Helvie on Teaching Comics

Came across the following by accident. It should be of value; Forrest does good, interesting work (both in Medieval Studies and Comics Studies).

Helvie, Forrest. "Teaching Comics in Medieval and Early Modern Classrooms." The Once and Future Classroom 11.1 (Spring 2013). Web. Available at http://www.teamsmedieval.org/ofc/Spring2013Comics.html.

Medieval Comics News Updates

Two quick updates today, both related to blog posts.

Michael A. Johnson of UT Austin asks "Are Comics Medieval?" at the Pencil Panal Page blog and gives a heads up to the work of the Medieval Comics Project.

Medievalist.net includes the query "The first ever comic book?" over at Medieval News in reference to a tumblr posting by Damien Kempf highlighting "A medieval comic book", further evidence of sequential art in medieval manuscript illumination.

damien kempf

Contents Update for Superheroes of the Round Table

McFarland has yet to provide further details on Jason Tondro's upcoming book Superheroes of the Round Table: Comics Connections to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, but I came across the following list of contents in the Library of Congress online catalog:

• Introduction 
• Double identities and Arthegall's Yron Man
• Kirby's masque
• "By my so potent art"
• Arthur, the four-color king
• Grant Morrison's Grail quest

Sadly a new subject heading was not created for the volume as occurred for studies of medieval film, and the book is listed instead under the following headings:

• Comic books, strips, etc.--History and criticism
• Heroes in art 
• English literature--Early modern, 1500-1700--History and criticism
• Renaissance--England
• Art and literature

Note also (a fact also true with studies of medieval film) the lack of cross-reference to studies on medievalism and, perhaps, most confusing any cross-reference to either Arthurian or medieval subjects.  

Medieval Comics Papers at Plymouth State

Last weekend there were several medievalism-themed papers at Plymouth State University's annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum. My session included two on medieval comics. Details as follow:


SATURDAY, 16 APRIL

3:00-4:20 Session 7
Medieval Roots, Modern Dreams Rounds 303
Moderator: Arthur Fried, Plymouth State University
2) Print Warfare and Foxe’s The Book of Martyrs: Woodcuts as an Early Modern Precursor to 20th-21st Century Comics, Forrest C. Helvie, Norwalk Community College
3) Prince Valiant and Beyond: (Re-)Assessing the Corpus of Medieval-Themed Comics, Michael A. Torregrossa, Independent Scholar