Periodic Reporting for period 4 - COMICS (Children in Comics: An Intercultural History from 1865 to Today)
Reporting period: 2023-04-01 to 2024-03-31
How many of us know Quadratino? The boy whose scrapes often involve being de-shaped and re-shaped, from a hexagon, for instance, back to a square. Beautifully drawn by Antonio Rubino and published in the long-running Italian children’s magazine, Corriere dei Piccoli in 1910, Quadratino exemplifies the rich variety of children in comics and how they are framed within preconceptions concerning both childhood and the medium of comics. Part of an emerging and rapidly changing modern consumer culture, these children's publications are a key source for reflections on notions of childhood and the young, constantly muting medium of comics. These productions for children, part of an emerging and rapidly changing modern consumer culture in the early twentieth century, are a key source for reflections on notions of childhood and the young, constantly muting medium of comics.
The rise of the graphic novel in the 1990s was accompanied by the rise of comics studies. Keen to counter the assumption that comics are for kids, this field tends to focus on comics for adults and to overlook the many connections between children and comics. Recently, the interest in comics for children (including young adults) has increased, in proportion to the success of such comics. However, this research has essentially focused on comics in English and remains quite limited
COMICS, Children in Comics: An Intercultural History from 1865 to Today, pieces together an intercultural history of children in comics and children and comics from 1865, the year Wilhelm Busch published his famous illustrated poem about the incorrigible Max und Moritz, to contemporary graphic novels. While focusing on key European centers of comics production - Britain, France, Belgium, Spain, and Italy - it also covers transnational interactions, especially the influence of American comics. When turning to contemporary graphic novels, COMICS places North American and European comics in a productive dialogue.
COMICS maps the vast scope of connections between children and comics including:
child characters in comics;
reconstructions of childhood in comics and graphic novels;
comics for children;
childishness of comics styles;
In doing so, COMICS establishes a new, exciting field of research at the intersection of comics studies, childhood studies and periodical studies which unpacks the hitherto ignored roles of the child and children's periodicals, conceptions of childhood and childish drawings and children's drawings in comics, from the earliest days of the medium to the present.
COMICS mines the vast potential of examining children in comics, across formats, cultures and over more than a century of comics production. It sheds light on a dynamically changing medium, its interactions with other media, such as cinema, and print culture at large, and on the rapidly transforming children’s culture. It also valorizes a corpus of forgotten material, especially the rich variety of European children’s comics magazines from the first half of the twentieth century. Team members have also engaged with children's ephemera connected to comics and traces of children's interactions within the periodicals themselves. In the case of contemporary graphic novels, COMICS offers new possibilities of understanding the ubiquitous children in comics, unpacking the intertwined history of the cultural legitimization of comics and conceptualizations of childhood and childishness.
The rise of the graphic novel in the 1990s was accompanied by the rise of comics studies. Keen to counter the assumption that comics are for kids, this field tends to focus on comics for adults and to overlook the many connections between children and comics. Recently, the interest in comics for children (including young adults) has increased, in proportion to the success of such comics. However, this research has essentially focused on comics in English and remains quite limited
COMICS, Children in Comics: An Intercultural History from 1865 to Today, pieces together an intercultural history of children in comics and children and comics from 1865, the year Wilhelm Busch published his famous illustrated poem about the incorrigible Max und Moritz, to contemporary graphic novels. While focusing on key European centers of comics production - Britain, France, Belgium, Spain, and Italy - it also covers transnational interactions, especially the influence of American comics. When turning to contemporary graphic novels, COMICS places North American and European comics in a productive dialogue.
COMICS maps the vast scope of connections between children and comics including:
child characters in comics;
reconstructions of childhood in comics and graphic novels;
comics for children;
childishness of comics styles;
In doing so, COMICS establishes a new, exciting field of research at the intersection of comics studies, childhood studies and periodical studies which unpacks the hitherto ignored roles of the child and children's periodicals, conceptions of childhood and childish drawings and children's drawings in comics, from the earliest days of the medium to the present.
COMICS mines the vast potential of examining children in comics, across formats, cultures and over more than a century of comics production. It sheds light on a dynamically changing medium, its interactions with other media, such as cinema, and print culture at large, and on the rapidly transforming children’s culture. It also valorizes a corpus of forgotten material, especially the rich variety of European children’s comics magazines from the first half of the twentieth century. Team members have also engaged with children's ephemera connected to comics and traces of children's interactions within the periodicals themselves. In the case of contemporary graphic novels, COMICS offers new possibilities of understanding the ubiquitous children in comics, unpacking the intertwined history of the cultural legitimization of comics and conceptualizations of childhood and childishness.
The project began with a consolidation of an accessible and feasible corpus for each team member and the development of specific research trajectories and methodologies for comic strips, periodicals, graphic novels and children's ephemera. Since comics were deemed as expendable and not always archived, certain magazines are difficult to find especially in times of paper shortages (such as the Second World War).
COMICS team members have published and are preparing articles and book chapters on children in comics (newspaper strips, magazines, graphic novels) and comics for children from diverse perspectives that are situated at the intersection of comics studies, childhood studies and periodical studies. The project has resulted in 49 scientific publications and numerous presentations at international academic conferences and local workshops.
The team has also participated in public outreach activities by through talks and through organizing workshops introducing children to comics- and zine-making.
Notable publications include the edited volume Strong Bonds: Child-animal Relationships in Comics, which takes a first, unique step in exploring interactions between children and animals in a diverse range of comics; Sugar and Spice and Not So Nice: Comics Picturing Girlhood which turns to representations of girls through the twentieth century; Children's Drawings and Comics/Dessins d'enfance dans la bands dessinée special issue highlighting the diversity of connections between children's drawings and comics and the methodological possibilities for identifying and approaching these connections.
Additional public outreach initiatives include blog posts and online articles on comics and popular culture websites, the richly illustrated volume From Public to Private, which is available in three languages and introduces the comics publishing and collecting scene in Belgium and Europe.
In addition, a first exhibition based on the Alain Van Passen collection of comics periodicals, fanzines and childhood ephemera, "Reading the Alain Van Passen Collection" was held in autumn 2023 in collaboration with the KASK school of fine arts. The exhibition changed themes every fortnight to showcase a different facet of the comics magazine. Each installment was accompanied by its own newspaper, digital versions of which are available for download.
https://kiosk.art/issue-zero-comics-project(opens in new window)
Another visual public outreach initiative was carried out by artist and researcher Felipe Muhr made an online comic, Planet Akkor, inspired from a 1930s comic from the Belgian children's magazine, Bimbo. Monthly installments were published online for a period of two years:
https://kiosk.art/planet-akkor-1(opens in new window)
COMICS team members have published and are preparing articles and book chapters on children in comics (newspaper strips, magazines, graphic novels) and comics for children from diverse perspectives that are situated at the intersection of comics studies, childhood studies and periodical studies. The project has resulted in 49 scientific publications and numerous presentations at international academic conferences and local workshops.
The team has also participated in public outreach activities by through talks and through organizing workshops introducing children to comics- and zine-making.
Notable publications include the edited volume Strong Bonds: Child-animal Relationships in Comics, which takes a first, unique step in exploring interactions between children and animals in a diverse range of comics; Sugar and Spice and Not So Nice: Comics Picturing Girlhood which turns to representations of girls through the twentieth century; Children's Drawings and Comics/Dessins d'enfance dans la bands dessinée special issue highlighting the diversity of connections between children's drawings and comics and the methodological possibilities for identifying and approaching these connections.
Additional public outreach initiatives include blog posts and online articles on comics and popular culture websites, the richly illustrated volume From Public to Private, which is available in three languages and introduces the comics publishing and collecting scene in Belgium and Europe.
In addition, a first exhibition based on the Alain Van Passen collection of comics periodicals, fanzines and childhood ephemera, "Reading the Alain Van Passen Collection" was held in autumn 2023 in collaboration with the KASK school of fine arts. The exhibition changed themes every fortnight to showcase a different facet of the comics magazine. Each installment was accompanied by its own newspaper, digital versions of which are available for download.
https://kiosk.art/issue-zero-comics-project(opens in new window)
Another visual public outreach initiative was carried out by artist and researcher Felipe Muhr made an online comic, Planet Akkor, inspired from a 1930s comic from the Belgian children's magazine, Bimbo. Monthly installments were published online for a period of two years:
https://kiosk.art/planet-akkor-1(opens in new window)
Even though comics studies in Europe is a growing field (just like the slightly older fields of childhood studies, children’s literature and periodical studies), European children’s magazines remain by and large overlooked by research. Even the most popular of magazines, TBO, Beano, Lisette, have attracted only limited interest. COMICS therefore contributes to the cultural historical knowledge of these publications while exemplifying interdisciplinary methodologies for studying such works. Comics magazines played a central role in the development of a popular children’s culture during the first half of the twentieth century. COMICS productively maps, problematizes and operationalizes the connections between children and comics, covering the magazine form and comics styles and the establishment and transformations of a burgeoning children’s culture. Not limited to historical magazines, COMICS has also elaborated on the connections between children's drawings and comics on a transnational scale through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. It has also elaborated on the possibilities of understanding representations of children in graphic novel from emotional, affective and cultural memory perspectives.