Canadian Comics
Please note: This is a proposed, not a guaranteed, session, sponsored by the forum on Comics & Graphic Narratives for MLA 2026. It is contingent on approval by the MLA Program Committee. All prospective presenters must be current MLA members by April 1, 2025.
Canadian Comics takes the location of the 2026 Modern Language Association Annual Convention in Toronto as the opportunity to examine the ways that comics and graphic narratives represent Canada within its national context. Discussions of nation and nationhood in Canada are inevitably complex, invoking the concerns of Indigenous peoples and of Canada’s component federations, issues surrounding linguistic and ethnic heritage and diversity, questions of national identity and autonomy, among many others. Such conversations necessarily invite reflection on Canada’s historical and/or contemporary connections to larger global contexts. In this vein, Canadian Comics seeks to provide a platform for exploring the range of comics production in Canada, including but not limited to topics such as heritage and belonging, Indigeneity, settler colonialism, decoloniality, linguistic and regional identity, community building, migration, transnational connections, among others.
In the introduction to their edited volume, The Canadian Alternative: Cartoonists, Comics, and Graphic Novels, Dominick Grace and Eric Hoffman write “Canadian comics have always existed on the edge” (xii), outlining a number of the ways Canadian comics have both been placed and created space in and on the margins. Be it the underground comix movement, the desire for regional representation, or the exploration of indigeneity, LGBTQIA+ identity, histories of migration, and similar concerns, these “alternatives” offer space to address the multiplicity and nuances of Canadian comics in generative ways. For their part, Candida Rifkind and Zachary Rondinelli use ongoing conversations about “where does the story of Canadian comics begin” as the point of departure for the 2022 special issue of Canadian Literature, “Past, Presents, and Futures of Canadian Comics.” Looking to the past and present, they signpost scholars whose work examines “questions of ethnicity, race, and place […] in order to reveal experiences and understandings that have been historically underrecognized.” The future, they suggest, will be framed by concerns of access (for readers and creators alike), and is one that they hope will engage with “the multi-faceted, aesthetically diverse, and globally networked histories of Canadian comics [that] have yet to be fully captured.” Correspondingly, as Barbara Postema and Andrew Lesk observe, this future is one already grounded in “the diversity of cartoonists and comics that affirm the plurality of Canadian identities” (498).
With these concerns in mind, questions we hope the panel might engage include:
- How have comics sought to represent Canada and/or Canadians historically and how have these representations developed over time?
- How have Canadian comics examined issues of national and/or linguistic identity, both at the community level and in reference to connections with larger English-speaking, Francophone, and/or Indigenous contexts?
- How have Canadian comics approached conversations around ethnicity and community building or belonging?
- What feminist and queer approaches to and readings of comics have developed in the Canadian context?
- In what ways have Canadian comics incorporated a plurality of voices or, conversely, marginalized and/or silenced certain stories or experiences?
- What is the current state of the Canadian comics industry and how have recent local, regional, national, or international events and/or trends affected their production?
- How has the Canadian comics industry approached the issue of translation for different audiences within its federal borders?
Send 250-word abstracts and short bios (in English) by March 15, 2025 to Paul Humphrey (phumphrey@colgate.edu) and William Orchard (William.Orchard@qc.cuny.edu).