the late 1930s onwards, the figure of the superhero has become increasingly ambiguous and problematic. Especially in two crucial periods of recent history – the height of the Cold War in the 1980s as well as after 9/11 – superheroes are presented as precarious, dubious characters that have lost the ability to fulfill traditional heroic functions such as conveying social norms and moral values, and regulating the use of violence. To reinforce their social relevance and to reestablish their bond with the (usually US-American) community, modern superhero narratives focus on the very relationship of superheroes and the population. Seminal publications of the genre such as Alan Moore’s "Watchmen" (1986/87), Frank Miller’s "The Dark Knight Returns" (1986) and Mark Millar’s "Civil War" (2006/07) open up a discussion of what heroism means and how it relates to ‘ordinary’ people. In them, the question arises if superheroes are even capable of speaking for their communities. Analyzing the relationship between superheroes and their communities contributes to understanding how superhero narratives have become a hugely influential medium of social debate.

We invite applications for our panel "Figuring It Out: Crises and Resistance in Graphic Novels, Comics, and Cartoons" at the XV Conference of the Italian Society for Middle Eastern Studies (SeSaMO). The conference will be held in presence at L’Orientale University of Naples (Naples, Italy) on June 22-24, 2022.

This essay analyzes the comic book superhero as a popular figure whose queer-ness follows as much from the logic of the comics medium and the aesthetic principles of the genre as it does from a dialectic tension between historically evolving heteronormative and queer readings. Focusing specifically on the superbody as an overdetermined site of gendered significances, the essay traces a shift from the ostensibly straight iterations in the early years of the genre to the more recent appearance of openly queer characters. It further suggests that the struggle over the superbody's sexual orientation and gender identity has been an essential force in the development of the genre from its inception until the present day.

Questo catalogo illustra una collezione dove ogni pezzo, ogni fascicolo, è stato girato, rigirato e schedato bibliograficamente. C’è davvero quasi tutto quello che è stato stampato Pazienza vivo. Ma non solo. Attraverso le riviste, quasi sempre complete, si può assistere allo splendore e alla decadenza della satira postmoderna e del fumetto italiano d’avanguardia, lo stesso splendore e la stessa decadenza riflessi negli ultimi giorni di Pompeo/Pazienza.

HANDBOOK: Supporting Queer and Trans Students in Art and Design Education


Edited by Anthea Black and Shamina Chherawala


HANDBOOK: Supporting Queer and Trans Students in Art and Design Education is the first student-authored resource book of its kind. It offers faculty a radical rethink on how to work with queer and transgender students on their path to becoming artists and designers – from the first day of school through to seminars, studio classes, and critiques. HANDBOOK draws directly from student experiences to help faculty of all orientations bring equitable teaching practices and queer curricula into art and design classes.


HANDBOOK is a collaborative intervention in art and design pedagogy. Queer Publishing Project was a working group of over 100 students, alumni, staff and faculty at OCAD University and beyond who identify as queer and/or transgender.


Handbook: Supporting Queer and Trans Students in Art and Design Education
$20 CDN, first edition 2018, out of print
Publisher: OCAD University and Queer Publishing Project
Distribution: Art Metropole
ISBN: 978-1-77252-006-4


Editors: Anthea Black and Shamina Chherawala
Graphic Design: Cecilia Berkovic
Production: Nick Shick
Illustration: Morgan Sea
112 colour pages with gatefold letterpress cover, printed by Nick Shick, Anthea Black, and Queer Publishing Project at OCAD University Printmaking and Publications on Vandercook Universal and No. 4 presses. Edition of 1,200.


LAUNCHES:
Alberta College of Art and Design, Calgary, Canada March 9-10, 2018.
Art Metropole, Toronto, Canada, March 21, 2018.
OCAD University Student Union and Office for Diversity Equity and Sustainability, Toronto, Canada, March 22, 2018.
California College of the Arts, San Francisco, USA, October 2018.
OR Gallery, Vancouver, Canada, October 2018.
Artexte Information Centre, Montreal, Quebec, October 2018.


LECTURES:
Anthea Black, Queer Publishing as Pedagogy talk, presented by Queer Conversations in the Arts and Culture, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, October 2018.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY2ROvlQNGA&feature=youtu.be

A conversation with Anthea Black, Kama LaMackerel (Our Bodies, Our Stories), and Jenny Lin (B&D Press) and Q&A with Production Mentor and Lead Printer Nick Shick in attendance, Artexte Information Centre, Montreal Quebec, October 2018.

Anthea Black, Surviving Academia for Queer and Trans Profs, 2019 AICAD Symposium, "INCLUDE ME! Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion," Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, California, November 2019.


LIBRARY COLLECTIONS:
Alberta University of the Arts, Calgary
Art Center College of Design, Pasadena
Artexte Information Centre, Montreal
Banff Centre, Paul Fleck Library and Archives, artist's book collection, Banff
The Black Archives, Amsterdam, Netherlands
California College of the Arts, Meyer Library, Oakland
Concordia University, Montreal
Cornell University, Ithaca
Design Academy Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City
Maryland Institute College of Art, College Park
Metropolitan State University, Denver
Minneapolis College of Art & Design, Minneapolis
Monash University Library, Melbourne, Australia
Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia
National Gallery of Canada Library, Ottawa
NSCAD University, Halifax
OCAD University, Toronto
PaTi - Paju Typography Institute, Paju Bookcity, Seoul, South Korea
RMIT University Library, Melbourne, Australia
Tufts University, Tisch Library, Boston
UC Berkeley
University of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford
University of Maryland, College Park
University of San Francisco
University of Waterloo, Kitchener-Waterloo
Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
York University, Toronto

This book chapter, published as part of the edited volume "Empirical Comics Research (Routledge, 2018), puts forward a quantitative approach to the study of comics by introducing a stylistic analysis of a corpus of around 240 graphic novels, graphic memoirs and other non-fiction.

With the release of ‘Outlaw King’, the upcoming film ‘Robert the Bruce’ and the long shadow cast by ‘Braveheart’, the wars for Scottish independence of the fourteenth century are being re-fought in modern popular culture, just as they were later in the middle ages, according to Iain MacInnes.

The book focuses on the breakup of the Yugoslav Federation and wars that followed viewed through the comic art in the local and international press. War propaganda and political discourse are examined and placed in the larger historical context of this conflict. The study reveals that Yugoslav cartoonists anticipated, as early as 1984, the disintegration of the country and were forecasting armed conflict in 1989. Using print media and comic art as a primary source of investigation, the author has presented the mental representation of the war as seen in press cartoons, both chronologically and thematically. A representative sampling of some 400 cartoons (out of a database of almost 7’500) and dozens of interviews undertaken with political cartoonists in the 1990s are quoted in the book as a primary source.

Shounen manga is a type of narrative via images that accurately follows the canonical narrative schema. Shounen is an adventure tale in which the protagonist must face a sequence of antagonists, often more powerful as the story carries on, in order to reach a purpose that intersects with his personal development and doesn't concern only plot-related objectives.
Every single author ends up arranging and managing differently the four moments of a story modal structure: manipulation, competence, performance and sanction can be put in different orders to recreate different plots. This thesis intends to comparate three sucessful shounen manga, One Piece, Naruto and Bleach, to show the results these different  methods can lead to.

Les revues jouent le rôle de catalyseur dans le développement d’un langage critique propre à la bande dessinée. Celle-ci prend sa source dans les bureaux de rédaction. Les équipes se forment tant au niveau artistique qu’au niveau éditorial. La critique émane des revues spécialisées, mais elle se structure davantage dans les revues d’exégèse. Phénix et Les Cahiers de la bande dessinée sont les revues les plus lues en leur temps avant de cesser de paraître. Car les lecteurs de bandes dessinées s’intéressent à la lecture de celles-ci et pas forcément aux commentaires sur son histoire, aux digressions sur son développement. L’information les intéresse mais pas forcément le climat intellectualisant qui se trame autour de la vie du média. Les nombreux articles sur la crise parus dans les années quatre-vingt ont définitivement détourné le lectorat de l’exégèse, ne serait-ce qu’en constatant le peu de vente de la dernière revue en activité : 9° ART.
Si écrire sur le média ne passionne pas les foules, un système de rendez-vous annuels mis en place par divers clubs, institutions fonctionne depuis la fin des années soixante : rencontres entre professionnels mais surtout accueil du public pour des festivals, des expositions. La bande dessinée, « mauvaise élève » des arts plastiques surprend : de l’exposition de planches originales à la muséographie spectaculaire, elle rencontre son public et sort des pages du journal.

Bringing together interdisciplinary leaders in methodology and arts-based research (ABR), this comprehensive handbook explores the synergies between artistic and research practices and addresses issues in designing, implementing, evaluating, and publishing ABR studies. Coverage includes the full range of ABR genres, including those based in literature (such as narrative and poetic inquiry); performance (music, dance, playbuilding); visual arts (drawing and painting, collage, installation art, comics); and audiovisual and multimethod approaches. Each genre is described in detail and brought to life with robust research examples. Team approaches, ethics, and public scholarship are discussed, as are innovative ways that ABR is used within creative arts therapies, psychology, education, sociology, health sciences, business, and other disciplines.

How can one read an abstract graphic narrative? Under what conditions do we cease to view a set of images as static representations, or as marks on paper existing for their own sake, and begin to read them as the story of a changing world in motion, or even invest them with impetus, emotions and desires? In this article I will explore the ways in which readers can make sense of abstract comics. The notion of an abstract graphic narrative seems to be a contradiction in terms: how can something be non-representational, and also be a narrative, a category which seems to presuppose representations of characters, settings and events? When confronted with these visual texts, readers will have to seek out and create such ‘actants’ and ‘existents’ from the material abstract comics offer, if the text is to warrant its status as narrative. The article will use a number of exemplar stories from Andrei Molotiu’s 2009 collection Abstract Comics to explore the process of reading these image texts. It will use ideas from narratology and philosophy of consciousness to help outline some of the ways we can ‘animate’ the static images we see across the sequence of panels, in which we recognize and reconstitute persistent entities, bringing a narrative life to the apparently inert marks on the comics page. I will explore the limits of readers’ ability to apply this process and comment on its relevance to more mainstream graphic narrative in general.

Creativity appears to result from unexpectedly combining two or more elements or angles into a novel phenomenon that is more than the sum of its parts. This idea, called “bisociation” by Koestler (1969), also underlies Fauconnier and Turner’s (2002) claim that Blending Theory provides a model of “emergent structure,” i.e., creativity. However, as Veale et al. (this volume) point out, Fauconnier and Turner’s approach is lacking in one crucial dimension: it retrospectively construes the two contributing elements from the creative result, instead of providing details on how to decide which new element is needed to enrich an already given element in such a way that the vaguely anticipated creative result is achieved. Using an adapted form of the Blending Theory model I will in this paper focus on the specific type of creativity involved in communicating narratively salient information in an unexpected visual manner in comics’ text balloons. The paper’s primary goal is to formulate patterns in creative balloon use, and thus to contribute to comics scholarship and visual studies. Its subsidiary goal is to reflect on Blending’s Theory’s potential to become a true theory of creativity.

If Barbara Postema’s Narrative Structure in Comics is any indication, RIT Press’s new “Comics Monograph Series” promises to offer first-rate scholarly work for both newcomers and veterans in the field. Postema offers a smart, lucid dissection of the art form, starting from the single panel up to entire page layouts and long-form narratives. Delineations of genre and prestige that have cropped up over time, like graphic narrative, newspaper comics, superhero comics etc., are not preserved by Postema, as she uses an eclectic group of examples for her analysis, from Charles Schulz’s Peanuts to Lynda Barry’s One Hundred Demons. In doing so, she explains how the form, in its many manifestations, has pushed the creative boundaries of narrative structure and necessitates a methodology that meets comics on its own frontier.

In Narrative Structure in Comics: Making Sense of Fragments, Barbara Postema uses the notion of the gap to explain how comics create meaning. As texts that combine words and images, comics rely on the verbal register to communicate meaning, but they also use images in a number of different ways, many of which are based on leaving out information, forcing readers to fill in the blanks. By foregrounding the narrative qualities of comics, Postema demonstrates the ways in which comics are structured at every level of communication—image, panel, sequence, narration—to guide the reader to assemble the narrative from fragments. Besides advancing a new understanding of the structure of meaning in comics, this work’s exploration into the form of comics integrates two traditionally separate approaches to the study of comics, namely, the semiotics of the Franco-Belgian school of visual culture and comics studies, and the practice-based comics theory advanced by American cartoonists Will Eisner and Scott McCloud. It combines these traditions to advance a novel analytical framework and a vocabulary to study the form, an approach that is demonstrated through a series of readings of contemporary North-American comics.

Fumetto allegato alla "Guida Kids" per la mostra "Longobardi. Un popolo che ha cambiato la storia" tenutasi presso il Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli dal 21 dicembre 2017 al 25 marzo 2018.

Prodotto in collaborazione con: Museo Archeologico di Napoli; Scuola Italiana di Comix.

Both in literature and art, exponents of modernism sought new forms of expression that took into account changes in the social, economic, technical and political conditions of the time. A similar trend towards questioning outmoded forms of representation and establishing new ways of seeing has become apparent in European comics since the 1980s, a development that was initiated primarily in Italy and France. In Murmure (1989), Lorenzo Mat- totti invokes expressionism and centres his mystical tale on the individual’s inner being. In rejecting the representational norms traditionally applied to comics, Nicolas de Crécy also shows his allegiance to modernism yet reflects in his absurdly hyperrealist work, Foligatto (1991), the grotesque images of Otto Dix. The following article demonstrates how the two artists, despite the deliberate reversion to early twentieth-century art common to both, have, each in his own way, established a new approach to seeing in comics.

Keywords: expressionism, Foligatto, Italy, modernism, Murmure, new objectivity

L'articolo si propone di presentare e di analizzare la nota serie di fumetti creata dallo psicologo kuwaitiano Naif al-Mutawa, dal titolo Al-99 [I 99]. Pubblicata, inizialmente in arabo e poi anche in inglese, a partire dal 2006, la serie è dedicata a 99 supereroi di ispirazione islamica che uniscono i loro poteri per combattere valori negativi come l’egoismo, l’arroganza o la sete di potere personale. Nella prima parte dell’articolo, dedicata all’autore e alla storia del fumetto, si nota che la serie ha il dichiarato intento di opporsi alla violenza degli estremisti islamici offrendo ai giovani (non solo musulmani) modelli e valori universalmente condivisi, indipendentemente dall’appartenenza sociale, religiosa e culturale dei lettori. Nella seconda parte, ciò trova conferma nell’analisi di alcuni supereroi: proprio le loro diverse identità, cui corrispondono precisi super-poteri, dimostrano che i pur numerosi riferimenti islamici, lungi dal porsi come esasperazione di un fattore identitario, mirano piuttosto a proporre valori universali che tutti i giovani del mondo possono fare propri per costruire una società inclusiva e variegata.

"Le journalisme graphique, dit aussi « BD-journalisme », est passé en l’espace de quelques années du statut de curiosité générique explorée par quelques francs-tireurs à partir des années 1960 à celui de phénomène éditorial de masse. Décliné dans des formes et médias variés qui vont de la BD-reportage  éditée en album one shot au feuilleton commandé par des revues spécialisées en passant par des séries télévisées d’animation, des blogs de vulgarisation scientifiques, des collections spécialisées, le genre touche un spectre thématique infini et jouit d’une popularité croissante en parvenant à séduire un lectorat qui dépasse largement le cœur de cible traditionnel du monde de la bande dessinée.
Éditeurs, médiologues, bédélogues, journalistes, auteurs de bandes dessinées, lecteurs spécialisés ont tous pu voir la vitesse et l’ampleur prises par ce phénomène depuis les années 2000 sur le marché franco-belge. Si la massification de la BD-journalisme est bien une nouveauté, le journalisme graphique, lui, n’est pas sans histoire, loin de là, et sans doute conviendrait-il d’en rappeler quelques aspects. Les mooks  de type la revue XXI ou La Revue dessinée et les albums d’auteurs à succès comme Joe Sacco ou autres ne sont que la partie saillante d’un rhizome solidement enraciné et fait d’autres genres, de jalons et de maîtres qui au long de l’histoire ont indirectement œuvré à son avènement présent. Dessins de presse, croquis d’audience, reportages illustrés, romans-photos (certains), biographies, autobiographies dessinées, sketchbooks, carnets de voyage, bandes dessinées de savoir, récits historiques… sont autant de racines auxquelles la bande dessinée journalistique actuelle est rattachée à un degré ou à un autre. Ces genres, qui sont tous membres à divers degrés de la famille de la non-fiction, ont en commun d’avoir souscrit au même pacte de « référentialité  » et relèvent tous d’un même contrat de lecture, celui de la vérité.

La verte et tendre vitalité du journalisme en bande dessinée ne doit pas faire oublier que le dessin et la bande dessinée dans le journalisme remontent à loin. Comme le rappelle La Revue dessinée dans l’éditorial de son premier numéro de l’automne 2013 : « Depuis toujours, le dessin entretient des liens étroits avec la presse. Le Journal illustré, The Graphic ou Le Petit Journal, revues populaires du XIXe siècle, racontaient l’actualité en mêlant texte et illustration. » Mais la presse quotidienne non illustrée, dominante, n’est pas pour autant sans contact avec la bande dessinée ou le dessin. Dès la fin du XIXe siècle, outre-Atlantique, il n’est plus guère de quotidien sans ses funnies dominicaux, prémices des daily strips qui s’empareront au début du XXe siècle de la plupart des journaux occidentaux...
(extrait de l'introduction de Benoît Mitaine et Judite Rodrigues)".

RESUMO: O presente artigo pretende expor e analisar algumas características dos modelos éticos e políticos de conduta dos super-heróis. Para tanto, procura oferecer um contraste entre eles e os heróis dos épicos homéricos. Após enfatizar a importância dessas figuras e da obra de Homero para a educação dos gregos antigos, realiza uma breve análise dos valores que regem as ações dos personagens mais notáveis dos épicos, tais como Aquiles, Odisseu e Heitor, a partir da qual podemos ressaltar, pela comparação, uma diferença e uma semelhança entre esses heróis e os super-heróis. Recorrendo à noção de justiça em Platão e, posteriormente, à teoria da ação de Hannah Arendt, o artigo procura articular a aparente contradição entre essas duas características-a busca da excelência e a rejeição à glória-analisando a primeira aparição do Superman e os filmes Batman-O Início e Batman: Cavaleiro das Trevas. Dessa análise conclui-se que a identidade secreta, expressão mais típica desses impulsos antagônicos, ao menos nesses casos tão paradigmáticos, resolve a contradição, ou ao menos a suspende, por meio da marginalização do super-herói. Ao final, o artigo sugere possíveis novas análises que caminhem em sentido semelhante. Palavras-chave: Modelos éticos, Homero, Arendt, Batman, Superman.

BETWEEN GOODNESS AND GLORY: SUPERHEROES AS AN ETHICAL AND POLITICAL MODEL

ABSTRACT: The present paper intends to expose and analyze some characteristics of the ethical and political role models of super-heroes. To this end, it seeks to offer a contrast between superheroes and the heroes of Homer's epics. After emphasizing the importance of these icons, and of Homer's work, for the education the ancient Greeks, the work carries out a brief analysis of the values that govern the actions of the epics' most notable characters, such as Achilles, Hector and Odysseus, with which we are able to stress, through comparison, one difference and one similarity between these heroes and superheroes. Having recourse to Plato's notion of justice and, subsequently, to Hannah Arendt's theory of action, the paper then attempts to articulate the apparent contradiction between these two characteristics-the drive towards excellence and the rejection of glory-by analyzing Superman's first appearance and the movies Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. From this analysis it is concluded that secret identities, the most typical manifestation of these antagonistic drives, solve, or at least suspend, said contradiction, by marginalizing the superhero. Finally, the paper suggests possible further research following similar paths.

Fruto de la Gran Recesión española de 2008 provocada por la crisis de las hipotecas subprimes iniciada en 2007 en EE UU, Fagocitosis (Glénat: 2011) es un libro que pone de realce como pocos, a través de un uso metódico y liberador de la ironía y la parodia, la violencia y el cinismo de un ultraliberalismo cada vez más potente. Con solo estudiar la portada de Fagocitosis, el lector ya tiene una idea bastante clara de por dónde van los tiros, así como del concepto gráfico y ético que va a inervar este libro guionizado por Marcos Prior y dibujado por Danide: bajo dos astros radiantes de color naranja y rojo, derivados de la imagen corporativa de la sociedad Mastercard, se aprecia una pareja de burgueses (tipo Mario Vargas Llosa e Isabel Preysler) con la cara iluminada por la sonrisa satisfecha del triunfo (tan contagiosa que hasta el caniche la adopta) y con el puño en alto. En este mundo del todo logo, que viene a confirmar la teoría de la "tiranía de las marcas" desarrollada por Naomi Klein en No Logo (2000), hasta el sol parece ser patentado por entidades financieras privadas. Sin embargo, el armonioso equilibrio entre dos esferas de dimensiones iguales que caracteriza el logo original de la sociedad Mastercard ha cedido el paso en la portada de Fagocitosis a una escena de depredación entre un gran círculo naranja que está devorando a un pequeño círculo rojo que empieza a gotear sangre bajo la agresión. Que sea la esfera roja la que está menguando no es ninguna casualidad en una obra que sabe a esquela mortuoria del Estado de bienestar, de la clase obrera y de los valores de izquierda en general. No olvidaremos, en efecto, que el elemento prefijal fago-, de origen griego, significa "que se alimenta de", y de ello mismo no paran de hablarnos Marcos Prior y Danide en Fagocitosis: de cómo el uno por ciento más rico de la humanidad, convertido al culto del neoliberalismo salvaje, está fagocitando las riquezas del planeta y se está expandiendo a costa del noventa y nueve por ciento restante. Fagocitosis, siguiendo el modelo de la portada, no para a lo largo de sus Este sitio web usa cookies propias para una mejor experiencia de usuario, así como cookies de terceros y análisis del comportamiento de usuarios. Acceso a la política de cookies. Enterado

Marie Duval (Isabella Emilie Tessier [1847–1890]), was one of the most unusual, pioneering and visionary cartoonists of the later nineteenth century. Duval’s work appeared in serial magazines and books, at a time––the 1860s and 70s––when the professional identity of visual journalists, cartoonists and illustrators was in radical flux, for both men and women. In particular, weekly magazine serialisation offered opportunities for the invention of new mass entertainments that combined current affairs and theatrics with a focus on urban life: the first appearance of a mass leisure culture.
Duval took advantage of this radical flux in distinct ways: strategically mimicking the work of the most successful male artists in an older tradition, making her own usurpation of the magazine page into a parodic identity of the working woman, and utilising her experience of her other profession, as a stage actress, to produce a vivid comedic visualisation of London life.
The paper provides a critical introduction to the work of Duval as she struggled and succeeded in creating a new urban visual culture. It will look in turn at key aspects of Victorian mass leisure industry, such as tourism, day-tripping, fashion, the theatre, art and the ‘season.’ Placing Duval in the visual context of the emerging profession of visual journalism, practiced by the “woman of my modern type”, it offers an enticing glimpse of the exciting, strange and world-changing media environment of London in the last part of the nineteenth century.

People receiving treatment for cancer are under significant emotional stress (Andersen, Kiecolt-Glaser, & Glaser, 1994). Nearly half of women undergoing treatment for breast cancer show signs of depression or anxiety (Thyme, et al., 2009). Art therapy in group settings has been shown to relieve some of this pain and anxiety for both patients and their loved ones. This positive change is particularly apparent in groups where members may share their creations with one another (Luzzatto & Gabriel, 2011). Similarly, narrative therapy helps terminally ill people find meaning in their lives by recontextualizing their struggles as necessary for growth (Jones, 2005). Art and narrative intersect in sequential art, e.g., comic books. One way to combine art therapy and narrative therapy is by helping clients create autobiographical comic books or graphic novels. Autobiographical sequential art is a well-established art form, with a history of authors expressing their struggles with everything from typical growing pains to surviving the Holocaust. Writers often say that the process of creating comics is contemplative and cathartic, and helped them find meaning in their struggles. Graphic Novel Art Therapy (GNAT) is a promising new field with the potential to help people struggling with a variety of issues. The Pentagon is currently investigating GNAT as an intervention for veterans with combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder (Shilling, 2013). Based on the evidence, a similar form of therapy would be helpful for people undergoing treatment for cancer.

The earliest medical descriptions of anorexia occurred in 1689 with Richard Morton’s Phthisiologia, Or, A Treatise of Consumptions, however, it took another century for medical science to accept anorexia nervosa as a medical condition. Later on, it was Hilde Bruch who initiated the first public discussion on anorexia in the latter half of the twentieth century. While the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries resorted solely to the verbal medium to narrate their eating disorder experience, the post-millennial era turned to a variety of visual and verbo-visual media. Stylistically differing widely from verbal texts, graphic medicine, a subgenre of comics, provides singular ways of negotiating eating disorders. Accordingly, a concise overview of some of the canonical works on eating disorders from 1970-2018 will be presented. Lastly, graphic medicine and the aptness of the comics medium in representing the subtle layers of eating disorder experience will be examined.

... Graduate Student and Teaching Assistant, English Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA. Megan Condis is a graduate student and teaching assistant in the department of English Literature at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. ...

Desde o surgimento das histórias em quadrinhos, os enredos com super-heróis são focados no espírito comunitário, confiança mútua, força e coragem, temas inspiradores para as áreas da Educação e Saúde. Entretanto pouco se sabe acerca do impacto das imagens dos super-heróis como recurso pedagógico e promotor de expressões de resiliência. Esta pesquisa teve como objetivo investigar as imagens dos super-heróis como recursos para a promoção de resiliência em crianças e adolescentes em situações de risco em ambientes educativos. Um dos resultados indicou que a maioria dos personagens fictícios viveu situações de risco como orfandade, abandono e abuso antes da fase de empoderamento. O estudo analisou relações entre adversidades da vida real de crianças desfavorecidas psicossocialmente e as adversidades da vida ficcional de personagens super-heroicos, em suas fases pré-superpotência (Pré-Capa/Pré-Máscara). A partir desses dados foi desenvolvido o objetivo de criar, executar e avaliar o impacto de uma intervenção positiva, apresentando como tema norteador o super-herói na fase Pré-Capa/Pré-Máscara. A intervenção foi realizada em uma escola pública, tendo como participantes adolescentes das séries finais do ensino fundamental. Os resultados obtidos revelaram que os participantes compreenderam e abstraíram os conceitos de risco, adversidade e ponto de virada. Isso lhes possibilitou discutir suas dificuldades cotidianas e buscar novas propostas de enfrentamento. Além disso, o grupo pesquisado evidenciou o entendimento de que o heroísmo não está atrelado apenas aos superpoderes, mas também a questões mais complexas, tais como: práticas relacionais de cuidado, bons tratos e reciprocidade com equilíbrio de poder. Ressalta-se a importância da condução dos encontros interventivos por um profissional preparado para realizar ações planejadas e testadas previamente.

The Graph is a powerful mathematical tool applied in many fields as transportation, communication, informatics, economy, … In an ordinary graph, the weights of edges and vertexes are considered independently where the length of a path is the sum of weights of the edges and the vertexes on this path. However, in many practical problems, weights at a vertex are not the same for all paths passing this vertex but depend on coming and leaving edges. The presented paper develops a model of the extended linear multi-commodity multi-cost network that can be more exactly and effectively applied to model many practical problems. Then, maximal limit cost flow problems are modeled as implicit linear programming problems. On the base of dual theory in linear rogramming, an effective approximate algorithm is developed.