Comics Memory

Despite the boom in scholarship in both Comics Studies and Memory Studies, the two fields rarely interactespecially with issues beyond the representation of traumatic and autobiographical memories in comics. With a focus on the roles played by styles and archivesin their physical and metaphorical manifestationsthis edited volume offers an original intervention, highlighting several novel ways of thinking about comics and memory as comics memory. Bringing together scholars as well as cultural actors, the contributions combine studies on European and North American comics and offer a representative overview of the main comics genres and forms, including superheroes, Westerns, newspaper comics, diary comics, comics reportage and alternative comics. In considering the many manifestations of memory in comics as well as the functioning and influence of institutions, public and private practices, the book exemplifies new possibilities for understanding the complex entanglements of memory and comics.

Maaheen Ahmedis a postdoctoral fellow at the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO) at Ghent University, Belgium. She is currently working on possibilities for conceptualizing the relationship between comics and different kinds of memories, ranging from personal memories to collective and medium-based ones. Her books include Openness of Comics (2016) and Le Statut culturel de la bande dessinée/The Cultural Standing of Comics (2017), co-edited with Stéphanie Delneste and Jean-Louis Tilleuil. She recently received an ERC Starting Grant for her project on children in European comics.

Benoît Crucifixis a FRS-FNRS doctoral fellow at the University of Liège and UCLouvain, Belgium. His thesis focuses on the cultural memory of comics in the contemporary graphic novel. His research on comics memory has been published inEuropean Comic Art, The Comics Grid, Journal of Graphic Novels and ComicsandInks. He isa member of the ACME Comics Research Group and of the editorial board ofComicalités.

1. Introduction: Untaming Comics Memory (Maaheen Ahmed& Benoît Crucifix).- 2. Portrait of the Artist as a Nostalgic: Seth'sIt's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken(Giorgio Busi Rizzi).- 3. Its All Come Flooding Back: Memories of Childhood Comics (Mel Gibson).- 4. Archives and Oral History in Emmanuel GuibertsLe Photographe (Bettina Egger).- 5. The Ever-Shifting Wall: Edmond Baudoin and the Continuous Poem of Autobiography (Pedro Moura).- 6. Keep Out, Or Else: Diary as Body inThe Diary of a Teenage Girl andCruddy (Rachel R. Miller).- 7. The Un-erotic Dancer: Sylvie RancourtsMelody (Eleanor Ty).- 8.Panique en Atlantique: Bridging Personal and Collective Memories of LAssociation and Comics History (Christian Reyns-Chikuma).- 9. Comics History and the Question of Delinquency: The Case ofCriminal (Christopher Pizzino).- 10. Sons and Grandsons of Origins: Narrative Memory in Marvel Superhero Comics (Jean-Matthieu Méon).- 11. A Trip Down Memory Lane: Reprints and Canonization of MorrisLucky Luke Series (Nicolas Martinez).- 12. Selective Memory: Art History and the Comic Strip Work of Jack B. Yeats (Michael Connerty).- 13.The Marie Duval Archive: Memory and the Development of the Comic Strip Canon (Simon Grennan).- 14. The Tremendous Treasure: The Curious Problem of Preserving Belgian Comics Heritage (Roel Daenen).- 15. Fanzines and Swedish Comics Memory (Gunnar Krantz).- 16. Store Memory (Philippe Capart).- 17. Coda: A User Guide to Comics Memory (Maaheen Ahmed and Benoît Crucifix).