For those that may not know, this past weekend was the first ever Comics Studies Society conference, brilliantly themed around Minding the Gaps. I won’t take too much time to reflect here – the tweet below already captures my feelings.
*Deep Breath*
Ya’ll #CSS18 was amazing. Folks doing amazing research and hearing about it is great, but finding folks you know in online spaces in real life and building a better relationship? That’s priceless. And that’s what this conference was about.
— Matthew Noe (@NoetheMatt) August 12, 2018
This post was born out of similar efforts at the past two Medical Library Association meetings where we tried to curate a list of books mentioned throughout. If you are looking to get a feel for the current state of comics studies, you would do far worse than to take a look!This one is my attempt to do this solo, scraping through the #CSS18 tag on Twitter. If I miss things, I apologize – I’ll happily update the post with credit if you mention others!
I am primarily going to avoid linking to serialized examples (lots of Daredevil issues mentioned for example) and I’m not linking to things like Watchmen, Maus, or Sandman because, frankly, that’s unnecessary. Nor will I link out en mass to specific creators (such as Raina Telgemeier). That said, do let me note here that G. Willow Wilson’s Ms Marvel was mentioned so many times that it may well be the most discussed comic of all of #CSS18. I WILL also include clear call-outs to journals, major blogs, and webcomics.
Thank you to everyone who tweeted out book titles and photos. Special thanks to Maria Aghazarian for running a collaborative Google doc and catching things not on Twitter!
ALL OF THAT SAID, here’s a great list to dive into!
Note: If there are more than 3 creators or it is an edited volume, I am crediting “Various” in order to keep this list readable. The list is presented alphabetically.
- A Comics Studies Reader – Various
- A Whole New Mind – Daniel H. Pink
- The Adventures of Gyno-Star (Webcomic) – Rebecca Cohen
- After the American Century: The Ends of U.S. Culture in the Middle East – Brian T. Edwards
- All in Color for a Dime – Richard A. Lupoff
- Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature – Charles Hatfield
- Always Already New: Media, History, and the Data of Culture – Lisa Gitelman
- The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard – Eddie Campbell, Dan Best
- Angelitos: A Graphic Novel – Ilan Stavans and Santiago Cohen
- The Archival Turn in Feminism: Outrage in Order – Kate Eichhorn
- Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation – E. H. Gombrich
- The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye – Sonny Liew
- Between Pen and Pixel: Comics, Materiality, and the Book of the Future – Aaron Kashtan
- Between You & Me: Transitional Comics – K.C. Councilor
- Billy, Me & You: A Memoir of Grief and Recovery – Nicola Streeten
- The Birth of the Clinic – Michel Foucault
- Black – Kwanza Osajyefo, Tim Smith, Jamal Igle
- Black Women in Sequence: Re-inking Comics, Graphic Novels, and Anime – Deborah Elizabeth Whaley
- The Book of Sarah (Forthcoming) – Sarah Lightman
- Brown Girl Dreaming – Jacqueline Woodson
- Building Stories – Chris Ware
- Cancer Vixen: A True Story – Marisa Acocella Marchetto
- Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant? – Roz Chast
- Capital – Karl Marx
- Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice – Ivan Brunetti
- CCA MFA Student Anthologies
- Citizen 13660 – Mine Okubo
- Class, Please Open Your Comics – Various
- Comic Book Culture: Fanboys and True Believers – Matthew J. Pustz
- Comics and Critical Librarianship for Academic Libraries (IN PROGRESS) – Various
- Comics for Choice – Various
- The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship (Journal)
- Comics Librarianship: A Handbook – Randall Scott
- Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability – Robert McRuer
- Cultural Locations of Disability – Sharon L. Snyder and David T. Mitchell
- Critical Approaches to Comics – Various
- Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey – Ozge Samanci
- Darwins Korallen – Horst Bredekamp
- Destroyer – Victor LaValle
- Diary of a Reluctant Dreamer: Undocumented Vignettes from a Pre-American Life – Alberto Ledesma
- Disaster Drawn: Visual Witness, Comics and Documentary Form – Hillary Chute
- Documentary Comics: Graphic Truth-Telling in a Skeptical Age – Nina Mickwitz
- Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow – Anders Nilsen
- Dumb: Living without a Voice – Georgia Webber
- Draw Stronger: Self-Care For Cartoonists and Other Visual Artists – Kriota Willberg
- Drawing Words, Writing Pictures – Jessica Abel, Matt Madden
- The Emancipated Spectator – Jacques Rancière
- Empirical Comics Research: Digital, Multimodal, and Cognitive Methods – Various
- Escaping Wars and Waves: Encounters with Syrian Refugees – Olivier Kugler
- Ethics in the Gutter: Empathy and Historical Fiction in Comics – Kate Polak
- Europe’s Waitingroom (Webcomic) – Aimée de Jongh
- Feminist, Queer, Crip – Alison Kafer
- The Four Immigrants Manga : A Japanese Experience in San Francisco – Hentry Kiyama, Frederik L. Schodt
- Gandhi: The Beast Within Graphic Novel – J. Michalski, Antonio Rojo
- Ghost Stories – Whit Taylor
- The Goat-Getters – Eddie Campbell
- Graphic Medicine Manifesto – Various
- Graphic Novels and Comics in the Classroom: Essays on the Educational Power of Sequential Art – Various
- The Great Comic Book Heroes – Jules Feiffer
- Hand of Fire: The Comics Art of Jack Kirby – Charles Hatfield
- Here – Richard McGuire
- Hiveworks (Webcomics)
- Holy Feast and Holy Fast – Caroline Walker Bynum
- I Am Alfonso Jones – Tony Medina, Stacey Robinson, John Jennings
- Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and its Metaphors – Susan Sontag
- Inks (Journal)
- Jennifer’s Journal; The Life of a SubUrban Girl – Jennifer Yvette Cruté
- Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics (Journal)
- Jordan Wellington Lint: Acme Novelty Library 20 – Chris Ware
- Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation – Octavia Butler, adapted by Damian Duffy, illustrated by John Jennings
- Les Lieux de mémoire – Various
- Latinx Superheroes in Mainstream Comics – Frederick Luis Aldama
- Mail-Order Mysteries: Real Stuff from Old Comic Book Ads – Kirk Demarais
- March – John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell
- Masters of the Ninth Art: Bandes dessinées and Franco-Belgian Identity – Matthew Screech
- The Middle Spaces (Blog) – Osvaldo Oyola
- Monsters – Ken Dahl
- Mutants and Mystics – Jeffrey J. Kripal
- My Degeneration: A Journey Through Parkinson’s – Peter Dunlap-Shohl
- My Favorite Thing is Monsters – Emil Ferris
- My Friend Dahmer – Derf Backderf
- Narrative Structure in Comics: Making Sense of Fragments – Barbara Postema
- Neon Visions: The Comics of Howard Chaykin – Brannon Costello
- The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics – Ramzi Fawaz
- No Ivy League – Hazel Newlevant
- Oh, Hey! It’s Alyssa (Webcomic) – Alyssa Andrews
- Oh Joy Sex Toy (Webcomic) [NSFW] – Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan
- One! Hundred! Demons! – Lynda Barry
- Our Comics, Ourselves: Identity, Expression, and Representation in Comic Art – Various
- PanelxPanel (Magazine)
- The Pleasure in Drawing – Jean-Luc Nancy, Philip Armstrong
- The Power of Comics: History, Form, and Culture – Randy Duncan, Matthew J. Smith, Paul Levitz
- Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture – Marita Sturken, Lisa Cartwright
- Prince of Cats – Ron Wimberly
- Puella Magi Madoka Magica – Various
- Puerto Rico Strong – Various
- Refugee Republic (Interactive) – Various
- Reinventing Comics: The Evolution of an Art Form – Scott McCloud
- Sane – sequential art narrative in education (Journal)
- Sequart
- The Secret Origins of Comics Studies – Various
- Sex and Disability – Various
- Shigeru Mizuki’s Hitler – Shigeru Mizuki
- Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts – Jonathan Gray
- Solution Squad – Jim McClain
- Spinning – Tillie Walden
- The Spiral Cage – Al Davison
- The Steranko History of Comics – Jim Steranko
- Strip Panel Naked (YouTube)
- SubCultures Anthology – Various
- Syllabus: Notes from an accidental professor – Lynda Barry
- Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me – Sarah Leavitt
- Teaching Comics and Graphic Narratives: Essays on Theory, Strategy and Practice – Various
- Teaching Comics Through Multiple Lenses: Critical Perspectives – Various
- The Best We Could Do – Thi Bui
- The Nib
- Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
- Threads: From the Refugee Crisis – Kate Evans
- Understanding Comics – Scott McCloud
- Unflattening – Nick Sousanis
- Unpopular Culture: Transforming the European Comic Book in the 1990s – Bart Beaty
- Was ist ein Bild? – Gottfried Boehm
- We Are On Our Own – Miriam Katin
- What Do Pictures Want?: The Lives and Loves of Images – W. J. T. Mitchell
- What Is an Image? – Various
- Why Comics?: From Underground to Everywhere – Hillary Chute
- (The Complete) Wimmen’s Comix – Various
- Women Write About Comics (Blog)
This is a great shot of existing comics and philosophy books – no way I am trying to link to them all though, so mine them as you wish! (Thanks for the tweet Candida!)
Langsdale: where are the feminist philosophies of superhero comics? Work being done but not being named as philosophy #css18 pic.twitter.com/wxjBDytY6u
— Candida Rifkind (@CandidaRifkind) August 10, 2018
You may also want to follow-up with the publishers who were tabling at the conference! Links are to those I saw tabling – the photo includes those who had advertisements in our swag bag.
The Ohio State University Press – Comics and Comics Studies
Rutgers University Press – Comics
You may also want to know about these databases, ya’know, just in case.
Cartoonists of Color Database: https://t.co/ji1H5SudLs
Queer Cartoonists Database: https://t.co/hHtukDCeyG
Just, ya’know, in case you need them. #CSS18
— Matthew Noe (@NoetheMatt) August 9, 2018
If you have titles to add, please send them along to me – with a link ideally – and I’ll post them up! Find me on Twitter @NoetheMatt or email me at: matthew_noe@hms.harvard.edu.