The International Comic Arts Forum is an annual academic conference dedicated to promoting the scholarly study and appreciation of comic art, including comic strips, comic books, comics albums and graphic novels, magazine and newspaper cartooning, caricature, and comics in electronic media. This year’s speakers included Gabriel Ba & Fabio Moon, Mike Allred, Matt Fraction, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Greg Rucka, Megan Kelso, Brian Michael Bendis, Diana Schutz, Dmitry Yakovlev, and many more! RSVP on Facebook!

THURSDAY, MAY 23

9:00 AM: Opening Remarks: José Alaniz, ICAF ExCom Chair

9:30 – 10:30 AM: Plenary Speaker: Douglas Wolk

10:30 AM: Coffee Break

11:00 AM – 12:30 PM: Panel Session One

1A. THE DEVELOPMENT OF FORM
Moderator: Toph Marshall

Robert W. Lovejoy “Amusing Victorians: Nineteenth-Century Print Culture and the Rise of Respectable Comic Journalism.”
Martha Kennedy, “Cover Art by Women Cartoonists and Illustrators for American Magazines: A Window into Women’s Professional Advancement and Gender Representation.”
Walter Lai, “The Comic Book as a Work of Art – A Case of David Mack’s Kabuki: The Alchemy.”

1B. GLOBAL COMICS
Moderator: Carl Horn, Dark Horse Comics

Jeremy Stoll, “Arguing the Auteur in New Delhi.”
Azisa Noor Koesoema, “Alternative institutions in emerging national comic book industries: The case of Indonesia.”
Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste, “On Historical Revisionism and The Chilean Experience: The Case of Historia de Chile en comic.”

12:30 PM: Lunch Break

2:00 – 3:30 PM: Panel Discussion: Contemporary Russian Comics. With Dmitry Yakovlev.
Moderated by Jose Alaniz.

3:30 PM: Coffee Break

4:00 – 5:30 PM: Roundtable: On the Theory and Practice of Comics Pedagogy. With Brian Michael Bendis, Diana Schutz, and affiliated teaching faculty within the UO Minor in Comics and Cartoon Studies. Moderated by Ben Saunders.

5:30 PM: Dinner Break

7:30 – 9:00 PM: A Celebration of Finnish Comics at Floating World Comics. With Ville Hänninen and Tommi Musturi at Floating World Comics (400 NW Couch Street). Pre-talk reception at 6:30pm. *Off-site venue*

FRIDAY, MAY 249:00 – 10:30AM: Panel Session Two

2A. THE DISCIPLINE IN THEORY AND PRACTICE
Moderator: Toph Marshall

Colin Beineke, “Disciplining Comics: A Case for the Institutionalization of Comics Studies.”
Corey Creekmur, “Freud and the Funnies: The Psychoanalysis of Comics.”
Franny Howes, “Drawing Comics in the Writing Classroom: A Decolonial-Disability Studies Approach.”

2B. PRESENTING GIRLHOOD
Moderator: Mark Heimermann

Susan Kirtley, “Drawing Conclusions: Focalization in the Works of Lynda Barry.”
Brittany Tullis, “The Angel in the House: A Critical Examination of the Feminine Ideal in Quino’s Mafalda (1964-1973).”
Devon Kerslake, “Adolescence and Erasure in Mariko + Jillian Tamaki’s Skim and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.”

10:30AM: Coffee Break

11:00 AM – 12:30 PM: Panel Session Three

3A. CHALLENGING FORM
Moderator: Mark Heimermann

Bruce Mutard, “Out Of The Gutter And Into The Panel: Comics closure as qualia of art imitating life.”
Jayms Clifford Nichols, “Scrolls, Codexs and Flippy-throughiness in (digital) Comics.”
David Brame, “Personal Poetics: A comic book and spoken word community development.”

3B. WOMEN AND POLITICS
Moderator: Qiana Whitted

Alisia Chase, “Matrixial Graphics: Motherhood and Politics in Megan Kelso’s Watergate Sue.”
Marni Stanley, “Where Do You Draw the (Front) Line: Women in War and Revolution.”
Annabelle Cone, “Something to Laugh About(?): A Gendered Reading of Sexual Satire in the French Post-war Bande Dessinée.”

12:30 PM: Lunch Break

2:00 – 3:15PM: Roundtable: Beyond Auteurism - Creativity and Collaboration in Comics. With Gabriel Ba, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Matt Fraction, Charles Hatfield, Ben Saunders, Qiana Whitted.

3:15 PM: Coffee Break

3:30 – 4:30 PM: The John Lent Award Lecture: ”How to Think About Comics as Social Objects,”
Benjamin Woo, Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Policy Studies on Culture and Communities.

Abstract: Comics can be defined in many ways. They are art works that create aesthetic experiences for their readers, cultural objects reflecting the time and place where they are produced, and commodities with a value on the market. But they are also social objects. They are made, read, and talked about by people who exist in a relatively stable set of institutions and relationships. This lecture addresses some of the possibilities and problems of a social-scientific approach to comics, placing them in the context not only of the “comics world” but also of a wider social world of geeks, nerds, and fans.

4:30 – 5:30 PM: Documentary Film Screening: “Comic Book City: Portland, OR”5:30 PM: Dinner Break

7:30 PM – 9:00 PM: An Evening With Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon. Moderated by Matt Fraction.

SATURDAY, MAY 259:00-10:30 AM: Panel Session Four

4A. COMICS AND THE AMERICAN SOUTH
Moderator: Qiana Whitted

Robert Loss, “Profluent Lingering, Trauma and the Individual in Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece’s Incognegro.”
Jennifer Glaser, “Seeing Race in Comics: Photography, Drawing, and the Gaze in King and Incognegro.”
Margaret Bostrom, “Graphic Narrative, Catastrophic Homelessness, and Stories from a Storm: Reading A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge.”

4B. GENDER AND SEXUALITY: EAST AND WEST
Moderator: Stanford Carpenter

Tiffany Pascal, “Girl Power Gone Sour: Issues in Discussing Romantic Love Between Girls in Japanese Comics.”
Nicholas Theisen, “Where the boys are[n’t]: the suspect gendering of shōnen manga (boys’ manga).”
Amanda Murphyao, “From “I am gay!” in 1992 to “I’m gay!” in 2010: The Comics Code and Coming Out in Alpha Flight #106 and Veronica #202.”

10:30 AM: Coffee break

11:00 AM – 12:30 PM: Panel Session Five

5A. SUPERHEROES AND EXTREMES
Moderator: Jose Alaniz

Joshua Plencner, “Scopophilia and Sixties Marvel: Lensing the Self as Losing the Self.”
Brannon Costello, “Superbodies and Fascist Aesthetics in the Comics of Howard Chaykin.”
Andrea Gilroy, “Queer Sexuality and the Superhero in Batwoman: Elegy.”
Hend Alawadhi, “Reclaiming the narrative: Muslims in comic books and The 99.”

5B. SELF, MEMORY, PERCEPTION
Moderator: Stanford Carpenter

Jennifer Anderson Bliss, “Real Memories, Surreal Experiences: Autobiographical Tensions in David B.’s L’ascension du haut mal.”
Christophe Dony, “The Rewriting Ethos of Vertigo Comics, or, Critical Perspectives on Memory-Making, Canonization, and the Logic of Fields.”
Josina Robb, “The Spatiality of Voice: How Joe Sacco’s Palestine Takes Up the Ethos of New Journalism.”

12:30 PM: Lunch Break

2:00 – 3:30 PM: Roundtable: Comics and the Pacific Northwest. With comics creators Megan Kelso, Greg Rucka, and T. Edward Bak. Moderated by Ben Saunders.

3:30 PM: Coffee Break with Documentary Film, “The Comic King of Guatemala”

4:00 – 5:30 PM: Plenary Speaker: Scott Bukatman, “Sculpture, Stasis, the Comics and (oh yeah) Hellboy.”

5:30 PM: Closing Remarks: Ben Saunders, University of Oregon

Small scheduling adjustments are sometimes necessary. Please check in before the event to catch any last minute updates.

The ICAF conference welcomes interested members of the public – but please note that any beverages and snack foods supplied on the premises are for speakers and panel participants only. Panel participants and speakers should further note that lunch and dinner will not be supplied. However, the UO in Portland building is conveniently located with access to several restaurants and diners within short walking distance.

Tags: #comicmarket, Brian Michael Bendis, Casanova, Daytripper, Dmitry Yakovlev, Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba, Greg Rucka, ICAF, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Matt Fraction, Megan Kelso, Mike Allred, University of Oregon