Call for Papers 2024!

Comics! Comics Movies! Comics History! Comics Fandom! Comics Art!

The eight volume of the Pace University Journal of Comics and Culture is inviting authors, scholars, cartoonists, and comics creators to submit essays on anything comics! This year’s issue is interested in bringing together a variety of diverse topics and a broad scope of ideas about comic books and anything related to them by extension. Be it history, artistry, development, film adaptations, biographies of creators, themes, politics, book reviews, we are welcoming all! All authors are invited to

Potential topics for proposals include, but are not limited to:

• Alternative and indie comics
• Biographies of comics authors and their journey in the comics industry 
• The development and history of narrative art
• The MCU – from blockbuster cash cow to genre in decline
• Comparison of gender stereotypes about comics preferences to actual preferences
• Theme, style, and storytelling differences in western vs eastern comics  
• Comics and politics  
• Literary and musical works in comics format – Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet by Stan Lee, Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung by P. Craig Russel, Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment by Osamu Tezuka, and more
• Superheroes and religion/ethics/epics/the Neobaroque
• Educational comics – The Manga Guide to … series, Larry Gonick’ Cartoon History of … series, etc., and the use of comics as academic essays/theses, i.e. Kay Sohini’s graphic doctoral dissertation
• Hollywood and the transformation of comics on the big screen – the comics code vs the blockbuster emotional payoff
• Depictions of murder, mysteries, and crime in comics
• The academic world and its changing relationship with comics – from Clement Greenberg and Fredric Wertham to Scott McCloud
• Comics in the midst of WWII, the Cold War, 9/11 and the current environment
• The manga phenomenon – why did Demon Slayer outsell the American comic book industry in 2022? The aversion to western comics in recent years
• Comic book and book reviews
• Indian, Korean, Chinese, and other Eastern Comics
• Eastern European and African Comics
• Pop art and its relation to comics  
• Fandom and comics – the birth and history of comics conventions and the role they play in society      

Please submit a short bio and your abstract of 250-300 words to Ioana Atanassova at iatanassova@pace.edu by June 15, 2024. We are interested in a broad range of voices and are happy to hear from both academic and independent scholars.

All scholarly essays published in the Journal are peer reviewed; other contents are editorially reviewed. Authors whose submissions are accepted for publication will be required to secure permissions for any images that are reproduced.

Please direct any questions and inquiries to Ioana Atanassova at either iatanassova@pace.edu or 929-421-5977

Proposals Due: 6/15

Notification of Acceptance: 6/30

Completed manuscripts due: 9/15