CHINESE TRADITIONAL COMICS

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FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF THE USSR AFTER 1983 FORECASTS FOREIGN ECONOMIC AND SOVIETOLOGIST IN COMIC PIERRE CHRISTIN AND ENKI BILAL HUNTING

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Статья посвящена известному графическому роману французских авторов П. Кристена и Э. Билала «Охота» (Partiede chasse, 1983). В рамках данной статьи рассматриваются структура и визуально–нарративные методы «Охоты», а также даётся анализ прогностического потенциала заключительной части романа в сравнении со сценариями будущего развития СССР, выдвигавшимися западными экономистами и советологами в период конца 1970-х – начала 1980-х гг. Сравнительный анализ показывает, что «Охота» оказалась ближе к предугадыванию событий Перестройки, чем прогнозы зарубежных советологов.

PLACES THAT SAFEGUARD THE LEGACY OF COMICS ART

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The paper is a contribution to the research of dominant mechanisms, processes and places where Comics Art has created its social, artistic, historical and esthetical legacy. This effort can lead to an understanding of how to learn, safeguard, remember, share and present the Art of Comics as part of social values and how to obtain a national and international recognition for it. The text tries to identify key places important in this course of action, seeking to recognize causes for its inadequate museum presence. What lies behind museum hesitations on the one hand? And on the other, what are the problems rooted in the existing exhibition practices? What are the obstacles in this process of acknowledgement of Comics Art by museums? This problem has led us to look into the exhibition potentials of original Comics Art panels and drawings and to examine dominant exhibition models in the field.Relevant and professional exhibition practices present crucial moments in this initiative, because they direct our regard towards the constitutive nature of Comics and the characteristics of presented objects and materials. 

AESTHETICS OF THE INVISIBLE

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Definitions of comic media that have been brushed aside over the years and decades in order to define the media as clearly and accurately as possible are being revised due to technological modifications of the comics. Comic authors emerged in the late 1960s in America (and 1970s in Yugoslavia). They were mostly organized in groups who won the stage with experimental approaches and were institutionally accepted. Alternative expression in Serbia has peaked in the 1990s, when that pole of expression overwhelmed almost the entire scene.After the 2000s, when the International Comics Salon was established in Belgrade (in 2003), an important space for action was formed in the field of experimentation, as it established an incentive “prize for innovation in comics” that motivated authors to advance their avantgarde research. Notwithstanding the freshness of ideas throughout the fifteen years of the Salon existence, only a handful of authors have achieved more notable accomplishments: A. Ćurić with the realization of the concept of spatial comics (2007), and A. Gajić who received the Grand Prix for the first time in the history of the Salon for his experimental work “Rewinding” (2012). At the University of Arts in Belgrade, several authors (D. Kuprešanin – Faculty of Fine Arts/Faculty of Applied Arts; V. Veljašević – Faculty of Fine Arts) have developed in their PhD researches similar concepts in different media – comics in space and unnarrative comics. Since 2013, Kuprešanin has also introduces a novelty with the concept of experimental tactile comics.Just like A. Ćurić deletes the concepts of classical media transfers into the structure of comics, so does D. Kuprešanin introduce novelty into the structure of the media with tactility and haptic adaptation(technological innovation) – this novelty is especially important not only because of the new way of structuring of the media itself, but also because it was the first time that the blind and partially sighted audiences were given the opportunity to read comics.

CHALLENGES OF CREATING AN AUTHENTIC CHILD’S PERSPECTIVE IN A DOCUMENTARY GRAPHIC NOVEL

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Children books about difficult topics represent only a fraction of the available books. In children’s literature, the first–person narrative implies an adult author behind the child as a character. The imbalance between the narrative voice of an adult and the child focalizing character indicates power structures and impose an adult’s sentimental (and educational) ideas to the child reader. The same happened when I started creating a graphic novel about my own experience of the bombing, as a child. To avoid this pattern, I decided to make an authentic perspective of the child going through a traumatic event. This posed the following questions: To what extent is a graphic novel suited for departing from power structures in children’s literature? What is the significance of radical themes in creating the space for empowering children? Which elements of graphic narratives make the perspective of a fictional child authentic? This paper outlines the academic and practical research I undertook to answer these questions. It describes and emphasises the importance of authentic voice and perspective of children characters in the literature for children. It focuses on the importance of literature with radical themes in establishing the space for a fictional child to explore the world and empower its independent quests beyond the boundaries usually set in the children’s literature.Moreover, it presents the ways it can be used by an author to present the story from an authentic perspective of the child. It describes and justifies my choice of using interpretative frameworks from other fields of cultural studies to question how comics can be used to establish traditional power structures or depart from them. Finally, it summarises the ways my academic research influenced the practical research and enriched the creation of my book.

IDEA OF EXPLOITATION IN COMIC BOOKS

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Since their appearance, comic books have been victims of misuse by media concerns. Generic plot lines were preconditions for large printings, which – alongside commercialization and the Comics Code Authority (CCA) – without a doubt did the most damage to comic books and hindered transition of the once humorous newspaper addition into a genuine art form. Though the corporate model was well known and derided even during the 1970s, it has persisted to this day. This paper examines comic book industrialization and exploitation of original ideas. The analysis centers on the evolution of Marvel’s Punisher series. Following the decrease in quality of writing and drawing, as well as the changes made to the character of Punisher himself, the paper exposes the methods with which franchises are created from otherwise artificially maintained properties. Saga of Frank Castle is not the longest run in mass–produced comic book publishing history, but it is still a potent example of cultural trends and the divergence of comic books from their artistic principles.