Oh. My. Gawd..... Comics at the University Level

[Saint Kurt]

I was looking up something and found something totally unexpected and awesome that is keeping me awake:

ImageTexT is a peer-reviewed, open access journal dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of comics and related media. We are published by the English Department at the University of Florida with support from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Our content is available free of charge, and regular issues of ImageTexT will be published three times per year.

Peer-frickin' reviewed!

The articles are awesome.

Not to mention this: The 13th Annual International Comic Arts Forum. ICAF, the longest-lived refereed conference in comics studies, is the only academic conference explicitly committed to the international study of comic art. A launchpad for some of the most innovative work in the field, ICAF enjoys an unparalleled reputation for academic rigor.

Do you have any IDEA how long I have been waiting for comics to be taken seriously by academia?

This is giving me a huge fat academic boner!

(And I'll be in Chicago during the conference.)

-e

[Elfdame]

Well, it took a while for opera to be accepted, too ...

And I'll never forget my sense of incredulity when I found out my friends were getting high school credit for reading science fiction. Which they would read anyway. So, I thought, what's the point of making them read it in school, because everyone knows school English classes are for boooooring stuff that you don't want to read.

Until I discovered George Orwell ...

[Saint Kurt]

Money for reading comic books:

John A. Lent Scholarship

Given that there are comics out there that are at the level of our greatest literature, I think it's awesome that students pursuing the study of comics are getting this kind of respect and assistance.

All those boring "classics" Elfdame mentions that you had to read in high school? What if for future generations one of these classics is Alan Moore's "Watchmen" or Neil Gaimen's "Sandman".

Anything is possible.

-e

[steyn]

Having those instead of I Heard the Owl Call My Name would have made my day in highschool, but then again, I wouldn't even have read that book, heck, much less Super Fudge either. Maybe it is a little bit good to make the kids read those boring books instead of the interesting comics. That way they would at least get some boring literature in their lives before they get the comics.

But damn, what I would do to get a scholarship to read comics.

[Elfdame]

Originally posted by Saint KurtAll those boring "classics" Elfdame mentions that you had to read in high school? What if for future generations one of these classics is Alan Moore's "Watchmen" or Neil Gaimen's "Sandman".

Well, I always went for the trash anyway: I liked O. Henry, R.L. Stevenson, Mark Twain, James Thurber: all those plebian-pleasing satirists, vs., say, the intelligent-oriented folk such as Jane Austen or Gustave Flaubert. And I did countless book reports on Agatha Christie novels, because that was what I read. And poetry was all Ogden Nash.

Then in college I had to deal again with Flaubert, Gide, Sartre, all those guys ... ugh, felt as though I were eating ashes. I read Victor Hugo and Dumas for fun whenever they let me.

Then again, I am the chick who can't go a week without quoting from Mel Brooks' "Spaceballs." When God gave out brains, I thought he said drains, and I said, "Be sure mine is empty!"

So you guys go off and enjoy your intelligent stuff ... I'll be curling up with Marvel Adventures Spider-man ...