OUR FELLOWS
A growing network on Comics Studies
This group is a research platform that seeks to establish a bridge among people working on Comics from different disciplines. It also seeks to conduct research on Comics from a transnational, cross-cultural, and interdisciplinary perspective. They consider Comics to have rich traditions and artistic works that have been underexplored and have plenty to contribute to debates on Queer and LGBTQ+ studies, feminist studies, cultural theory, bio-politics, and the relation between fiction and techno-science, among others. By looking at the world from the academically peripheral standpoints of graphic narratives, popular culture, fandom, visual studies, and superheroes; this group offers a uniquely critical insight into modern societies.
CuCo, Cuadernos de cómic is an academic journal founded in 2013 and dedicated to the study and criticism of comics, with a multidisciplinary vocation. Since 2021 it is published by Universidad de Alcalá. Its contents include studies, essays, interviews and reviews.
PACE, Plataforma Académica sobre el Cómic en Español, has as general object to reinforce and give more visibility to research on comics in Spanish. Its purpos is to foster knowledge and research work on Spanish and Latin American comics.
The POPSICULE is an open, community-based interdisciplinary platform created by the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science (CPAS) at the Australian National University.
The POPSICULE community explores the CULTURAL MEANINGS OF SCIENCE with the aim to better understand how pop cultural narratives about science have affected the public discourse and understanding of science, and thus our science-society relationship.
They offer lectures, symposia, courses, public events, spectacles, field trips, publications, films and more.
Tebeosfera is a project of a group of specialists and documentalists interested in the study and preservation of comics and graphic humor in Spain. The project was born in 2001, adopting the format of a web journal. In 2008 a huge CATALOGUE of publications, authors, works and comic characters, the largest in Spanish language was added.
The aim of WeTell Spin-Off: Permanent Seminar on Comics (and the initiatives it promotes) is to expand the knowledge of/about the medium, but also to investigate the role it plays in our societies. Indeed, throughout its history, comics has functioned as an instrument of entertainment, propaganda, but also advocacy, and activism. Many contemporary comics have given voice to marginalized communities through biographical, autobiographical, documentary genres, as well as through fiction, among which the superhero genre (perhaps the most recognizable genre of the medium). Yet, these analyses would be stunted if detached from the material culture of the medium and the participatory practices linked to its diffusion, production, consumption, and sharing. Therefore, the Permanent Seminar on Comics aims to be an opportunity to consider the medium through a transdisciplinary approach (that encompasses semiotics, visual studies, cultural, historical, narratological, pedagogical, sociological and artistic studies) to explore new horizons and investigate not only the medium’s narrative potential, but also its ability to trigger a change in our societies.
The Permanent Seminar on Comics is as a spin-off of the 2017 AlmaIdea Senior Project “WeTell — Storytelling & Civic Awareness” of the University of Bologna, LILEC - Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures. More information and the calendar of activities are available on the website.
ICLA Research Commitee on Comics Studies and Graphic Narrative (2024)