Call for Papers 2028!

Romance!

The twelfth volume of Pace University’s Journal of Comics and Culture is inviting authors, scholars, cartoonists, and comics creators to submit essays on romance comics!

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

• American Romance Comics vs. Japanese Shoujo/Josei Manga: Western mid-century formulas vs Japanese approaches to adolescent self-identity and romance.
• The Shift in Perspective: Romance as seen through the eyes of male vs female mangaka: theme, style, expression, and narrative approach.
• Mid-Century Psychoanalysis and Family Dynamics: The manifestation of post-war psychological anxieties as strict moral guidelines regarding daughter-father relationships in teen comics.
• The Unfiltered Depiction of Domestic Trauma: The historical normalization of domestic violence and subsequent self-blame by female characters in early pulp romance issues. 
• Coding Promiscuity Through Costume Design: How visual identifiers (e.g., modest “good girl” aesthetics vs. revealing clothing) were weaponized to dictate a heroine’s long-term relationship worth.
• Romance Conventions in the Superhero Golden Age: How standard superhero teams (X-Men, Fantastic Four) adapted romance comic tropes like intense love triangles and unrequited pining to motivate stoic characters.
• Promotional Gimmicks and Speculative Lore: How publishers used romance spin-offs, such as “What If” alternate-universe wedding issues, as marketing strategies to capture female reader demographics.
• The Legacy of Matt Baker: Examine the career of Black artist Matt Baker, a pioneer who transformed the visual grammar of the “good girl” art style in early romance books.
• The “Bad Boy” vs. “Stable Suitor” Binary: Deconstruct the narrative architecture of choice, comparing non-conformity to the domestic safety nets offered to postwar female readers.
• Modern Webcomics and Neoliberal Individualism: How current digital romance comics prioritize individual self-growth and career entrepreneurship over traditional marriage goals.
• The Virgin/Vamp Dichotomy: How Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge function as mid-century Madonna/Whore literary binaries, and how their competition for Archie reinforces or subverts traditional 1950s gender expectations. 
• The Blueprint of Post-War Desire: How Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s Young Romance structured postwar courtship anxieties, establishing the thematic framework for the entire genre.
• Learning from the Masters: The overlap between the classics and romance comics.
• Queering the Romance Comic Subgenre: Tracing the historical invisibility and evolution of lesbian and queer romance comics up to modern independent LGBTQ identities.

Please submit a short bio and your abstract of 250-300 words to Ioana Atanassova at iatanassova@pace.edu and Matthew Brake at popandtheology@gmail.com by March 20^th, 2027. 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.