When: 23–24 January 2020

Where: Cardiff University (Wales, UK)

This two-day interdisciplinary conference will explore the mobility of comics and graphic novels along three axes: time, space, and media. Mobility is understood to include all processes of transformation undergone by comics in their jour­ney across history (time), cultural and linguistic bound­aries (space), and different forms of artistic expression (media).

These three axes of comics’ mobility are often inter­con­nected but have so far mostly been explored in isolation and from the perspective of a single dis­cipline or language. The opportunities and challenges of comics’ translation into different languages, and their adaptation especially from/into narrative prose and film, have received increasing attention in recent years. Comics’ travel through time has not been explored with the same frequency and analytical depth. Here, aspects such as the different textual and paratextual environments in antholo­gies and re-editions, changes to the artwork, and practices of re-drawing deserve closer attention.

Keynote speakers

Prof Jan Baetens (KU Leuven)

Prof Federico Zanettin (Università degli Studi di Perugia)

Panel 1: Transformation: Comics Mobility Across Time

Panel 2: Translation: Comics Mobility Across Space

Panel 3: Adaptation: Comics Mobility Across Artistic Media

We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers that explore any of the dimensions of comics’ mobility outlined above. Abstracts should be no more than 300 words long (excluding references).

Please send your abstracts (in English) to Dr Tilmann Altenberg at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by 30 November 2019. Notifications will be sent out no later than 13 December 2019.

The conference is supported by the Institute of Modern Languages Research (London).