Kalamazoo 2012 Roundtable Update

We have finalized our comics roundtable for the 2012 International Congress on Medieval Studies. Details as follows:

The Comics Get Medieval at Kalamazoo: New Perspectives for Incorporating Comics into Medieval Studies Teaching and Research

Organizer: Michael A. Torregrossa, The Virtual Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages

Presider: Mikee Delony, Abilene Christian University

1. “Grotesque in Comics”

Fabio Mourilhe, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro

2. “Caliber (2008), or Arthur’s Mystical Six-Shooter and the Gunslingers of the O.K. Corral”

Karen (Casey) Casebier, St. Mary’s College of Maryland

3. “Arthurian Themes in DC Comic’s Demon Knights (2011-)”

Jason Tondro, University of California, Riverside

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 at NEPCA

Three papers devoted to medieval-themed comics will be presented in November at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury Connecticut, from 11-12 November. The complete program is now available online.

FRIDAY, 11 NOV., 4-5:30 PM
8) Science and Technology I/Symposium: Geeks, Gadgets and Games: The Influence of Technology on Media Entertainment in Contemporary Culture (ROOM: WHITE 024)

PAPER 1 OF 3: “From Mighty Thor to Thor: Problematizing the Inherent Societal Values and Individual Identities of “Geek” Culture Artifacts Appropriated by Mainstream America” – Jessica Eckstein and David Kazibut, Western Connecticut State University

SATURDAY, 12 NOV., 8:30-10 AM

6) Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Legend II: Legends Old and New (ROOM: WARNER 320)

PAPER 3 OF 4: “What Do Vampires Have to Do with the Holy Grail? The Transformation of the Grail Legend in Undead Arthuriana”—Michael A. Torregrossa, The Virtual Society for the Study Of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages

SATURDAY, 12 NOV., 1:30-3 PM

2) Comics and Graphic Novels II: Damsels Causing Distress (ROOM: WARNER 226)

PAPER 2 OF 4: “Vampiric Viragoes: Villainizing and Sexualizing Arthurian Women in King Arthur v. Dracula (2005) and Madame Xanadu (2008)”—Kate Allocco, Western Connecticut State University

Thor DVD/Blu-ray Update

Amazon still has not posted the details on the extras for the Thor DVD and Blu-ray releases, but, as the film was released to home video this week, helpful Amazoners have posted images of the back cover of each. Here are the details as I can best surmise. Notice that the DVD release does include some important extras, notably the director's commentary, (but not everything) also featured on the Blu-ray:

DVD:
-4 Deleted Scenes
-Road to Avengers Featurette
-Director's Commentary


Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy:

-Director's Commentary

-Marvel One-Shot: The Consultant HD

-7 Featurettes HD

-11 Deleted Scenes HD

-And More!

Comics Get Medieval at Kalamazoo Last Call

We're still looking for some papers for "The Comics Get Medieval at Kalamazoo" round table. If interested, please see the initial call for details.

Thor on DVD/Blu-Ray

Still no update on the extras for the upcoming release of the Thor feature film due out on DVD and Blu-Ray on 13 September 2011. However, the three-disc version with Blu-Ray, Blu-Ray 3D, and DVD (plus digital copy) will include (according to Amazon):

- Commentary by director Kenneth Branagh
- Marvel One-Shot: The Consultant (HD)
- Featurettes (HD)
- "Road to the Avengers" (HD)
- 11 Deleted Scenes with optional commentary (HD)
- Trailers (HD)

I expect the DVD will either be a bare-bones release or include only some of these extras, as is now typical.

Jersey Thor

This has to be seen to be believed. From Cartoon Network's parody show Mad:

Thor Blu-Ray Trailer

Marvel has released a trailer for the Blu-Ray/DVD release of the Thor feature film, though there is still no information about the distribution of the extras on each.

The Art of Thor

Marvel Worldwide has released The Art of Thor to coincide with the recent release of the Thor feature film. The book is a comprehensive guide to the making of the film (from concept art to finished film) and is written by Matthew K. Manning with commentary by the production crew, cast, and, Thor creator. Stan Lee. Thor writer and artists Walter Simonson provides a forward. A series of images from the book are available at the Marvel Store, but it is now out of stock there. Other online distributors, like Amazon, still have copies available.

CFP "The Decorated Page" of Medieval Images and Graphic Novels (Kalamazoo) (9/15/11)

My thanks to Gene Kannenberg's Comic Research & Stuff Blog for the head's up here, as I totally missed this in the Kalamazoo CFP list:

"The Decorated Page" of Medieval Images and Graphic Novels (9/15/11; Medieval Congress, May 2012)
full name / name of organization: International Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, Michigan
contact email: dominique.hoche@westliberty.edu or dominique.hoche@gmail.com
http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/42046

"The Decorated Page" of Medieval Images and Graphic Novels: "Sequential Theory" in dialogue with medieval art
International Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, Michigan
10-13 May 2012

We can follow the history of the “Decorated Page” from illuminated medieval manuscripts to the graphic novel, but what if we skip the pesky intervening years from one to the other? That is, what can the theories and analysis of medieval manuscripts, wall paintings or other medieval visual mediums tell us about how we read the graphic novel, and how might the theories behind contemporary graphic novel analysis help us read medieval illustrations and art?

Standing on the shoulders of traditional analysis of medieval images, the use of the visual theories that support analysis of the graphic novel is a way of engaging the images in a postmodern (post medieval) way. Interpreting a manuscript image is probably the most common use, but we can see the potential of “sequential imagery” analysis being used on wall paintings, sculpture, frescoes, friezes and icons.

We invite papers on a wide range of issues and fields, but the dialogue must be between graphic novel theory/practice and medieval art. Proposals should be 300+ words and must clearly indicate the significance, line of argument, principal texts and relation to existing scholarship (if possible). Email the proposal in the body of the message, a 50 word bio note, and a completed Participant Information form (http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html#PIF) to Dominique Hoche at dominique.hoche@westliberty.edu or dominique.hoche@gmail.com . Due September 15, 2011.

For general information about the 2012 Medieval Congress, visit: http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/

CFP "Does Beowulf Allow (for) Illustration?" (due 9/5/2011)

http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/42051

New College Conference, March 8-10, 2012, Sarasota, FL: Call for papers: "Does Beowulf Allow (for) Illustration?" (due 9/5/2011)
full name / name of organization:
Matthew J. Snyder / University of Florida
contact email:
msnyder@ufl.edu

This session will seek to explore the question: Can Beowulf be illustrated, or does the poem exhibit and/or foster an inherent antagonism between sign and icon? Recent efforts to provide illustration that augments (or perhaps subsumes or subordinates) the poem's 3182 lines of text, including Seamus Heaney and John D. Niles' Beowulf: An Illustrated Edition (Norton, 2007), the graphic novel Beowulf: Monster Slayer (Graphic Universe, 2008), and Robert Zemeckis' 2007 motion-capture animated film, all would seem to push back against what might be termed the text's opacity of the visual imaginary. Do these works and others, including various Beowulf adaptations to film and new media, succeed in their self-appointed task of turning the poem into a (moving-)picture book? Can they? Why might – or might not – these approaches represent successful or failed (re)interpretations or adaptations of the epic, and is there some other logic or desire behind the apparent drive to illustrate Beowulf that we ought to try to get at?

Please submit 250-word abstracts of proposed twenty-minute papers in the body of an email with a current CV attached. The deadline for the submission of abstracts for this session is 5 September 2011. For more on the New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, visit http://faculty.ncf.edu/medievalstudies/index.html.

Matthew J. Snyder
Department of English
University of Florida

UPDATE: Comics Get Medieval 2012

Further details have been made available regarding next April's Joint Meeting of the Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association. The conference is to be held from 11-14 April 2012 after Easter and Passover. This has necessitated an update to out cal for papers for The Comics Get Medieval 2012 as follows:

THE COMICS GET MEDIEVAL 2012:
A CELEBRATION OF MEDIEVAL-THEMED COMICS IN
COMMEMORATION OF THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF PRINCE VALIANT
CALL FOR PAPERS (PCA: BOSTON, MA 4/11-14/12)
SPECIAL SESSIONS OF THE COMICS & COMIC ART AREA
ORGANIZED BY MICHAEL A. TORREGROSSA AND JASON TONDRO
PROPOSALS DUE TO ORGANIZERS BY 1 DECEMBER 2011

Celebrating our sixth year in 2012, proposals are now being considered for inclusion at “The Comics Get Medieval 2012,” a series of panels and roundtables sponsored by The Virtual Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages and to be hosted by the Comics & Comic Art Area of the Popular Culture Association (PCA) for the 2012 Joint Conference of the National Popular Culture and American Culture Associations to be held from 11-14 April 2012 in Boston, Massachusetts.

The goal of these sessions is to foster communication between medievalists, comics scholars, and specialists in popular culture studies in general. The organizers define “medieval comics” as any aspect of the comics medium (panel cartoons, comic strips, comics books, comics albums, band dessinée, graphic novels, manga, webcomics, comics to film/film to comics, etc.) that feature medieval themes either in stories set during the Middle Ages or in stories presenting some element of the medieval in the post-medieval era. We are also interested in papers looking at medieval comics from a pedagogical perspective.


Completed papers should be delivered in 15-20 minutes (depending on the number of presenters).

All proposals will also be considered for inclusion in an essay collection to be edited by the panel organizers in the summer of 2012. (Individuals only interested in submitting for the collection should also send proposals by 1 December 2011 deadline and indicate their preference in the email.)

In addition, a select list of potential topics and a bibliographic guide to medieval comics will appear as part of THE MEDIEVAL COMICS PROJECT web site available at http://MedievalComicsProject.org and THE ARTHUR OF THE COMICS website available at http://Arthur-of-the-Comics.org, both organized by the Virtual Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages.


No later that 1 December 2011, interested individuals (who must be members of PCA or ACA or join for 2012) should submit full contact information (name, address, phone/cell, and email), titles, and abstracts of 300-500 words to the sessions’ organizers, who will then forward them to area chair.

Address all inquiries and proposals to the organizers at the following address:

Medieval.Comics.Project@gmail.com and include “Comics Get Medieval 2012” in the subject line.

CFP Comics Get Medieval at Kalamazoo

CALL FOR PAPERS

THE COMICS GET MEDIEVAL AT KALAMAZOO: NEW PERSPECTIVES FOR INCORPORATING COMICS INTO MEDIEVAL STUDIES TEACHING AND RESEARCH

A ROUNDTABLE FOR THE 47TH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON MEDIEVAL STUDIES (WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY, KALAMAZOO, MI) FROM 10-13 MAY 2012
SPONSORED BY THE VIRTUAL SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF POPULAR CULTURE AND THE MIDDLE AGES

PROPOSALS BY 1 SEPTEMBER 2011 (EARLY SUBMISSION RECOMMENDED)

This session has been proposed in an effort to continue and expand upon the conversations initiated in our previous sessions at the Congress (in 2004 and 2008) on the potential uses of the comics in Medieval Studies teaching and research. In prior sessions, we have touched upon both the variety and vitality of the corpus of medieval-themed comics, medievalisms that have been in existence since at least the early part of the twentieth century and that continue to flourish in both the comics (in all its varied forms) and comics-related media, like adaptations into film and television, to this day. A number of characters and series celebrate significant anniversaries in 2012 (for example, Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant will be 75; Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby’s Thor 50; Roy Thomas and John Buscema’s Dane Whitman, the modern-day Black Knight, 45; Dik Browne’s Hägar the Horrible and Kirby’s Etrigan 40; and Mike W. Barr and Brian Bolland’s CAMELOT 3000 30), and we believe this is an ideal time to revisit this material at the Congress, a venue that has long been amiable to the furtherance of discussion of and debate on—goals we have adopted—representations of the medieval in popular culture.

Unlike other forms of medievalism, like film and Tolkieniana, that receive multiple sessions at conferences, like the Congress, each year, medieval-themed comics remain neglected and in need of much further research. Despite the vitality of these long-running series and other comics with medieval themes, the corpus of medieval comics as a whole has largely been ignored (though with a few notable exceptions) by medievalists except as curiosities, a pattern replicated largely in other academic disciplines. However, due to the interdisciplinary nature of Medieval Studies, our field (especially given the welcomeness many medievalists have for medievalisms) is ideally suited to tap into the high potentiality of the corpus for both teaching about the medieval to audiences of all ages, from children to adults, and, like other forms of medievalism, for understanding, through the processes of adaptation and appropriation, the contemporary reception of the medieval in popular culture. The general neglect of the corpus suggests that most medievalists are wary of studying these types of texts, and, in an effort to combat this apparent distrust, we endeavor in this session to create an environment where medievalists, perhaps familiar with some of more celebrated texts, can learn more about these works of popular medievalism. It is our intent that the papers presented at this roundtable will offer new possibilities to access this corpus so we may all come to a greater appreciation of its contents and contexts.

PLEASE SUBMIT PROPOSALS OF 500 WORDS OR LESS, PARTICIPANT INFORMATION FORM (AVAILABLE AT
http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html), AND A COPY OF YOUR CV TO THE ORGANIZERS AT

Popular.Culture.and.the.Middle.Ages@gmail.com

PLEASE INCLUDE “KALAMAZOO COMICS PROPOSAL” IN THE SUBJECT LINE


FOR FURTHER DETAILS ABOUT MEDIEVAL-THEMED COMICS, WE INVITE YOU TO VISIT OUR WEBSITES AT Arthur-of-the-Comics.org AND MedievalComicsProject.org

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE VIRTUAL SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF POPULAR CULTURE AND THE MIDDLE AGES, PLEASE ACCESS OUR
BLOG AT http://PopularCultureandtheMiddleAges.blogspot.com/

Thor on TV on DVD

Thor features prominently in the recent series The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes airing on Disney XD. Thirteen episodes from the series are now available on DVD, while the complete series can be accessed at various sites for digital download.

Thor-Wear

In case you can't get enough Thor-related apparel, Junk Food Clothing now has 3 new tee-shirts available:

http://www.junkfoodclothing.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product1_10052_10051_-1_20266_18552_14055

http://www.junkfoodclothing.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product1_10052_10051_-1_20506_18552_14055

http://www.junkfoodclothing.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product1_10052_10051_-1_20156_18552_14055