The Comics and Graphic Narratives Forum will be sponsoring three panels at MLA 2023, 48. Comics and the Making of Queer Communities, 332. Comics and Accessibility, and 738. Comics and Poetry. We will also be hosting an event featuring acclaimed cartoonist Justin Hall at local indie comics publisher Silver Sprocket on Saturday night! Also, check out all the other comics-related panels at this year’s conference.
48 – Comics and the Making of Queer Communities
Thursday, 5 January 2023
1:45 PM – 3:00 PM
Moscone West – 3012 (Level 3)
Panelists consider how queer comics have been important vehicles for producing queer communities, examining how comics create community by involving audiences in art making, how comic anthologies are sites of community formation, how comics have mobilized grassroots activism, and how comics index the precarity of queer communities, whether because of the devastating losses of the AIDS years or because of the ephemeral nature of comics themselves.
Presiders:
Margaret Galvan, U of Florida
William Orchard, Queens C, City U of New York
Speakers:
Tesla Cariani, Emory U
Margarita Castromán Soto, Rice U
Nicholas Derda, U of Southern California
Chase Gregory, Bucknell U
Cassia Hayward-Fitch, U of East Anglia
Maite Urcaregui, San José State U
332 – Comics and Accessibility
Friday, 6 January 2023
3:30 PM – 4:45 PM
Moscone West – 3012 (Level 3)
Presider:
Katherine Kelp-Stebbins, U of Oregon
Respondent:
Rachel Kunert-Graf, Antioch U, Seattle
Presentations:
- Sometimes My Hand Shakes So Much I Have to Hold My Wrist to Draw
Michelle Ann Abate, Ohio State U, Columbus - Tactile Comics, Disability Studies, and the Mind’s Eye
Benjamin Fraser, U of Arizona - Accessible Comics for Blind and Low-Vision Readers: An Emerging Journey
Nick Sousanis, San Francisco State U
Sunday, 8 January 2023
1:45 PM – 3:00 PM
Moscone West – 3014 (Level 3)
Presiders:
Michael Leong, California Inst. of the Arts
Lauren Russell, Michigan State U
Presentations:
- In the Cut: Collage, Critique, and Humor in Visual Poetry, Indie Comics, and Zines
Yona Harvey, U of Pittsburgh - Productive Failure in the Collaborative Poetry Comics of Robert Creeley and Joe Brainard
Jessica Stark, U of North Florida - Lean-To: The Provisional Dialogic Structures of Image+Text
Jennifer Sperry Steinorth, U of Michigan, Ann Arbor