Comic Series Research Articles

The Impossibles revived: Hanna-Barbera’s superhero universe in TV and comics

ABSTRACT Hanna-Barbera's Superheroes Universe – also known as Hanna Barbera's World of Super Adventure – is a joint name for a series of animated short features produced by the famous Hanna-Barbera Productions between the 1960s and 1980s. Originally, it included characters such as Birdman and the Galaxy Trio or The Impossibles – all of them presented as a syndicated line of cartoons shown in American networks. It is not difficult to define Hanna Barbera's heroes as a straight response to the rebirth of superheroes narratives in the 1960s, with its main idea of a shared universe concept. Nevertheless, the whole World of Super Adventure line presents a very interesting case for analyzing the superhero paradigm as it moved beyond the basic comic book medium. A proper analytical insight will require three components of Hanna-Barbera's superhero construct: 1. The cartoons themselves and their visual/narrative specifics emulating Marvel/DC patterns; 2. The Gold Key Comics adaptations/expansions of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons, namely Super TV Heroes magazine, as a part of Hanna-Barbera's primal paratextual/transmedia system; 3. The modern comic book series—Future Quest—as a revival of Hanna-Barbera's superheroes in a universe-dedicated and much more serious approach that brings back the heroes to their initial, graphic storytelling form.

The Sign of the Joker

Abstract The Joker both fascinates and repels us. From his origin in Detective Comics in 1940, the Joker has committed obscene crimes, some of the worst the Batman universe has ever known. Conversely fans have made him the topic of erotic and pornographic “fan fiction.” Speculation about the Joker abounds; some fans have even claimed that the Joker is “queer coded.” This work explores various popular claims about the Joker, and delves into the history of comic books and of other popular media from a semiotic viewpoint to understand “The Clown Prince of Crime” in the contexts in which he existed to understand his evolution. From his roots as a “typical hoodlum,” The Joker even starred in his own eponymous comic book series and he was recently featured in a non-canonical movie. This work examines what it is about the Joker which fascinates us.

Captivating elementary school students’ interests in solving mathematics word problems with the use of comics

This study explores the use of comics in teaching elementary school students on solving Mathematics Word Problems. A total of 12 Year 2 students from an elementary school in Brunei Darussalam were chosen to participate in the study. A series of comics were created and some exercises included characters that were adapted from a local popular culture for utilization in teaching the students in order to engage their learning. The method chosen to conduct the research is of mix method adapted through usage of the action research model. A pre-test was conducted before the lesson intervention to assess the students’ prior knowledge of the content on the terms used in mathematics word problems. Subsequently a post-test was administered right after the intervention lessons were completed in order to discern if there were any significant improvements. Based on a classroom observation that was video recorded when the intervention was carried out, the children were highly motivated and very much interested in the content of the comics. Furthermore, the findings from the interviews revealed two major themes, which are ‘Enjoyment’ that detailed the students enjoying and had fun with the usage of the comics in the classroom, whereas ‘Interest’ tied in with the students’ enjoyment that resulted from their interest in the comic books. It is recommended that educators use comics in classroom due to its potential, especially in mathematics, where certain concepts can be quite challenging for some students to grasp.

Drawn to Reconcile: The Queer Reparative Journey of ElfQuest

ElfQuest is a fantastical independent comics series, but, as we argue, it is also an attempt to make sense of the seeming contradictions between theories of queerness and between the identities claimed by individuals. We analyze ElfQuest's paradoxical visualizations of sexual identities as both analogous to and critical of historically contingent sexualities. To enact this analysis, we make good on the often untapped potential for collaborative writing to showcase panoramic views of difference within the same textual body: through seemingly contradictory theoretical and affective readings of ElfQuest, we demonstrate that the text naturally evokes such contradictory readings and, within those contradictions, challenges divisions between identity politics and more abstract theories of queerness. After a pointed walkthrough of ElfQuest's arc, our paper parses the comics series' cartooned visualizations of a language unfettered by Western sexual norms, questions its elfin biologies that are unshackled from heteronormativity, and illustrates the generatively queer and decidedly real spaces that the journey of ElfQuest's publication and reception has given rise to. We conclude with some speculations about how this comics phenomenon may continue to resonate within projects that treat cartooning and queer theory as overlapping pursuits.

К ВОПРОСУ О РЕЦЕПТИВНОЙ СТОРОНЕ ПАЛИМПСЕСТА (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ ПРОИЗВЕДЕНИЙ Т. ПРАТЧЕТТА)

The model of literary palimpsest originally put forward by G. Genette is of essential value now, giving an insight into the mechanism of realizing transtextual meanings. Figurative use of the notion of “palimpsest” as a hierarchy of texts shining through each other, be it different versions of the same text or texts intersecting in the common narrative space, presents a new perspective on the modern literary process, when under the influence of mass culture a literary text may consist of not only other literary texts but also those of the cinema or even music. Although the conception of palimpsest has been further developed and refined by different scholars, some of its aspects, e.g. the receptive one, have not yet been studied in detail. Indeed, the receptive aspect of palimpsest is worthy of special attention as the literary process now is inseparable from the recognition of the communicative nature of art, therefore without a reader the literary work’s meaning cannot be actualized. Making a case study of the comic fantasy series by the modern English writer Terry Pratchett, the article considers the way palimpsest functions from the receptive point of view and sums up the effects it achieves.

Pepper Page Saves the Universe!: The Infinite Adventures of Supernova by Landry Q. Walker

Reviewed by: Pepper Page Saves the Universe!: The Infinite Adventures of Supernova by Landry Q. Walker April Spisak Walker, Landry Q. Pepper Page Saves the Universe!: The Infinite Adventures of Supernova; by Landry Q. Walker and Eric Jones; illus. by Eric Jones. First Second, 2021 (The Infinite Adventures of Supernova) Trade ed. ISBN 9781250216915 $22.99 Paper ed. ISBN 9781250216922 $14.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 4-8 In this lightning bolt of a graphic novel, a fifteen-year-old orphan who has spent her whole life trying to be invisible and left alone so she can reread her favorite comic series discovers that she has a dramatically more significant destiny. The bruised, washed out grays and browns of her grim futuristic cityscape (there is reference to an exodus from old Earth) tell us all we need to know about why Pepper's far more invested in her comics than real life. Once she's zapped through a portal made by an evil mastermind (the consequence of rescuing a cat from a shadowy science experiment), the colors change to gleaming rainbow brilliance, and Pepper's life shifts forever as well, mirroring the visual move from enduring life to diving headlong toward the shiny bits. Suddenly, she has a mentor in the darling but demanding Mister McKittens (a stray she saved), a quest, and a grand and magnificent purpose. The palette change is paired with a change in pace as well, as things really start to pick up once Pepper gets her act together and connects with her innate badass self to save the world. A gallery of images in a highly readable afterword gives some insight into just how much work goes into a well-developed graphic novel (fifty different costume color combinations were tried, for example). It's a relief to see this is a planned series, so readers need not fret that this is the last of Pepper. Copyright © 2021 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Porównanie strategii translatorskich w polskich przekładach wybranych komiksów z serii Asteriks

Celem artykułu jest porównanie strategii translatorskich zastosowanych przez Jo­lantę Sztuczyńską i Jarosława Kiliana w przekładach na język polski tych samych dziesięciu tomów serii komiksowej Asteriks René Goscinnego i Alberta Uderzo. Najtrudniejszym zadaniem, przed którym stanęli tłumacze, było przełożenie za­równo elementów humorystycznych adresowanych do czytelnika dziecięcego, jak i tych przeznaczonych dla odbiorcy dorosłego. Przyjęcie przez Sztuczyńską i Ki­liana odmiennych metod jest widoczne przede wszystkim w przekładach nazw własnych, dialektów, tekstów wpisanych w obraz, cytatów, tekstów piosenek oraz innych treści, które naszpikowane są aluzjami kulturowymi i językowymi.

Se débrouiller à Dakar : langue(s) et culture(s) urbaines dans la bande dessinée Goorgoorlou de T.T. Fons

In his successful comics series Goorgoorlou, the Senegalese journalist and cartoonist T.T. Fons depicts the difficulties of the day-to-day life in Dakar through the tragicomic adventures of the hero Goor, a symbol of the Senegalese everyman struggling with debts, political unrest, social distress and cultural paradoxes. This article introduces the economic, political and cultural context before discussing the linguistic features and the Italian translation of the series. Through vibrant images and a shared urban language, T.T. Fons shapes a national conscience out of a satirical publication and offers the readers a window into the dynamic linguistic landscape of Dakar. Goor speaks to all those who feel abandoned and deceived by the government in a way that truly reflects the multi-faceted linguistic system of urban Senegal: a skilful and authentic blend of French, Wolof, humoristic distortions and local idioms. Because its linguistic configuration acts as a de facto legitimation of an emerging urban culture between the late 1980s and the early 2000s, providing a suitable translation of the comics series into Italian has proved to be a challenging endeavour.

Figurative representation of death in the Italian comic book Dylan Dog

The canonical representation of death as the Grim Reaper is a well-known trope in art. The main aim of this paper is to analyze this trope as it appears in selected instalments of the Italian comics series Dylan Dog. Fauconnier and Turner have extensively discussed its complexity by describing it in terms of the Blending Theory/Conceptual Theory model. As a complex integration of several mental spaces, including a space with an individual human being dying, and a harvest space, the Grim Reaper blend involves metaphoric and metonymic interactions of non-counterpart elements (Fauconnier & Turner 1998). This model will be used as a starting point in the analysis of the corpus consisting of four separate Dylan Dog stories. In the selected issues, the Grim Reaper appears in both the traditional version: a skeleton-like creature dressed in a monk’s robe and holding a scythe, as well as variants in which its appearance gains new and unusual characteristics. It will be demonstrated how the artists' use of the comics medium, with its combination of written text and static visuals, enables certain creative varieties on the classic trope.

Buck Rogers in the 25th century: Transmedia extensions of a pulp hero

AbstractTheBuck Rogers in the 25th century A.D.comic strip first appeared in the newspapers on 7 January 1929, an important moment in the history of comics. It was the first science fiction comic strip, and, along withTarzan– which curiously debuted in comics the same day – the first adventure comic. However, many people are unawere that the origins of Buck Rogers are not rooted in comic strips, but in popular literature. In fact, Anthony Rogers (not yet “Buck”) was the main character of two novellas published in the late 1920 s inAmazing stories, the first pulp magazine:Armageddon 2419 A.D.(August 1928) and its sequel,The airlords of Han(March 1929). At first, the stories in the daily comic strips closely followed those of the novels, but soon the Buck Rogers universe expanded to include the entire solar system and beyond. This expansion of the narrative world is particularly evident in the weekly charts published since 1930. Soon, Nowlan’s creature became a real transmedia character: in the following years Buck appeared in a radio drama series (aired from 1932 until 1947), in a 12-episode 1939 movie serial, as well as in a 1950/51 TV series. Toys, Big Little Books, pop-up books, and commercial gifts related to the character were produced, before the newspaper comic strip ended its run in 1967. In recent years, the character has been reeboted a couple of times, linked to the TV series of the late 1980 s and to a new comic book series starting in 2009. Buck Rogers thus found himself at the centre of a truly character-oriented franchise, showing how transmedia characters can be traced back almost to the origins of the modern cultural industry. The following article focuses on the features that distinguish Buck Rogers as a character and on the changes of his identity across media, presenting a revised version of an analytical model to investigate transmedia characters that has been developed in previous publications.

INTERJECTIONS IN THE INDONESIAN COMIC SERIES NEXT G AND THE DUTCH COMIC SERIES Kik

Interjections are the words frequently found in both Indonesian and Dutch comic books. This study focuses on the types of interjection that have meaning and express feelings in a comic series published in Indonesia, Next G. This study aims to describe the types of interjection that express feelings in the comic series Next G in terms of the number and the syllable pattern and explains other characteristics of the use of interjection in the comic series. The method used in this study is descriptive qualitative using literature review as its data collection technique obtained from the comparison of the analysis and the interjection (Haeseryn, 1997) in the Dutch comic book Kik. The result of the study shows that the interjections that express feelings in the comic Next G and the comic Kik are similarly dominated by fear and the highest number of syllable consists of one to two syllables The functions of the interjection in both comic series are similar, to add excitement and to express strong emotions to the story. The use of interjections that comes from foreign languages can be found more in the Indonesian comic series Next G compared to the Dutch comic series Kik.

On the translation of Manner-of-motion in comics

AbstractThis paper focuses on the translation of Manner-of-motion in comics, a genre in which information is conveyed in both verbal and visual language. The study draws on Slobin’s Thinking-for-translating hypothesis, according to which translators tend to distance themselves from the source text in order to conform to the rhetorical style of the target language. Special attention is devoted to the role of visual language within this framework, with the ultimate aim of identifying translation techniques adapted to the issue of translating Manner-of-motion in comics, in both inter- and intratypological translation scenarios. This paper analyses a corpus that includes a selection from the Belgian comic seriesLes aventures de Tintinand its translation into two satellite-framed languages (English and German) and two verb-framed languages (Spanish and Catalan). Overall, the results highlight the key role of visual language in the translation of Manner-of-motion in comics, since this can compensate for alterations in the verbal code of target texts, by comparison with originals, and thus minimize the consequences of Thinking-for-translating. Moreover, the (limited) space in the balloons and the respective stylistic conventions of comic books in each language are shown to constrain translation to some extent.

Boogie, el aceitoso en la Colombia de los 80 y 90: el negro Fontanarrosa, Samper Pizano y el miedo al falso héroe

ABSTRACTThis article provides a study of the main character in the comic series Boogie, el aceitoso from three convergent perspectives. Each of these perspectives stem from our own subjective experiences as young readers of Boogie, but they are also informed by current academic concepts. The first perspective addresses the character of Boogie as a false hero in opposition to a myth that provides a heroic interpretation of the character’s motives. The second analyzes both the work of Daniel Samper Pizano—the renowned Colombian writer and journalist—as a cultural mediator, and the impact that this work had on the readership of a national newspaper in Colombia. Finally, the third perspective focuses on the aesthetic aspect of Boogie, the style of the drawings and the composition of the frames created by Fontanarrosa. The conclusion about the short-lived presence of Boogie in Colombian newspapers points to the idea that a criminal false hero was too sophisticated a parody for a society that, facing waves of violence, was unable to accept and comprehend the criticism incorporated in the character.

Inodoro Pereyra: el humor y los conflictos sociales

ABSTRACTThis article aims to analyze the way in which certain social and political contexts of a given period and society are represented in mass media, from the devices through which these representations are developed to their possible readings and their reach. We will focus on the comic series Inodoro Pereyra by Roberto Fontanarrosa, a transcendent work in the history of graphics in Argentina. The analysis of its frames will enable us to observe how humor is used to expose one of the main conflicts of Argentinian society in those days, not only through the central character and his dilemmas, experiences, lifestyle and geographic location but also through the supporting characters.

The Invisibles: Gnosticism of the (Extra)ordinary

Judging by its popularity among writers, readers, and critical commentators, The Invisibles may be the comic book series that firmly established Grant Morrison as the most visible face of the sub-genre of the intellectual and philosophical comic book. While several religious and mystical traditions—including Buddhism, Hinduism, Aztec religions, and Kabbalah—combine to shape the terrain of conflict in the series, it is arguably Gnosticism that plays the primary role. The Invisibles operate invisibly by concealing themselves from their enemies: the demigod “Archons” who rule the materialistic and spiritually deficient universe and their minions among the human elites. Invisibility also characterizes the Gnostic divine realm known as the Pleroma, which can only be accessed through the hidden resources of the human spirit. Crucially, the narrative suggests that the marginal social positions occupied by the majority of the protagonists render these protagonists ideal as vehicles for the transmission of the knowledge and power of the Pleroma in the fallen human world. In The Invisibles, the cultural, economic, and political dimensions of social oppression unfold through and alongside a scenario that is central to Gnostic soteriology; humans who aspire to spiritual liberation must challenge the rule of the formidable Archons, who thrive by enslaving human consciousness within the spacetime matrix they control. In this article, I argue that, while meshing the Manichean dualities of Gnostic cosmology with the quotidian binaries of human life, The Invisibles subjects all dualities to an irenic synthesis; in the fullness of, and beyond, time, the struggles between normative and marginal, materialistic and spiritual, and darkness and light drive the Self to absorb and transform into value all of the horrors that seem to negate its worth. The Invisibles suggests that this challenging form of gnosis is the only way for the Self to attain to its greater Gnostic Selfhood.

“That Old Black Magic”: Noir and Music in Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido’s Blacksad

Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido’s Blacksad is a comic series that evokes the noir tradition through thematic and visual callbacks to noir films and comics. As they use noir tropes, the comics illuminate the tensions in both noir and comics. Yet, Blacksad stands out as a liminal text that simultaneously references and reverses traditional noir themes. One often-overlooked noir trope is the inclusion of music in each comic album. Blacksad has often been analysed as a purely visual text. However, the inclusion of music enhances the text as the songs themselves create a layered meaning in the work that is relevant to the styles present in both comics and film noir. The music enhances the intertextual and noir references embedded in Blacksad, both building the world around the story and enhancing the storytelling of an inherently ‘silent’ medium.

MS. MARVEL AS A REPRESENTATION OF THE STRUGGLE FOR AMERICAN IDENTITY

In early 2014, Marvel Comics released a new series called Ms. Marvel. The main character of this series is a Pakistani-American Muslim girl named Kamala Khan. Her story is a breakthrough against the negative representation of Islam in the Western world, especially after 9/11. This research examines five issues taken from the first volume of the Ms. Marvel comic book series. The paper discusses the reason why this series is substantial in the struggle of Muslim immigrants to survive as a minority group in the United States. The results show that Ms. Marvel serves as a medium of communication for the under-represented American Muslim community. Furthermore, by accepting the new superhero, the American society itself has also transformed and it is beginning to adapt to the idea that Muslim immigrants are members of their society.Keywords: Muslim, superhero, comic book, identity, popular culture

THE IMPACTS OF STUTTERING SHIFTS TO THE TRANSLATION QUALITY OF THE ADVENTURE OF TINTIN COMICS

This article aims to discuss how stuttering utterances are translated from English to Bahasa Indonesia. Data in the form of stuttering utterances spoken by Captain Haddock, a character in The Adventure of Tintin comic series, were collected to see how the translator decided to convert those utterances into Bahasa Indonesia. The method employed in this research is the qualitative-descriptive in which the data were taken from two sources(English and Bahasa Indonesia). The finding shows that there are three categories of stuttering initiator namely:Â intoxicated, emotions, and situations. Each category is classified based on its types, namely repetitions, hesitations, and fillers. In addition, the finding also shows that each type of stuttering was placed in a different concept on its target language named shifting. It can further be classified into preserved, altered, and omitted. Each of them affects the meaning and the message of stuttering utterances in the translation version. Finally, the statistic indicates that every type of shifting gives a significant impact to the translation quality.

Development of Student Worksheet through Deep Questions with Physics Comics to Train High Order Thinking Skill in High School Students in Optical Instrument Lup for Maximum Accommodation Eyes

Student Worksheet (LKPD) was developed with comic strips and through integrating deep questions in them. Comic strips were taken from the WHY Science Comics series? LIGHT AND SOUND. Comics Strip are written in LKPD to stimulate and provide information and basic concepts of optical devices to students. LKPD through deep questions approach consists of 4 sub-activities, where each activity contains the main sub-questions. In addition, 4 activities in LKPD are arranged systematically through the most basic sub-questions to the high-level sub-questions. In-depth questions integrated in LKPD provide a stimulus for thinking of students so that they practice high-level thinking skills and gain depth in learning. The systematic learning process using LKPD is proven to promote deep learning and can train students’ high-level thinking skills. Physical comics provide basic information about physics concepts and give a good impression to motivate student learning. LKPD is applied to two classes through different discussion models. The result show that student-centered discussion model will be more effective to be applied in learning with LKPD.

Agent of Chaos? Or a Reflection of American Society? The Truth Behind Gotham's Greatest Criminal

Ever since his creation in 1939, the villain of the Batman comic series, the Joker, has had an unstated, yet very specific purpose (other than to be defeated by Batman); as this paper will demonstrate, he represents and reflects the fears and anxieties of American society at any given time period. What has been deemed ‘scary’ by society has changed throughout the decades, and the Joker’s repeated transformations follow these changes. Aside from being a villain mastermind in Gotham, Joker has been, among other things, a depression era-gangster, a post-war rebel, even the head of a modern-day terrorist group and a computer hacker. Each manifestation, while sharing the same name and a fondness for suits, exhibits different personalities, characteristics and desires, all of which change to reflect the darkest parts of American society, as they are perceived in the wider culture. In this way, the Joker becomes, for readers of this comic, a demonstration of the changing landscape of fear in America.