European Comic Art

Comics, and in particular European comics, has always engaged with the social world, whether to contest or to uphold its norms. From its antecedents in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century caricature, it inherited a strong current of satire and critique. In the adventure genre that marked the emergence of European comics in its modern form in the first part of the twentieth century, engagement with the world was no less evident, but most often served, rather, to defend the dominant order, colonial or anti-communist, as heroes set off to right wrongs in far-flung places.

This article draws attention to the transition in print culture that took place between the 1830s and the 1850s, allowing for a new flexibility in format and new relations between word and image. Within this wider context, Cham was an innovator who adapted literary techniques such as mise en abyme, oxymoron and synecdoche to visual storytelling. The article focuses on links between Cham's work and Tristram Shandy: I show how Cham introduces Sterne's reflexivity into his comic strips, using unorthodox framing and inserting blind panels as a deliberate interference in transmission, impeding the reader's privileged point of view. Cham deploys a number of parodic devices to demystify canonical texts: for example, in an incursion across diegetic boundaries, he kills off characters from Victor Hugo's Les Misérables with a few well-aimed swipes from a vast pen.

This text was inspired by a personal perplexity occasioned by the Argentinian miniseries on TV Pública, Germán, últimas viñetas [Germán's Last Panels] with actor Miguel Ángel Solá in the leading role. (The series aired from 30 April to 23 May 2013.) I mean perplexity because why would a TV channel devote a whole series to a comics scriptwriter? I ask because in many countries and moments in history the comics scriptwriter was not even credited. On the other hand, the series implies another question: what happens to a great creator when he finds himself, because of his life's circumstances, in the situation of practising his trade in a primarily conservative and commercial environment? I'll try to answer those questions, but since Oesterheld's achievements are still too unknown in Europe I hope to also give here my humble contribution to help correct the situation.

Since the end of the 1990s, more and more Spanish comics have focused on the recent Spanish past, including the memory of the Civil War (1936–1939) and the succeeding dictatorship. This article offers an analysis of a particular comics volume, Cuerda de presas (2005) by Jorge García and Fidel Martínez, and discusses the way in which it interprets the role of the past in Spanish society thirty years after the political transition to democracy. I argue that Cuerda de presas participates in the questioning of the dominant memory about the past. It does this by undermining narrative coherence and by pointing to the plural and unstable characteristics of memories. Charles Peirce's semiotics constitutes the framework for the analysis, according to which there is a dynamic relationship between Cuerda de presas and Spanish society.

This article explores the way in which masculinity and femininity are constructed in Algerian manga, an emerging, understudied sub-genre within the field of Algerian graphic art. Through the exploration of youth-oriented publications of shōjo and shōnen manga, I will demonstrate how these new local works offer a privileged form of expression for and platform to address disaffected Algerian youths. The primary focus of this investigation will be the differences (or lack thereof) between ideals of gender performances as expressed in Algerian manga and ideals of gender identity in society at large. This article will demonstrate that, while some differences manifest a desire for change on the part of both artists and readers, they certainly do not constitute radical revisions of the popular Algerian notions of masculinity and femininity. Ultimately, this study will demonstrate the limits of manga as an imported genre within an Arab-Islamic context, oscillating between the promulgation of alternative social ideals and the reinforcement of social norms.

Daniel Stein and Jan-Noël Thon, eds, From Comic Strips to Graphic Novels: Contributions to the Theory and History of Graphic Narrative

Barbara Postema, Making Sense of Fragments: Narrative Structure in Comics

Shane Denson, Christina Meyer and Daniel Stein, eds., Transnational Perspectives on Graphic Narratives: Comics at the Crossroads

Mélanie Van Der Hoorn, Bricks and Balloons: Architecture in Comic Strip Form

Thomas Hausmanninger, Verschwörung und Religion: Aspekte der Postsäkularität in den franco-belgischen Comics [Conspiracy and Religion: Aspects of Post-Secularity in Franco-Belgian Comics]