Comics Forum & Thought Bubble

Violence in Comics! Judges squaring off at Thought Bubble 2014 – via: Integra Fairbrook’s Facebook page

I was up in Leeds ten days ago for the Comics Forum conference and the Thought Bubble comics convention. If you’re interested in comics and you’ve never been, mark your calendars for next November: both the conference and the convention are real highlights in the comics year.

Comics Forum is a comics conference that’s been running since 2009. I first started going because they hosted a graphic medicine session in 2011, but have gone back every year since then because they’ve consistently attracted interesting speakers and put together a really diverse programme, whatever the overall theme. This year the theme was “Violence in Comics” – not, you might think, immediately relevant to comics and archaeology; but you’d be wrong. Because there is always such a diversity of speakers attracted to the conference, there was plenty that had both indirect and direct implications for aspects of comics I’m interested in. Some particular highlights:

• Malin Bergstrom discussing Will Eisner’s work on informational comics for the US Army
• Enrique del Ray Cabero on memory, politics and tensions between collective, national and personal experiences of historical violence in graphic novels about the Spanish civil war
• Mihaela Precup and the depiction of survivors, survival and endurance during the Lebanese Civil War in Zeina Abirached’s A Game for Swallows
• Jane Chapman‘s keynote presentation on trench comics produced by soldiers during World War I
• Ian Horton on the social context of representations of violence with reference to British war comics of the 1970s
• Orla Lehane on the quotidian context of extreme and political violence in Troubled Souls (which I remembered from its original publication in Crisis, many years ago)
• Laura A. Pearson on animals and violence in Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas‘ graphic novel Red, which I referenced in my own paper last year – and in talking with her afterwards, how that violence is mirrored by the political, post-colonial re-claiming of space (gallery, museum, etc.) in the three lives of Red as book, mural and torn-apart-book (and actually, this links in with Olga Kopylova’s really interesting analysis of the effect of media mix in appreciating the “whole story” of manga)
• And finally, a particularly archaeological treat: the panel discussion with Kieron Gillen, Lynn Fotherington and Stephen Hodkinson on the obstacles and pitfalls involved in aiming for a historically accurate depiction of Sparta and Spartans in the comic Three.

At the close of the conference I was invited to take part in the plenary discussion afterwards, which was a good opportunity to try and pick up on various themes running through the conference. Violence as information was something which caught my attention – violence not just as a personal experience, or an event, but violence as a means to communicate something lost, hidden or repressed. Much late-night pub-based discussions ensued on both evenings, catching up with old friends, collaborators and colleagues – and getting to know a whole host of new people as well. I strongly suspect most of the people I know in comics I met through Comics Forum.

And then, to wind down: Thought Bubble on Saturday. Surely the UK’s largest small-press and independent comics convention? At least 3/4 of all the tables were independent or small-press comics creators and/or publishers. Too much good stuff and interesting people to make any kind of full list, but I particularly enjoyed chatting with Lydia Wysocki about travel comics, Oliver East about walking comics, Louise Crosby about comics and poetry, Sarah Burgess about communication in silent comics, and Owen and Jasmine at the Psychedelic Journal of Time Travel who turned out to be archaeologists as well as comic-creators: hurrah!

If I had to pick a favourite comic purchase of the weekend, it would be Lando’s excellent anthology, Gardens of Glass – part Moebius, part Katsuhiro Otomo, part Martin Vaughn-James. The anthology is a collection of short works originally published separately through Decadence Comics, a collective run by Lando and Stathis Tsemberlidis.

As always, great conference – thanks to Ian, Hattie and all who help organise it. And a great convention, too. Thought Bubble just keeps getting better as it keeps getting bigger. And you know what? I’m looking forward to next year already.

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The Future Art of the Past?

Panel from “Barclodiad y Gawres” comic (John G. Swogger/MB Heritage Mgt/CADW, 2014)

Six archaeologists who make comics – including myself – have taken part in an online e-panel discussion at Comics Forum on the role of comics in archaeology. Our discussion has focused on what comics can bring to the presentation of archaeological practice, process and interpretation through looking at our own work and the work of others in the field.

It’s been a unique opportunity to survey the current use of comics in archaeology, from Hannah Sackett’s first-person comics, where archaeological artefacts get to speak for themselves, to Al Wesolowsky’s “slice of life” tales of digging in the eastern Mediterranean, to my own educational comics that I’ve done on Anglesey and in the Caribbean. The panel has been a chance to demonstrate that comics are being used right across the discipline: by university lecturers like Troy Lovata, journal editors like Al Wesolowsky, specialists, students, archaeological illustrators and field archaeologists. Importantly, it’s also been a chance to demonstrate that these people are making comics covering the entire spectrum of visual storytelling, from education and outreach to interpretation and professional narrative.

Hopefully, the panel discussion will contribute to the ongoing debate about the use of different visualisation techniques in archaeology. I’d like to also hope that it might prompt those illustrators and writers hovering around the edges of comics to take the plunge!

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Palau Field Journal comic – first look

Some of you will have already seen these images – they were included in my paper at the Comics Forum conference in Leeds a couple of weeks ago. These are the first completed panels, pages and part-pages from Palau: An archaeological field journal – my comic of excavations on Palau this summer. The gallery below is pretty much a random selection of images from the comic; there’s a lot more writing and drawing to be done on it. But I think it gives a fairly good indication of how the finished comic will look. Whether or not it will end up being in full colour throughout depends on negotiations with a publisher, however!

Rock painting on Long Island

Long Island interior

Writing the field journal

Diving

Excavating skeletons

Discussions at Drop Off

Hisakatsu Hijikata

Cultural Centre, Koror

Copra traders

Chuab

The bat cave

Badrelchau

Uighurs on Palau

Stone Money

Odd dreams

Peleliu

Flying to Palau

Storyboard carving

Sonya Atalay

Map of Palau

Globe

Cover

Scott on Orrak

Storyboard

Mai Tai at Riptide!

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Comics and Archaeology papers

After talking to a couple of people at Comics Forum who were asking, I’ve put the text of the various papers I’ve given on comics and archaeology up on this blog.

The conference papers are listed in chronological order and hopefully give some indication of how my ideas about comics and archaeology have evolved over the past eighteen months.

Between now and February I’ll be working on some thoughts about the links between the work that I’ve been doing with comics and more general questions about narrative in archaeological visualisation. This will all go into my contribution to the York Heritage Research Seminar series, and take in some ideas that Kelvin Wilson and I have been discussing since the VIA workshops at Southampton University.

I’ll also be working on my “Drawn Together” poster presentation on my Palau comic for the Society For American Archaeology conference in April next year.

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Comics & Archaeology at Comics Forum 2012

“It’s a long way down” – page from Palau: An Archaeological Field Journal, and one of the images in my presentation at Comics Forum this weekend.

Just spent two excellent days at Comics Forum 2012 in Leeds, where I gave a paper on my Palauan field journal comic on Thursday.

This year’s theme was “Multiculturalism”, and prompted a range of extremely diverse papers, presenters and attendees – some fascinating presentations about comics I’d never imagined existed: Unexpectedly ambiguous crime information comics produced by the Omani Royal Police, comics about the workings and impact of the International Criminal Tribunals, sex, sexism and sexuality in Italian fumetto, black comic characters and creators in the US, comics in China, Slovenia, Israel and Canada; the papers ranged from the expected and familiar to the unexpected and unfamiliar and back again.

I presented my own paper on Thursday afternoon, alongside Mary Tabakow and her paper on the Royal Omani Police comics. It was voted “Pick of the Papers” for the day, and my prize was copies of Fluffy and Please God, Find Me a Husband! by Simone Lia. Even better, Simone Lia was Thursday’s keynote speaker, and so she happily signed – doodled – both books for me. Fluffy has always been one of my favourite graphic works, and so getting not only a signed copy but a chance to sit and talk with Simone while she drew in them for me was a real treat.

Simone’s keynote talk was actually an “in conversation” with Ann Miller. The format worked really well, and Simon chatted easily about all sorts of things – picking fluff off the carpet at Gatwick airport, her children’s book illustration work, the origins of Fluffy, and the unexpected backstory to the genesis of Please God, Find me a Husband!.

Friday’s keynote – in the same conversational format – was Charlie Adlard talking with Hugo Frey. Again, the conversational format was great, and Charlie talked at length about some of his earlier works – illustrating Doris Lessing’s Playing the Game and White Death before going on to talk about his work drawing The Walking Dead and hinting at what he might do next (nothing to do with Zombies – he was quite clear on that!).

Some highlights from the conference for me: Ian Horton on British colonialist “heroes”, Ana Merino on Latino identity and Love and Rockets, Frank Bramlett on the quotidian in comics, Rebecca Scherr on framing and Footnotes in Palestine, Keina Yoshida on comics and international criminal justice, Asta Vrecko on comics about Italian atrocities in annexed western Slovenia during the Second World War, Corey Creekmur on underground comix and race and William H. Foster III on the changing image of African-American and black women in comics.

As usual, there were the inevitable conflicts that meant you couldn’t go to everything – I was particularly sorry to miss Paul Harrison on Egypt in comics, but managed to catch up with him later, and Umar Ditta’s paper on representations of relationships between cultures. But perhaps it’s best to leave a conference wanting more!

Came away with some plans and projects for the future: I had an invitation from The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics to submit my paper on archaeological comics, Ian Horton invited me to take part in a teaching symposium next year bringing together a variety of illustrators from different disciplines, Ian Hague and the Comics Forum committee are putting together some kind of “official body” to formalise the social networks the conference has generated, and wants to include “informational” comics of the kind I’m working on in archaeology as part of what they will cover, and Bill Foster has promised introductions to some comics writers and artists with Caribbean backgrounds, which might suggest a “next step” as far as my Caribbean archaeology comics are concerned.

As with last year, a great conference: diverse, dynamic, full of interesting people buzzing with interesting ideas. A big thank-you to Ian, Carolene, Hattie, Emily and the rest of the Comics Forum team for organising such a great conference – almost can’t wait until next year!

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Anthropology goes Comics by Hannah Wadle

A very interesting article over on the Comics Forum site: Anthropology goes Comics by Hannah Wadle. Hannah makes some interesting points that have implications for the use of comics in archaeology, particularly those narratives where “trustworthiness” of data is being questioned or challenged.

There’s also an interesting observation made about the use of drawing as a recording medium – anthropologist and artist Manuel Joao Ramos describing how sketching “evoked communicative moments with his environment”, and the contrast between the “open character of making drawings” and the taking of photographs or video.

It raises a question that has been touched on recently by people at VIA, that the innate subjectivity and interpretation involved in drawing seems to make it a somewhat less aggressive form of recording technique than photography, and thus possibly more appropriate than photography to partner the sorts of interpretative processes that should be taking place “at the trowel’s edge”.

Is this then also perhaps where sequential art might best fit in archaeology?

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