The international celebration of all things pop culture known as the San Diego Comic-Con occured this summer from July 25-28th at the San Diego Convention Center. This famed event brings together creators, fans, actors, and industry executives to meet, mingle, attend workshops, and find out the newest developments for their favorite projects.
This year’s Convention featured a little known but incredibly exciting embedded event, the Comics Arts Conference. According to their website, “The Comics Arts Conference is an academic conference that meets every year at WonderCon Anaheim and the San Diego Comic-Con International. Our mission is to bring professionals and academics together with the public to discuss all aspects of the medium of sequential art.”
This conference featured academics engaged in various aspects of comics— from creation to critique, as well as from various academic backgrounds in subjects such as art, language, history, philosophy, criminal justice and environmental studies. Although embedded in Comic-Con, the conference had its own detailed lineup which included panels such as, Comics and History, “Fake” News and the Search for Objectivity: How Comics Use Subjectivity to revise the Historical Record, Comics and Alienation and Generative AI and Comics: Threats and Possible Solutions.
As a sociologist and comic writer with a special interest in Health Disparities, Race, Class and Gender and Practices of Resistance, I was especially interested in the sessions entitled Comics for Medical Communication, Indigenous Cultures and Colonization in Chile’s Contemporary Graphic Narratives: The Challenges and Opportunities of Illustrating Memory, History, and Visual Cultures, and The Spectrum of Representation: Using Comics to promote value and Belonging in Black Communities.
Comics for Medical Communication featured a very practical and down to earth panel of first responders, aspiring medical providers and artist-practitioners who create and or use comics as a tool for patient education, addressing social and linguistic differences when providing medical care, and to address difficult medical practices and realities such as living with a chronic condition and hospice care.
Another brilliant and creative panel was the Indigenous Cultures and Colonization panel, featuring American scholars and Chilean artists and writers who are reclaiming Chilean histories, mythologies and narratives that have been destroyed or lost to colonization. Featuring a narrative about the award winning graphic novel Lautaro, this panel of writers, artists and academics explored the value of reclaiming and retelling their own stories both for the value of the story, as well as to envision future meanings of indigenous/colonizer relations embedded in the new and evolving Chilean culture.
The Comics Art Conference also featured a poster session which included sequential art, portraits, and other visual art representing both academic explorations and comics. Of particular interest were a sequential art (comic) series entitled Comics, Court, and Overcoming Trauma: Visualization as an Essential Tool in Recovering from the Traumatic Effects of Harrowing Work Conditions in a Remote Salmon Fish Camp in Egegik, Alaska by Victoria Minnich. This sequential art series explored Minnich’s experience as a fisher(wo)man in Alaska and the consequent workplace abuse and violence she experienced due to employer negligence. Using simplified line art, a black and white color scheme and handwritten font stylings Minnich presented a harrowing tale in a rather disarming way, accomplishing her goal of demonstrating the importance of owning one’s story as a healing practice for seeking justice.
Another great poster was presented by John Walsh, entitled Yet Another Proto-Comic The hagiographical Christian icon with “scenes of the life.” This fun poster juxtaposed traditional medieval era Christian iconography with the modern day character Spider-Man through a recreation of pivotal times in the comic character’s life as scenes surrounding the character’s portrait. Walsh explained in his discussion that recreating scenes requires deep knowledge of the character’s life in comics to create a visual biography.
The Comic Arts conference has been held for over a decade and shows signs of continuing its strong partnership with Comic Con. If you’re in San Diego or plan to attend the Con, don’t miss this hidden gem of scholarship, art and culture through an academic lens. More information is available at : https://comicsartsconference.wp.txstate.edu/about-us-2/
Photos:
(Credit : Giovanni Dortch )
Victoria Minnich’s sequential art series, Comics, Court, and Overcoming Trauma: Visualization as an Essential Tool in Recovering from the Traumatic Effects of Harrowing Work Conditions in a Remote Salmon Fish Camp in Egegik, Alaska
John Walsh and his poster Yet Another Proto-Comic The hagiographical Christian icon with “scenes of the life.”
Title Slide and Panelists for Indigenous Cultures and Colonization in Chile’s Contemporary Graphic Narratives: The Challenges and Opportunities of Illustrating Memory, History, and Visual Cultures.
Short bio:
Giovanni N. Dortch combines her work as a sociologist, women's studies scholar and political scientist in the field of Health Policy and the Sociology of Health/Social Public Health. In this capacity, she has been a Reproductive Justice activist and HIV prevention advocate for nearly a decade. She is the writer of an eleven issue comic series focused on HIV prevention and safe and healthy relationships entitled LUNA: Unleashed.
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