The Commercial Business of Comics: Transforming Authorship, Distribution, Technology, Story and Aesthetics in the Global North and South

British Academy Conferences bring together scholars and specialists from around the world to consider and evaluate new research in the humanities and social sciences.

This international conference brings together established and emerging comics scholars from across the UK, Europe and North America to interrogate the impact of new business practices on the social, economic, and political meanings of graphic narrative as a global cultural industry (encompassing comics, manga, bande dessinée, and others, across print and digital media). It will explore new post-colonial paradigms across media, including also the role of commercial markets and fandom.

Presenters will respond to two key questions (i) what are the global comics industries? (ii) how do changing business patterns and practices co-produce new authorship, distribution, technical processes of making and the aesthetic production and reception of comics?

Panel and paper topics will include the importance of the economic context for comics making (across old and new media); the connectivity between post-colonialism and post-print comics making; historical precedents as backdrop or model for current practice; comics fandom as site of cultural co-production; and the shifts in publishing sites between ‘Global North’ and ‘Global South’.

Conference convenors:

• Professor Hugo Frey, University of Chichester
• Professor Simon Grennan, University of Chester

Speakers across the two-day conference include:

• Dr Carly Bagelman, Liverpool Hope University
• Professor Jacqueline Berndt, Stockholm University
• Professor Monica Chiu, University of New Hampshire
• Professor Simon Grennan, University of Chester
• Dr Kathryn Hemmann, University of Pennsylvania
• Dr Nicolle Lamerichs, HU University Utrecht
• Dr Ilan Manouach, Metalab Harvard; Echo Chamber, Brussels
• Dr Nina Mickwitz, University of the Arts London
• Dr Pedro Moura, independent scholar
• Dr Dibyadyuti Roy, University of Leeds
• Dr Enrique Uribe-Jongbloed, University of Cardiff; Universidad Externado de Colombia
• Associate Professor Lukas R A Wilde, Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim

A conference programme and ticket link will be added soon.

Conference ticket prices:

• Admission: £75 per day (£120 for both days).
• Concessions £30 for both days

If you have any questions about this event please refer to our events FAQs or email [email protected]

Image: Luis Alvas, Posters and stickers on 6th Street, Pueblo, Mexico.