Comic Conventions Research Articles

Theory-based science communication at comic cons

ABSTRACT The majority of research concerning science communication happens in spaces where people already have a vested interest in or knowledge of science, such as museums and science cafes. Thus, there is a gap in understanding what theory-based science communication looks like in non-science-centered spaces. This qualitative research study, which featured cosplaying science communicators at comic conventions, offers insights into what science communication practices occur within everyday spaces. We conducted observations of and semi-structured interviews with 15 cosplaying scientists, examining how they utilized effective framing and narrative structuring when communicating science at comic cons in cosplay. Across 700 coded utterances, cosplaying scientists most often used effectively framed messaging which allowed for visitors to unite their interests with STEM topics. Alternatively, we rarely witnessed cosplaying scientists using messaging that assuaged or addressed politically polarized scientific topics, such as climate change. While not originally within the scope of data analysis, we also noted that cosplaying scientists indicated that varied aspects of their identities, such as their gender and ethnic backgrounds helped or hindered their science communication practices at comic conventions. Our research provides evidence how science communication changes when it occurs in everyday spaces and indicates avenues for future study in these spaces.

A Field Study on the Influence of Japanese Anime Culture on the Development of Comic Conventions in China: A Case Study of a Comic Convention in a Fifth-Tier City

Since the 1960s, Japanese anime has swept the world with its interesting and relaxing characteristics, gradually increasing its influence around the world. As a country with a long history of communication with Japan, China has naturally been greatly influenced by its anime culture. The comic convention industry, which developed as a derivative of anime culture, also has a fundamental relationship with anime culture. Based on the field study method, this paper will focus on the development process of A comic convention and explore the impact of Japanese anime culture on the development of Chinas comic convention industry at different stages, attempting to respond to the important issue of the relationship between Japanese culture and Chinas cultural industry development. The study found that the influence of Japanese anime culture on Chinas comic convention industry has shown a process characteristic of changing from a promoting role to a restrictive role.

Elementary students' engagement in transduction and creative and critical thinking

AbstractStudent engagement in the process of transduction concomitantly affords them with opportunities to develop and express their critical and creative thinking competences. Reconfiguring or remaking knowledge or meaning in modes other than those of the original sources of information requires affective, imaginative and cognitive activity by sign‐makers. In this article, I present examples of elementary students' transduction work and discuss their semiotic meaning‐making with reference to the concepts of critical and creative thinking. During the study featured in this article, Grade 4 students engaged in the process of transduction when participating in activities about elements of visual art and design and conventions of the medium comics, when exploring picturebooks and graphic novels and when composing and explaining their own multimodal texts. The students' transmodal meaning‐making showed how, in the context of the research classrooms, the purposefully designed pedagogy and activities both required and nurtured students' critical and creative thinking, which simultaneously provided the students with opportunities to extend their knowledge and deepen their understandings of the concepts and curriculum content under study.

Fandom in comic-con: Cosplay tourists’ interaction and emotional solidarity

The fan experience, a fast growing sub-culture at comic conventions, has yet to be considered in tourism literature. Integrating research on expectancy violations theory, social identity theory (SIT), and emotional solidarity, this study investigates how positive and negative tourist-to-tourist (T2T) interactions are influenced by cosplayer identity and lead to emotional solidarity at comic conventions. Findings indicate that cosplayer identity has a significant positive effect on their positive T2T which in turn affects their emotional solidarity, while leaving negative T2T unaffected. Furthermore, fascination as important environmental cues was found as a moderator between T2T interaction and emotional solidarity. This study offers insight on how to enhance the fan experience as a marketing tool.

Der schmale Grat zwischen Realismus und Interpretation. Ein rekursiver Dialog zwischen „realistischem“ franko-belgischem Comic und Ethnographie

This article questions and accounts for the collective management of “the relation to reality” among the amateurs – that is, the interpretative community of authors and readers – of so-called “realistic” Franco-Belgian Comics. My analysis aims at asking to what extent and in what ways this collective management, with its conventions and provisional agreements but also its tensions and controversies, can recursively inform ethnographic methods and theories as to their own collective management of “the relation to reality”. To do so, I examine how the narrative conventions of realistic Franco-Belgian Comics are rhetorically maintained through a tension between two dimensions, which are constantly negotiated among the amateurs of comics: a strong expectation that both the drawings and the storyline faithfully represent “reality” in giving a meticulous and meticulously documented account of “it” on one side, and an acceptance of the interpretative dimension inherent in creative and artistic representations on the other. Questioning the tradition of ethnographic realism in the recursive light of this analysis, I argue in conclusion that this tension pertains to an ontological misunderstanding, and plead for an articulation of ontological multiplicity, i.e., multiple relations to multiple realities, and for granting both fictional beings of comics and ethnographic beings their own modes of existence.

Graphic novel reading comprehension in Chinese children with developmental language disorder (DLD)

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have consistently showed poor performances in reading comprehension. Extending from previous studies that presented pure-text, this study aims to test the performances of graphic novel reading. We tested 24 Chinese children who have been diagnosed as DLD and 24 typical readers matched with age and nonverbal IQ. These children were asked to complete a battery of tests assessing graphic novel reading comprehension and related visual-cognitive skills. The results of group comparison indicated that children with DLD performed similarly to the typical readers in graphic novel comprehension. Moreover, significant links between comic convention understanding and both passage and graphic novel reading were found in both groups. Our results imply the benefits of using graphic novel to facilitate reading to learn in children with DLD. (129 words).

Drawing childhood in conflict: Malik Sajad’s Munnu: A Boy from Kashmir

Influenced by Art Spiegelman and Joe Sacco, Kashmiri artist Malik Sajad’s graphic narrative Munnu: A Boy from Kashmir calls the reader’s attention to the ongoing conflict in Kashmir, a South Asian region controlled by India, Pakistan and China since the 1940s. Using the hangul elk (an engendered species) to represent Kashmiris while portraying others as human characters, Sajad’s deliberate choice visually sets Kashmiris apart from the rest of the world. This article examines how the main character’s development from a boy with intermittent schooling to a cartoonist with political awareness is interlaced with the escalating violence in Kashmir from the early 1990s to the 2010s. In particular, it discusses how Sajad’s book presents massacres, curfews, crackdowns, mass graves and cover-ups as normalcy in Kashmiri daily life, how it experiments the conventions of comics, interrupts the temporal and spatial arrangements of the panels and creates gaps in the visual and verbal narratives often without foreshadowing or explanations and how it presents history as experiences lived instead of knowledge learned. Sajad’s graphic narrative does not provide a solution and ‘frustrates a reader looking for closure’. The closing panel visualizes Munnu disappearing into the all-encompassing darkness with only a flashlight guiding his way. Filling in the blanks of the ‘K-word’, the story comes to a stop without a sense of conclusion or a direction for the future, thus prompting the reader to contemplate the status of Kashmiris who have been left in a political limbo for decades and continue to be ‘endangered’.

SLCC chem club holds KidCon outreach event

The Salt Lake Community College (SLCC) Chemistry Club held a community outreach event at the 2021 FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention on Sept. 16–18. The event included activities for children of all ages, including DIY chemical reactions and make-your-own slime. The American Chemical Society booth was equipped with lab coats, goggles, crazy wigs, props, and signs that read “Future Scientist,” “SLCC Rocks,” and “I ♥️ Chem Club.” Students posed and snapped photos in front of a chemistry lab–themed backdrop. On stage, a student chemist performed daily demos of elephant toothpaste, a popular experiment involving hydrogen peroxide and food dye. Rochelle Lambertsen, president of the SLCC Chemistry Club, says the well-attended event was a great example of how SLCC is trying to encourage the next generation of scientists through ongoing STEM outreach efforts.

ПОПУЛЯРНА КУЛЬТУРА США В ДЗЕРКАЛІ КОНВЕНЦІЙ ВІДЕОІГРОВОЇ ІНДУСТРІЇ

Video game culture is one of the most dynamically developed forms of modern popular culture. Over the past 10 years, the number of communities that represent certain areas has grown rapidly. Being in direct connection with film industry, literature and music the video game culture has occupied a new segment that requires detailed research. New opportunities of online communication have transformed the traditional understanding of gaming culture. Social segment identifies as gamers. This kind of culture can be used to spread a social message using human interactions. It should be noted that in a comprehensive sense, this problem covers the interaction with computer and algorithm art, artmedia, demoscene, cybernetic and digital art, evolutionary and generative art, new media, systems art and other areas which are represented in PC, VR, Console, Handheld, Tabletop. Communities of gamers, as well as game developers have created and promoting quite recognizable festivals and conventions which are described in this article. Games and game-related merchandise by Sony Interactive Entertainment – PlayStation Experience; BlizzCon by Blizzard Entertainment with their major franchises: Overwatch, Warcraft, StarCraft, Heroes of the Storm et al; general video gaming and video game streaming – TwitchCon convention; RTX conventions by Rooster Teeth; Penny Arcade Expo as gaming culture festivals with their PAX Arena, LAN Party, eSports tournament and Omegathon. This article does not describe the US comic con conventions that carry much more content than the focus on video games, such as San Diego Comic-Con International, New York Comic Con et al. Gamers have developed specific communication languages and rituals, they spread their culture on gaming conventions and discussion websites that create a distinct virtual space. An important part of video game culture is the activity of gamers on YouTube, gaming channels are very popular, this is confirmed by millions of subscribers. Post-dynamic structure of changes was formed in all streams of public life during the growth of the pandemic. COVID-19 is accelerating existing trends and indicate future transformations in the video game industry.

Theorizing comic cons

When comics fandom emerged as a distinct media-oriented community in the 1960s, one of the things it brought with it from science-fiction fandoms was the convention. Buoyed by the synergistic relationship between Hollywood and the San Diego Comic-Con and the growing prominence of ‘geek’ culture, comic conventions, comic art festivals and related media fandom events across North America have enjoyed enhanced prestige, attention and attendance over the last fifteen to twenty years. But what kind of event are these ‘con events’? This article builds on a cultural mapping survey of convention organizers. The survey’s goal was to suggest something of the scope and diversity of the contemporary sector. Behind this variation, we define the con event as an organizational and cultural form that is (1) oriented to media, (2) audience-facing and (3) concerned with circulation.

Komediowa „Eneida”

Piętka Radosław, Komediowa „Eneida” (Comedy in Vergil’s Aeneid).The paper deals with the references – hypothetical and/or unquestionable – to comedy and comic conventions in the Aeneid of Vergil. Taking into consideration as many comic constituents as it is possible to retrieve from the Virgilian epic text, I would also like to try to answer the general question concerning supposed influence of these very constituents on the meaning of the whole text of the Aeneid.

Comic Cons and Libraries: Opportunities for Patron Outreach

ABSTRACTComic books and graphic novels are a common part of public library collections. This research used quantitative survey methodologies to investigate the library-based behaviors and attitudes of attendees of a large metropolitan comic book convention. The intent is to provide context for librarians interested in patron outreach through comic cons. Results found that comic con attendees are library patrons, and provided clues for other types of outreach to related populations.

Superheroes in the Stacks: Halloween ComicFest and Wichita State University

Academic libraries’ graphic novel and comic book collections hold a wide appeal for both scholarly study and personal reading. Programming around these materials can attract diverse audiences to promote library services and resources in a distinctive way. Wichita State University Libraries hosted their first Halloween ComicFest in 2017 and it has grown into an annual event from the success of this initial endeavor. In this article, the authors discuss the challenges of planning and hosting a comic convention in an academic library as well as the potential benefits such events hold for both libraries and their patrons.

Space at the Con: Conversations About Representation in Popular Culture at Comic Conventions

Space at the Con: Conversations About Representation in Popular Culture at Comic Conventions

Meaning from movement: Blurring the temporal border between animation and comics

Abstract This article is informed by my current research in the communicative potential of animated elements within digital comics. Drawing on the writings of Thierry Groensteen and Barbara Postema, I adopt the viewpoint that comics are a complex system in which individual signs and multiple codes combine and interact to communicate meaning. From this foundation, I propose that animated movement can add additional layers of signification, contributing connotative meaning to mostly denotational images. Within the article I recognize that attempts to incorporate animated elements into digital comics have often inadvertently illustrated the difficult relationship and potential incompatibility between cinematic animation and the specific conventions of comics. This discord can be attributed to competing temporal qualities; cinematic animation is a linear time-based art form while time in comics is illusory and implied largely through space. Eschewing a cinematic approach to animation, my research builds on an observation by Daniel Goodbrey (2013) that animated elements are most successfully employed within panels as short animated loops. Unlike linear animated sequences, the indefinite timing of loops does not challenge comics’ temporal code. As exemplars of this more harmonious application of animation to the comic form, Jen Lee’s ThunderPaw: In the Ashes of Fire Mountain (2012–16) is discussed alongside my current studio work, Tepid Waters (Gowdy 2017), a digital comic in which the use of illusionistic movement is secondary to animated elements that communicate on symbolic or connotative levels.

USE OF GRAPHIC NARRATIVES WITH PRESERVICE TEACHERS AS A MEDIATED LEARNING TOOL

Despite the use of comics in education as a tool for reading or language learning, little is known about its potential as a mediated learning tool in Higher Education settings. This paper presents a preliminary study, part of a bigger project conducted as an action-research approach which aims to gain knowledge on the use of comics in higher education as a tool to develop comprehension and thinking skills. The study was carried out at one of the Spanish universities located in the Madrid region. The study involved 71 student teachers of an undergraduate course who were trained on how to read and create comics: use of diverse types of software, composition basis, communication elements and conventions of comics’ design. Students had the freedom to create their comics choosing the software they felt most comfortable with since the purpose of the study was to analyse the composition of their stories and the way they gave meaning to learning through them. Comics were analysed and categorised according to the story they told, feelings and emotions they showed, complexity and originality. Even the comics' design was well achieved, students were focused on their graphic composition rather than on the educational problems the comics should have conveyed. Findings suggest that even though comic’s creation encouraged students’ creativity and critical reflection, developing visual thinking skills takes time and needs to be practised as it is a scaffolding process. Future studies will be focused on developing preliminary visual thinking skills before asking students to express their subject knowledge creating their graphic narratives.

Remediation and hypermediacy: Ezekiel’s World as a case in point

This article deals with Kovner’s graphic narrative Ezekiel’s World (2015) as a case of remediation and hypermediacy. The term ‘remediation’ refers to adaptations which involve the transformation of the original work into another medium. While some adaptations strive to eliminate the marks of the previous medium, others highlight the interplay between different media, resulting in ‘hypermediacy’. The latter approach characterizes Ezekiel’s World due to its unique blend of artistic materials adapted from different media. The author, Michael Kovner, uses his paintings to depict the story of Ezekiel – an imaginary figure based on his father, the poet Abba Kovner who was one of the leaders of the Jewish resistance movement during World War II. While employing the conventions of comics and graphic narratives, the author also makes use of readymade objects such as maps and photos, simulates the works of famous artists and quotes Abba Kovner’s poems. These are indirect ways of confronting the traumas of Holocaust survivors and ‘the second generation’. Dealing with the Holocaust in comics and graphic narratives (as in Spiegelman’s Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, 1986) is no longer an innovation, nor is their use as a means to deal with trauma; what makes this graphic narrative unique is the encounter between the works of the poet and the painter, which combine to create an exceptionally complex work integrating poetry, art and graphic narration.

Comic Strip Narratives in Time Geography

On the basis of a shared emphasis on time as well as space, this paper argues for introducing elements of comic art into cartography, specifically the mapped comic, with an illustrated strip literally plotted and placed in a 3D time geographic virtual world. This approach is situated within current initiatives regarding the relationship between cartography and art, given that comics are a type of sequential art. Two examples demonstrate that the approach succeeds as a way of representing the geometry of a story without compromising emotional content. Comic conventions neatly package narrative geography for visual deployment. An example demonstrating the expressiveness of comic art principles when applied to maps (maps as comics) is discussed.

The Holocaust in Pictures: Maus and the Narrative of the Graphic Novel

This article examines the effect of comic conventions and the depiction of characters as anthropomorphic animals in Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus, a pivotal piece depicting the Holocaust and its impact on the survivors and their children. The article will claim that instead of the graphic medium being a hindrance, Spiegelman uses the comic conventions to his advantage, allowing the reader to identify with the characters and narrative in a unique way. In this way the graphic narrative underlines the verbal, demonstrating that the medium of the comic and graphic novel is not purely preserved for fiction or child narratives.

The industry avengers: An analysis of contemporary comic book publishers in the Philippines

This article provides a new perspective on comics publishing in the Philippines, particularly when compared to the cheap, mass-market image it used to carry. It also opens discussions on electronic publishing, piracy, exploring untapped markets both locally and internationally, among others. In-depth interviews were conducted in order to investigate the firsthand experiences of contemporary comic book publishers in the Philippines. We limited our study to independent publishers, noting that their experiences are also testament to the end of the monopoly of big, commercial presses in comics publishing. Findings reveal that comics publishers in the Philippines (1) belong to a close-knit community of creatives and academics; (2) benefit from comic conventions and cult followings; (3) manage to operate with insufficient support from local bookstores; and (4) use various coping strategies in the form of novel roles, products, and distribution systems.