New Publication: Paul S. Hirsch, Pulp Empire: The Secret History of Comic Book Imperialism (University of Chicago Press, 2021) @CrimeReads @UChicagoPress

 From the wonderful website CrimeReads, an excerpt from Paul S. Hirsch's new book Pulp Empire: The Secret History of Comic Book Imperialism (University of Chicago Press, 2021). It reads in part:

The American comic book is inseparable from foreign policy, the great twentieth-century battles between capitalism and totalitarianism, and the political goals of the world’s preeminent military and cultural power. The history of the American comic book is a story of visual culture, commerce, race, and policy. These four fields are analogous to the four colors used to print comic books: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. They lie atop one another, smearing, blending, and bleeding to create a complete image. To separate them is to disassemble a coherent whole and to shatter a picture that in its entirety shows us how culture and diplomacy were entangled during the mid-twentieth century.

 

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics Call for Papers: Special Issue on Indian Graphic Narratives @JGNandComics

The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics has published a Call for Papers for a special issue on Indian graphic narratives. Here's the description of the Call.

The post-millennial years have witnessed significant developments in the field of popular visuality in South Asia and for India at least, a liberalised economy, advancements in digital technology, satellite television, urban beautification projects and a publishing boom have all shaped what we see, how we see it and why we see it. Within this post-millennial, economic, socio-cultural context Indian graphic narratives have prospered. Now, nearly twenty years into a sustained period of their production, there is a need to take stock of the field in order to bring together the various facets of scholarship that continue to emerge about this body of cultural production. Although the early years of the 2000s saw steady production and (in particular, domestic) circulation of Indian graphic narratives, research and scholarship has taken a little time to gain similar momentum but as the canon of creative work has grown, scholarship, particularly in the last seven to ten years has proved to be more sustained and wider in its scope of enquiry. The field now has some key academic texts with many chapters and academic papers supporting this field of interest and research. The aim of this Special Issue is to publish a selection of academic papers that reflect on and take stock of the field, exploring and presenting key themes, tropes and directions that the Indian graphic narratives scene has pursued collectively over the last 15-20 years. We are interested in examining the last twenty years of Indian graphic narratives production through the following (and related) topics with the over-arching theme of ‘reflection’ and ‘taking stock’: The post-millennial Indian publishing scene and Indian graphic narratives (global corporates, domestic, independent presses and story houses) Theoretical approaches to post-millennial Indian graphic narratives Graphic narratives of the early post-millennial years - Sarnath Banerjee, Orijit Sen, Vishwajyoti Ghosh as examples Comics collectives in India and co-created/curated anthologies of graphic narrative work The works of Appupen The works of Amruta Patil Biography-based graphic narratives Graphic non-fiction (such as the First Hand volumes of work)

More at this link.

CFP: 2019 Graphic Justice Disuccsions, USC, Queensland, Australia @usceduau @graogu @LexComica

From the emailbox:

2019 Graphic Justice Discussions – “Drawing the Human: Law, Comics Justice”28-29 November 2019, USC, Queensland, Australia The 2019 conference of the Graphic Justice Research Alliance will be hosted by the USC School of Law and Criminology, University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland Australia. The conference explores the theme Drawing the Human: Law, Comics, Justice and will run on the 28^th and 29^th November 2019. The conference seeks to examine the role of comics, graphic novels and graphic art in constituting as well as critiquing law, rights and justice as they relate to and extend beyond the human. Proposals for papers and panels are welcome from academics, postgraduate students and artists from across a range of disciplines including law, criminology and justice, comics studies, visual and cultural studies and the humanities. Please see the attached call for papers which closes on the 31stof August. We look forward to welcoming you to the Sunshine Coast in November.