"WITH GREAT POWER THERE MUST ALSO COME -- GREAT RESPONSIBILITY!"

Stan Lee, "Spider-Man!" Amazing Fantasy No. 15 (Sept. 1962)

Wednesday, August 27, 2025

CFP BD & Graphic Novels: Medium, Message, and the Politics of the Visual (Panel) (Hybrid) (9/30/2025; NeMLA)

BD & graphic novels: Medium, Message, and the Politics of the Visual (Panel)

Submit proposals to https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21959

Primary Area / Secondary Area
French and Francophone

Modality
Hybrid: The session will be held in-person but a few remote presentations may be included.

Chair(s)
Cris(tina) Robu (Davidson College)


Abstract

This board-sponsored session invites papers that explore Francophone bandes dessinées and graphic novels as rich, multi-layered sites of cultural regeneration, resistance, and reimagination. Drawing on Marshall McLuhan’s assertion that “the medium is the message,” we ask: how does the graphic form itself participate in the regeneration of narrative, identity, and memory? How do BD artists across the Francophone world reshape histories and futures by harnessing the dynamic interplay of text and image?

We encourage critical work that considers how BD and graphic novels not only reflect but renew modes of storytelling, community engagement, and political critique. Whether through formal experimentation, autobiographical intervention, or genre-blending hybridity, these visual narratives offer fertile ground for analyzing shifting cultural landscapes.

Guiding questions may include (but are not limited to):

- How do bandes dessinées contribute to the regeneration of collective memory, especially in the aftermath of trauma, colonialism, or displacement?

- In what ways do visual narratives reimagine identity, gender, and queerness as fluid, embodied, and regenerative experiences?

- How does the medium foster cultural and linguistic regeneration in minoritized or diasporic communities?

- What aesthetic strategies are used to reclaim erased histories or challenge hegemonic narratives through graphic storytelling?

- How do BD works engage with questions of migration, race, class, and social inequity, and what role does the visual medium play in renewing these conversations?

- In what ways does the BD form evolve—through digital media, formal innovation, or collaborative practices—to regenerate its own narrative and political potential?

- How do graphic novels function as tools for intergenerational dialogue, offering continuity and transformation across time and space?

- What is the role of humor, fantasy, or speculative fiction in envisioning regenerative futures within Francophone comics?

- How do lesser-known or marginalized creators revitalize the BD tradition, offering new stories, forms, and readerships?

We welcome papers from a wide range of interdisciplinary and theoretical frameworks, including visual culture, media studies, queer theory, postcolonial studies, trauma studies, feminist theory, and transnational approaches. Papers may focus on individual works, thematic clusters, or broader movements, with an emphasis on underrepresented creators and communities.

Please submit abstracts of 200–250 words in French or English.


Description

This session invites papers exploring bandes dessinées and graphic novels as dynamic sites of regeneration and resistance in the Francophone world. We welcome analyses of how BD artists address colonial legacies, queer and feminist politics, migration, race, class, and intergenerational memory.


Sunday, August 24, 2025

CFP Critical Readings on the Silver Surfer (1/31/2026)

Critical Readings on the Silver Surfer


deadline for submissions:
January 31, 2026

full name / name of organization:
Mike Lemon and Rob Weiner

contact email:
mike.lemon@ttu.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/07/08/critical-readings-on-the-silver-surfer


Since his debut in Fantastic Four #48, the Silver Surfer has become an integral part of Marvel Comic’s sprawling universe. In his six-decade existence, the character has been featured in merchandise and Marvel’s transmedia properties, including cartoons, movies, video games, and podcasts.

While there exists a smattering of academic research on the Silver Surfer, this edited collection welcomes differing perspectives on this character. We welcome contributions from different disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives, including comics studies, film and media studies, communication, theology, literary criticism, and so on.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Silver Surfer’s role in Marvel’s space operas.
  • Silver Surfer as a messianic figure.
  • Silver Surfer as colonizer, post-colonial figure, or something in between.
  • Surfer as “Other.”
  • His relationship with other characters (Galactus, Heralds of Galactus, Fantastic Four, Thanos, Thor, Hulk, Dr. Doom, symbiotes, etc.).
  • His relationship with different superhero teams (Fantastic Four, Defenders, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc.).
  • His portrayal by creative teams (Lee/Kirby, Lee/Moebius, Straczynski/Ribic, Slott/Allred, etc.).
  • Stand-alone graphic novels
  • AU Surfer (Fantastic Four: First Steps/Shaballa, Ultimates, What If?, Marvel Zombies, DC/Marvel crossovers, etc.).
  • Surfer’s transmedia portrayals (Animated Series, Films, Video Games, Novels, etc.).

Interested contributors are requested to submit their proposals (250–400-word abstract, 100–150-word bio, and 5-6 key words) to Rob Weiner (rob.weiner@ttu.edu) and Mike Lemon (mike.lemon@ttu.edu) by January 31st, 2026.



Last updated July 8, 2025

CFP 'Disney Across the Globe' (Special Issue of Studies in Comics) (10/1/2025)

Call for Papers: 'Disney Across the Globe'


deadline for submissions:
October 1, 2025

full name / name of organization:
Studies in Comics

contact email:
katja.j.kontturi@jyu.fi

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/05/23/call-for-papers-disney-across-the-globe


Call for Papers: Studies in Comics

Special Issue: ‘Disney Across the Globe’

Special Issue Editors:

Edited by Katja Kontturi (University of Jyväskylä)

katja.j.kontturi@jyu.fi

Eva Van de Wiele (University of Ghent and Antwerp)

eva.vandewiele@ugent.be

With 'Disney Across the Globe' we hope to appeal to a global network of comics researchers. Whether Mickey Mouse was first published in Brazil’s O Tico Tico, France’s Le Petit Parisien, or Italy’s Topolino is of less relevance than the fact that Disney characters invaded the global children’s press in the 1930s. This Special Issue endeavours to contextualise this spread as a transnational process of adaptation and appropriation, rather than a unilateral process of colonization. As the 1930s introduced an array of entertainment featuring Disney figures, we also encourage transmedia studies which relate to comics.

STIC invites articles from scholars who:

  • Are keen to explore the formats of magazines revolving around Mickey and Donald Duck: weekly, monthly digests, album and picture books, movable books, etc.
  • Wish to highlight the transmedia spread of Mickey and Donald Duck and how the Disney comics magazines related to other medial venues.
  • Are curious about the commercialization and commodification of children: publicity on in-house products, theme parks, television and radio shows in relation to comics.
  • Can study the magazines in as wide a number of countries and languages as possible, especially those lesser-known contexts: Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, Argentina, etc.
  • Locate syndicates, agents and transnational networks of licensing to enrich existing comics and cultural history scholarship.
  • Focus on the reception of the magazines and reconstruct the readers of those magazines: looking at correspondence sections, Mickey clubs and communities, editorials and competitions.

Submissions

The editors seek:

  • Research articles (4000–8000 words)
  • Short-form articles (1000–3000 words)

Articles should have a strong critical focus and draw on close analysis of (comics) texts, communities, histories, and so forth. Articles must be submitted in English (quotes in other languages should be translated for the journal’s readers). Short-form articles may be review-style pieces of new publications and exhibits or ‘state of the field’ commentary. Artist interviews are also welcome.

Images

Any images used must be used to illustrate a point, not simply for decoration. Furthermore, all images of Disney products must fall into one of the two following categories:

  • Official images licensed by Disney. We will not accept any screen grabs, and all images pertaining to Disney texts must receive official permission from Disney. You can find the forms needed for this process at this website: https://www.disneystudiolicensing.com/. This process can take quite some time, so plan your submission accordingly.
  • Personal images, including (but not limited to) photos taken by the submitting author at Disney’s Parks or other events (does not include any images taken by Disney photographers, which Disney maintains copyright of) and photos taken by the submitting author of fan participation with Disney products. If including faces in pictures, you need to either acquire permission from all people shown in the picture or blur faces.

For full image instructions visit:

https://www.intellectbooks.com/studies-in-comics#call-for-papers

Submission guidelines

Please submit complete articles with corresponding images and alt text form via the ‘submit link’ on the Studies in Comics website:https://www.intellectbooks.com/studies-in-comics. All articles submitted should be original work and must not be under consideration by other publications.

  • Articles to be submitted by 1 October 2025
  • Peer review process to be completed by 1 February 2026
  • Final article deadline (if accepted): 1 July 2026
  • Issue publication: April 2027

Address any queries to katja.j.kontturi@jyu.fi and eva.vandewiele@ugent.be with STIC 18-1 ARTICLE in the subject heading.

We appreciate your efforts to circulate this call to any interested colleagues.

Editors

Dr. Katja Kontturi’s Ph.D. (2014) discussed the Donald Duck comics by Don Rosa as postmodern fantasy. She has just published a non-fiction book (2025) based on her Ph.D. dissertation. Currently she is a university teacher of written communication at the Centre for Multilingual Academic Communication (Movi) of the University of Jyväskylä, and is working on an article about the transformation of family depictions in Disney’s Duckverse.

Dr. Eva Van de Wiele teaches Comics and Graphic Novels at Ghent University, and Comics History at LUCA School of Arts Brussels. She is an FWO junior postdoc at the universities of Ghent and Antwerp, working on a research project ‘Reading Mickey’ which compares the production and reception of French and Italian Mickey magazines between the 1930s and the 1960s.


Last updated May 28, 2025

CFP NeMLA 2026 Roundtable - Villains Reborn: Redemption and (Re)Generation of Comic Book Antagonists (9/30/2025; NeMLA Pittsburgh 3/5-8/2025)

NeMLA 2026 Roundtable - Villains Reborn: Redemption and (Re)Generation of Comic Book Antagonists


deadline for submissions:
September 30, 2025

full name / name of organization:
Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) | Sydney Nelson and Josie Kochendorfer

contact email:
lvfx@iup.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/06/17/nemla-2026-roundtable-villains-reborn-redemption-and-regeneration-of-comic-book


From brainwashed assassins to complicated anti-heroes to villains on a redemption arc, comic books, films, television, and novels frequently present readers with complicated antagonists-turned-superheroes, many of which become beloved characters. Through varied processes of regeneration, former antagonists remake themselves into superheroes in fascinating and often unexpected ways.

This roundtable seeks to engage with comic antagonists-turned-superheroes, exploring how such characters are regenerated, what regeneration reveals that a ‘traditional’ superhero origin story may not, and why we find these characters or stories so compelling. We also welcome scholarship on characters who eventually revert to villainy, are disingenuous heroes, or otherwise act in ‘non-heroic’ ways after becoming a hero.

Proposals might engage with or go beyond the following questions: Why do former antagonists turn to heroism? Is heroism and villainy a binary? How do antagonists-turned-heroes comment on our past history or present reality? How might this regeneration offer opportunities for positive or negative representation around race, disability, mental illness, etc.? How does the regenerative process absolve or fail to absolve characters of past transgressions? And who decides their absolution?

Proposals should focus on superhero comics, television, and/or films and might consider individual characters, teams, story arcs, and/or historical references.



This roundtable will be held during the 2026 NeMLA Conference taking place March 5-8, 2026 in Pittsburgh, PA and will be in-person only. This roundtable format will be somewhat informal 5-10 minute presentations with time for discussion and debate.

Submit abstracts of no more than 300 words and a short biography via the NeMLA site at https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21763 no later than September 30, 2025.

Please contact Sydney Nelson (lvfx@iup.edu) or Josie Kochendorfer (bpsdc@iup.edu) with any questions.


Last updated June 18, 2025