Comics scholarship in From Iceland to the Americas

My thanks to Kevin J. Harty for alerting me of this collection, which contains two items of interest:

From Iceland to the Americas: Vinland and Historical Imagination 
https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526128751/ (with full contents)

Edited by Tim William Machan and Jón Karl Helgason
Book Information
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-5261-2875-1
Pages: 304
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Series: Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture
Price: £80.00 / $120.00
Published Date: April 2020


Description

This volume investigates the reception of a small historical fact with wide-ranging social, cultural and imaginative consequences. Inspired by Leif Eiriksson's visit to Vinland in about the year 1000, novels, poetry, history, politics, arts and crafts, comics, films and video games have all come to reflect rising interest in the medieval Norse and their North American presence. Uniquely in reception studies, From Iceland to the Americas approaches this dynamic between Nordic history and its reception by bringing together international authorities on mythology, language, film and cultural studies, as well as on the literature that has dominated critical reception. Collectively, the chapters not only explore the connections among medieval Iceland and the modern Americas, but also probe why medieval contact has become a modern cultural touchstone.


Contents

11 'Who is this upstart Hitler?': Norse gods and American comics during the Second World War - Jón Karl Helgason

12 'There's no going back': The Dark Knight and Balder's descent to Hel - Dustin Geeraert





Editors

Tim William Machan is Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame

Jón Karl Helgason is Professor of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Iceland

Morrison on Beowulf. Leggenda cristiana dell’antica Danimarca

New well-illustrated article on Beowulf in the comics:

Morrison, Susan Signe. “Grendel’s Mother in Fascist Italy: Beowulf in a Catholic Youth Publication.” International Journal of Comics Art, Vol. 20, no. 1, Spring/Summer 2018, pp. 331-48.

Morrison includes the following information about the essay on her blog (http://www.susansignemorrison.com/blog.htm?post=1084681):

I’m delighted that my article “Grendel’s Mother in Fascist Italy: Beowulf in a Catholic Youth Publication,” has just been published in the International Journal of Comic Art. This essay focuses on a 1940-41 Italian comic book version by Enrico Basari (author) and Kurt Caesar (illustrator). An anti-semitic portrayal of Grendel’s Mother grows out of German views of Beowulf in the 1930s. The anti-semitic overtones present in German Beowulf youth translations and adaptations sympathetic to Nazi German propaganda, produced in the decade before and simultaneously with the publication of the comic under scrutiny here, likewise crop up under the Italian fascist reign. The fraught nature of Grendel’s Mother takes on insidious dimensions in Enrico Basari’s Beowulf. Leggenda cristiana dell’antica Danimarca, appearing in serial form from Oct. 5, 1940-Jan. 25, 1941. It was featured in Il Vittorioso, a Catholic youth publication, “a nationalist publication often distributed through Catholic parishes” (Calderón, 2007:112), that attempted to go beyond mere Fascist propaganda for young people. Just how could an anti-semitic inflected Beowulf comic have affected youth readers?