10:30-11:30 Comics Arts Conference Session #1: Comics in Educational Settings— Comics have long been stigmatized as a lesser medium of communication than text. However, for many years comics have been making inroads to classrooms as an effective medium for learning, from analyzing graphic novels as literature to using superheroes to teach philosophy and writing textbooks in the comic medium. Neil Cohn (Tufts University), Diana Green (Minneapolis College of Art & Design), Leonard Wong (Templeton Secondary School, Vancouver), and Danny Fingeroth (Disguised as Clark Kent) discuss the various roles comics and the comics medium can and do play in education. Room 30AB
Categories:  Comic Arts Conference | Comic Books

11:30-12:30 Comics Arts Conference Session #2: Comics and Literacy— Leonard S. Wong (Templeton Secondary School, Vancouver) investigates the ways the alternative views of culture, history, and human life made accessible through graphic novels aids the development of academic and critical literacy among students in multiethnic inner-city classrooms. Robyn A. Hill (National University) and Bill McGrath (National University) examine the effects of using comics and graphic novels within the juvenile court and community schools system to foster a greater interest in reading, stimulate creative writing and artistic expression, and improve overall literacy and academic success within this “at risk” student population. Jacqueline Bauder (Saint Louis University) illustrates how she uses the Punisher’s arguable status as superhero, vigilante, or supervillain to teach the principles of legal writing to law students. Room 30AB
Categories:  Comic Arts Conference | Comic Books

1:00-2:30 Comics Arts Conference Session #3: Gender: Bending Masculinity and the Image of the Hero— Using interviews with Brian K. Vaughn, Esther N. Kim (Johns Hopkins University) explores the relationship between Vaughan’s views on gender identity and relations, portrayals of gender identity and relations in Y: The Last Man, and 21st Century notions of gender identity, gender relations, and feminism. Eric Schlegel (Washington High School, Atlanta) uses the synergy of Queer Studies to examine the rich possibilities of sexuality, gender, and marginalization presentation in figures like Superman, Wonder Woman, and Nightcrawler to help us question, examine, and construct our own gender identities. Shawn O'Rourke (CSU Stanislaus) argues that the Rawhide Kid's recently revealed sexual orientation is not an aberration or a deconstruction of the western hero but a reconciliation of actual history with the myth of the west as it has been represented in popular culture. Room 30AB
Categories:  Comic Arts Conference | Comic Books

2:30-3:30 Comics Arts Conference Session #4: Reflecting and Refracting: Comics as a Social Mirror— Patrick Jagoda (Duke University) explores Brian K. Vaughan’s award-winning Y: The Last Man as a means of characterizing the political investments of dystopian narratives as commentaries on the present and the perverse counterforce within developed civilization that inspires the imagining of everything from sociopolitical decline to total destruction. Dana Anderson (Maine Maritime Academy) discusses the way comics generate meaning through the lens of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology by examining the word/image interaction in E.C. horror comics and their suggestion that our capitalist system, with its emphasis on consumption, leads to a cannibalistic community. Room 30AB
Categories:  Comic Arts Conference | Comic Books

10:30-11:30 Comics Arts Conference Session #5: Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero— Superheroes were created by Jews. Is that significant, or a complete coincidence and no big deal? In a reading from his provocative new Continuum book, Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero, longtime Spider-Man editor and author of Superman on the Couch Danny Fingeroth explores the backgrounds of the young, largely Jewish men from Eastern European backgrounds who created the most well-known superheroes. Fingeroth will discuss how the creators' Jewish backgrounds may have helped make superheroes the most familiar popular culture icons of all—on TV, in movies, and in electronic media, as well as in comics. Room 30AB
Categories:  Comic Arts Conference | Comic Books | Comic-Con Special Guest Spotlights & Appearances

11:30-1:00 Comics Arts Conference Session #6: Comics Aren’t Film and Other Vicey Verses— Carrie Lynn Reinhard (Ohio State University) argues that cinematic and televisual adaptations of comics work must incorporate the readers’ and fans’ perspectives by retaining the spirit of the original, as captured in the sensory details of the comics’ visual presentation. Ariel Schudson (UCLA) discusses the panoply of visions of identity of John Constantine in the Hellblazer comic book and the character as a figure of multi-authorial mosaic in relationship to traditional auteur theory and as a gauge of authorial parameters in adaptation to the screen. Frank Verano (Temple University) traces the origins of film language in early avant-garde surrealist cinema to examine the implications this code of representation has on Grant Morrison’s understanding of the relationship between language and reality in The Doom Patrol. Room 30AB
Categories:  Comic Arts Conference | Comic Books

1:00-2:00 Comics Arts Conference Session #7: Of Supermen and Kids with Dreams: The Secret Origins of Superman— Thomas Andrae (California State University, East Bay) traces the evolution of the concept of the superman and his transformation from a menace to a messianic hero. He looks at the emergence of the idea of the superman in the philosophies of Nietzsche and H. G. Wells and their critique in science fiction literature. Andrae discuss Jerry Siegel’s radical break with this tradition and the sources for his creation of Superman, including his first (unknown) superhero, the fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, the pulps, and films of the twenties and thirties. Last, he discusses Siegel and Shuster’s unpublished Superman work and its importance in revising our understanding of the Superman mythos. Room 30AB
Categories:  Comic Arts Conference | Comic Books

2:00-3:30 Comics Arts Conference Session #8: Storytelling and Visual Language— Neil Cohn (Tufts University) reports the findings of a psychology experiment showing that readers navigate comic layouts by using systematic rules that rely on subtle cues of panel sizes and relationships while often defying the stereotypical Z-path, "left-to-right and down." Durwin S. Talon (Indiana University, IUPUI) explores the techniques of color theory to immerse the reader within a graphic narrative via changing emotion, clarifying detail, setting mood, creating environment, and defining character. Diana Green (Minneapolis College of Art & Design) traces Vaughn Bode’s creation of a catalytic gestalt of the comics form by examining the influence of cartoonists and writers as disparate as Harvey Kurtzman, Alex Raymond, e.e. cummings, and James Joyce on Vaughn’s work. Room 30AB
Categories:  Comic Arts Conference | Comic Books

10:30-11:30 Comics Arts Conference Session #9: Superheroes, Villains, and Vixens: A Discussion of the Top Pop-Culture Icons of 20th-Century Comicdom— Gina Misiroglu (Visible Ink Press), Peter Coogan (Fontbonne University), Alex Boney (Ohio State University), and Danny Fingeroth (Disguised as Clark Kent) discuss the popularity of the superhero and supervillain in popular culture (why some are fleeting, why some endure), the evolution of both heroes and villains in comics, characters who have alternately been hero and villains, and the unique dynamic between hero and villain and how that relationship has changed—and in many ways remained the same—since the early 20th century, when superheroes first made their mark on the comics pages. Specific characters are discussed and debated, with audience participation. Room 30AB
Categories:  Comic Arts Conference | Comic Books

11:30-1:00 Comics Arts Conference Session #10: Comics as/and History— Vincent Tomasso (Stanford University) argues that Frank Miller’s 300 is a story designed and manufactured for an audience who is used to and expects the comic book framework, and as such it is inappropriate to devalue Miller’s work on the sole basis of historical accuracy. Thomas Schilz (San Diego Miramar College) asserts that Frank Miller’s 300, though historically inaccurate, manages to achieve a propaganda viewpoint that would have been embraced by the Greeks of the 5th century BC; that their struggle against Persia was the first ideological conflict in history and marked the birth of Western democracy and individualism. Phillip Troutman (George Washington University) revisits and extends Joseph Witek's path-breaking study Comic Books as History (1990) by examining Will Eisner's The Plot, discovering insights into Eisner's intentions and drafting process provided through interviews with Benjamin Herzberg, situating The Plot in the context of other modes of visual history. Room 30AB
Categories:  Comic Arts Conference | Comic Books

1:00-2:30 Comics Arts Conference Session #11: High Art and Low— Richard Becker (CSU Northridge) discusses the nature of the narrator and authorial self-insertions in comics, like those of Lee and Kirby, Gerber, and Morrison, and the schism between schools of storytelling in which the writer is very visible and another in which the writer seeks to be completely invisible. John A. Walsh (Indiana University) examines Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol stories and their punctuation by appearances of and allusions to similarly fracture, damaged, and outcast artists and works and asks whether the members of the Doom Patrol are artists or heroes and if there’s a difference. Jason Mott (UNC-Wilmington) uncovers the history of comic book superheroes and traces their evolution from serving purely as devices of metaphor for poets to becoming the subject of extended development and progression by award-winning poets such as Brian Dietrich in Krypton Nights and Jeannine Hall in Becoming the Villainess. Room 30AB
Categories:  Comic Arts Conference | Comic Books | Comic-Con Special Guest Spotlights & Appearances

2:30-3:30 Comics Arts Conference Session #12: Poster Session— Want to go in depth with a comics scholar? The poster session provides that opportunity. On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday scholars' PowerPoint presentations will be available to read in printed "poster books," then the scholars will be on hand at the poster session to discuss their presentations in small-group and one-on-one discussions. Jennifer K. Stuller provides a critical history of the cultural effect of Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise while exploring her contributions to comics narrative to elucidate the legacy of Britain's princess of spy-fi. Brad Ricca (Case Western Reserve University) unveils "The Secret Name of Lois Lane" by tracing early, never-before-seen Siegel and Shuster material and outlining a Lois whose character and name is indebted to various, previously neglected sources, as well as proposing the definitive identity of the "real" Lois and showing how this information critically informs our understanding of her early character as an idealized (but problematic) representative of 'higher' art. Gregory Bray (SUNY—New Paltz) examines the way adolescent trauma in Smallville is encoded through the principles' interactions with their parents—Jor El, Jonathan and Martha Kent, and Lionel Luthor—and asserts that Clark is defined by his trauma so fully that it's all that feeds his actions and drains the rest of who or what could be, while Lex is ultimately consumed with his destiny and enters a cycle of anti-humanism. Marc DiPaolo (Alvernia College) discusses the portrayal of the Punisher as insane Italian American crimefighter and Vietnam veteran. Robert Emmons (Art Institute of Philadelphia) explores the personal experiences of Alison Bechdel in Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic and Craig Thompson in Blankets and how they can be transposed to a young audience to teach an understanding of the "other" to create open and honest discussion that provides context for the "other" and ourselves. Hal Shipman (Northwestern University) examines the particular aesthetics that are consistently at work in the graphic memoirs such as Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, Guy DeLisle's Pyongyang, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, and Judd Winick's Pedro and Me to elucidate what it is about this most subjective of media that has made it so effective in telling these tales so explicitly presented as truth. Doug Highsmith (CSU—East Bay) traces the rise and fall of the American romance comic book. Travis Langley (Henderson State University) relates the conflict between pro-registration and anti-registration heroes in Marvel Comics' Civil War to Erich Fromm's basic human dilemma involving conflicting desires for freedom and security, examining how character motivations on both sides arise from positive human qualities because Fromm's image of human nature is ultimately optimistic, holding that people on either side are struggling to find what is best for all. Jason Strykowski (True West Magazine), Meg Frisbee (University of New Mexico), and Shawn Wiemann (University of New Mexico) use the failure of Marvel's NFL Superpro to show how representations of the fantastic in sequential arts are incompatible with the fantasies in professional sports and thereby reveal contrasts that cannot be resolved in a single form of American popular culture. A group of graduate students from the UC—San Diego present a poster panel on comics and the construction of identity: Marisa Brandt looks at memory and identity in Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury arc The War Within; Matthew Brown asks why the DC Universe should have crises of identity; Adam Streed and Amanda Brovold assert that the superhero is as good as dead; Sabrina Starnaman examines identity formation in David B.'s Epileptic; and Evan Moreno-Davis explores how Christopher Chance targets the human condition. Room 30AB
Categories:  Comic Arts Conference | Comic Books

10:30-12:00 Comics Arts Conference Session #13: Cultural Continuity— Anne Hoyer (German Society of Research on Comics) traces the decline of Scots-specific features in Oor Wullie, a Scottish newspaper strip published since 1936 whose protagonist was voted Scottish icon of the year in 2004, and the increasing Englishness of the strip. Kristy Boney (Ohio State University) explores how many modern comics such as Bill Willingham’s Fables, and Ted Naifeh’s Courtney Crumrin take their cue from the Friedrich Schlegel and the Brothers Grimm and discusses the extent to which they stay faithful to the Volksmärchen (folk tradition) or follow the Kunstmärchen (artistic tradition) and become more subversive, expanding the collective folk tradition. Kotaro Nakagaki (Tokiwa University, Japan) reexamines the cross-fertilization of Japanese manga and American popular culture and analyzes cultural identity and globalization within the global market context of American and Japanese circulation. Room 30AB
Categories:  Anime & Manga | Cartooning and Comic Strips | Comic Arts Conference | Comic Books

12:00-1:00 Comics Arts Conference Session #14: Wolf Gal and the Feral Women of Li’l Abner— Cartoonist and historian Trina Robbins (From Girls to Grrrlz) presents a slideshow talk on the feral girls—Pig Girl, Hawk Girl, and Wolf Gal—of Li’l Abner’s Dogpatch, a bloodthirsty lot with no compunction about turning Dogpatchers into dinner. Wolf Gal, the starring wild girl of Dogpatch, is strong, beautiful, independent, and—don’t laugh—a feminist. When the little girls of Dogpatch imitate Wolf Gal by taking no guff from the boys, the citizens of Dogpatch react. They want their daughters to grow up as "overworked, wore-out, respectable married drudges," not "wild an' happy an'f ree, like th' wolf gal!!" Robbins connects these cartoon wild women with mythical feral children and more contemporary figures like Misha Defonseca, a Jewish orphan during World War II, who hid from the Nazis in the forests of occupied Europe for four years and eventually teamed up with a family of wolves. Recounting her experiences years later, she wrote, "the only time I ever slept deeply was when I was with wolves... Those were the most beautiful days I had ever experienced." Room 30AB
Categories:  Cartooning and Comic Strips | Comic Arts Conference | Comic Books

1:00-2:30 Comics Arts Conference Session #15: What’s the Big Idea?— Alex Boney (Ohio State University) examines the origins of the absurdist “Godot Effect” of unchanging stasis without resolution as a necessary trope in the superhero genre and explores the darker undertones of tragedy that emerge from characters perpetually trapped in this state of arrested development. Clare Pitkethly (La Trobe University, Australia) lays out the dual vision of America as utopia and dystopia presented in Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman comic books and, treating them as post-colonial literature, examines the association between imperial ideology and post-colonial utopianism in the American imagination. Chuck Huber (UC—Santa Barbara) compares images of ultimate evil in Jack Kirby's "Fourth World" mythos and J. R. R. Tolkien's "Middle Earth" mythos that suggests that both authors saw free will at the core of humanity and located ultimate evil in the domination and subjugation of the will of others as symbolized by Kirby in the "Anti- Life Equation" and Tolkien in the One Ring of Sauron. Room 30AB
Categories:  Comic Arts Conference | Comic Books | Science Fiction & Fantasy

2:30-3:30 Comics Arts Conference Session #16: The Culture of Popular Things: Ethnographic Examinations of Comic-Con 2007— Comic-Con offers students of popular culture an amazing venue to study how culture is marketed to and practiced by its fans. The presentation caps a weeklong for-credit field-study course and presents the trained observations of undergraduate students. Their instructor Dr. Matthew J. Smith (Wittenberg University) provided a framework, guidance, and transitions among the participants, and readings on popular culture and ethnographic methods as well as a number of on-site lectures and discussions. Students extended the analysis of Matthew Pustz (Endicott College) in Comic Book Culture: Fan Boys and True Believers (2000), which examined aspects of fan culture but did not include on-site analysis of cons. The students were encouraged to explore the intersection of fan practice (e.g., costuming) at the nexus of cultural marketing (e.g., the exhibit hall sales booths) and were free to select a number of aspects of fan culture to examine. Pustz himself serves as respondent on the panel. Students include Nicholas Langley (Henderson State University), Melissa Andrada (University of Washington), Cameron Catalfu (Wittenberg University), W. Stephen Combs (Wittenberg University), Pamela Geranios (Wittenberg University), Julia “Kit” Moran (Wittenberg University), and Karen Stover (Wittenberg University). Room 30AB
Categories:  Comic Arts Conference | Comic Books | Costuming | Fandom