Eleventh Annual
Comic Arts Conference
July 17 - 19
San Diego, California
Superhero Identities
Thursday, July 17 12:30-2:30 Room 7A
From Shang Chi to "Same Difference": Evolving Asian Identities in the Comic Book Industry and Readership
Kim De Vries, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Out of the Closet and Into the Mainstream?: Comics, Comix, Superheroes, and Queer Identities
Susannah Mandel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"Is It Because I’m…?” A Review of Comic Books About Prejudice, Hate Crimes, and the Celebration of Diversity; 1964 – 2001
William H. Foster III, Naugatuck Valley Community College
Characterizations of Women in Four DC and Marvel Graphic Novels
Constance Regen, West Chester University
Black Images in the Comics: From the Beginning of the 19th Century to the Present
Thursday, July 17 2:30-4:00 Room 7A
Swedish scholar Fredrik Stromberg (Bild & Bubbla) presents a slide talk on his new book, which traces the portrayal of black characters in comics from all over the world over the last century. In a wide-ranging talk, Stromberg will walk through the twentieth century, starting with the habitually appalling images of blacks as ignorant "coons" in the earliest syndicated strips (Happy Hooligan, Moon Mullins), and continuing through “noble savage” figures such as Lothar in Mandrake and the colonialist images of Tintin in the Congo. Early attempts at integration in Peanuts and Marvel Comics are juxtaposed with the shocking satire of underground comics such as R. Crumb's incendiary Angefood McSpade. Wrapping up with the increasing visibility of blacks in contemporary works such as the South African strip Madam & Eve, Aaron McGruder's pointed daily The Boondocks, and Ho Che Anderson's Martin Luther King biography King, the talk concludes with a focus on current black produced cartoons. William Foster (Naugatuck Valley Community College) responds.
Thursday, July 17 4:00-5:30 Room 7A
Did you know that Superman (Hugo Danner) secretly owns DC Comics? That Lex Luthor, who is also the Kingpin, secretly owns Marvel Comics? And that Kingdom Come metaphorically depicts their struggle for market share? Peter Coogan (Fontbonne University) and Jean-Marc L’Officer (Black Coat Press) show how scholars discover the hidden true stories that lie behind our favorite fictions by continuing the “creative mythography” of Philip José Farmer, who founded the field of Wold-Newtonry with his twin biographies Tarzan Alive and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life.
"The Comics of Comics: Language, Grammar, and Layout."
Friday, July 18 10:30-12:00 Room 7A
The Phenomenon of Multiple Dialectics in Comics Layout
John Barber, TalkAboutComics.com
Beyond Panel Transitions: A New Look at Sequentiality.
Neil Cohn, Early Writings on Visual Language
XML and Comics: Comic Book Markup Language (CBML).
John A. Walsh, Indiana University
Comicons, Critics, and Classrooms: Different Forms of Comics Education
Friday, July 18 1:30-3:00 Room 7A
ComicCons and Festivales: Art, Comics and Their Audiences.
Bart Beaty, University of Calgary
The Cultural, Artistic, and Critical Voice of The Comics Journal through its editor-in-chief Gary Groth.
Ana Merino, Appalachian State University
Cesar Chavez #2: Comics in the California Classroom.
Jason Tondro, University of California-Riverside
The Modern and Postmodern Superhero
Friday, July 18 3:00-4:30 Room 7A
Modernist League of America?: Locating the Origins of the Superhero in the American Modernist Tradition.
Alex Boney, Ohio State University
Modernity, Manhood, and the American Superhero.
Aldo J. Regalado, University of Miami
A Knight's Tale: Self-Referentiality and Metatext in James Robinson's Starman.
Mark Coale, Odessa Steps Magazine
The Narrative Art of Jack Kirby: Three Responses
Saturday, July 19 10:30-12:00 Room 7A
Living in the (Soap Opera) Present: Story, Plot, and the Silver Age Captain America
Craig Fischer, Appalachian State University
The Serpent in the Garden: Devil Dinosaur and the Satanic Imagination of Jack Kirby
Jarret Keene, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
What’s in a Drawing? Jack Kirby’s Graphic Signs.
Charles Hatfield, California State University, Northridge
Changing Times, Changing Heroes
Saturday, July 19 12:00-1:30 Room 7A
Did the Dark Knight Strike Again? Frank Miller's New Digital Reality.
Robert A. Emmons, Jr., Art Institute of Philadelphia
Some Things Even Superman Can’t Fix: The Evolution of Environmental Issues
Matthew Poslusny, University of Charleston
Romance Amidst the Spandex: Changing Sexual Themes in Mainstream Comic Books.
Thomas Schilz, San Diego Miramar College
Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society
Saturday, July 19 1:30-3:00 Room 7A
Danny Fingeroth (Write Now!) presents a slide talk on his new book, Superman on the Couch, an original exploration of the reasons why the superhero is such a potent myth figure for our times. Fingeroth will discuss the evolution of the superhero, the significance of the secret identity, the way key superhero archetypes—Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman—touch primal needs and experiences in us all, and the changing mythology of the superhero. Superhero scholars Peter Coogan (Fontbonne University) and Aldo Regalado (Miami University) respond.
Cultural Constructions
Saturday, July 19 3:00-4:30 Room 7A
A Cultural Approach to Comic Book Genre Theory
Tom Kemper, Crossroads School of Arts and Sciences
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Victorian Literature.
Andrew Leal, University of Texas at El Paso
Film to Comics: Forbidden Zones: Race, Politics and Transforming the Planet of the Apes Mythology.
Eric Greene, Planet of the Apes as American Myth