Research of Comics in Modern Humanities

The growing popularity of comics in Ukraine and worldwide increases scientific attention to this type of information product. The article is devoted to generalising the leading tendencies in the Comics Study and researching comics in modern humanities. Based on the study devoted to comics professional publications, profile resources of world comics research centres and the current state of understanding the phenomenon of comics magazines and Internet resources, application of review-analytical, historical-chronological, dialectical, socio-communication, and content analysis methods has been detected that the syncretic nature of comics made them a research subject in various sciences and programme subject areas: literary studies, linguistics, cultural study, art history, history, political science, and others. Leading research centres of Comics Study are the International Comic Art Forum, the British Consortium of Comic Researchers, the Comics Research Hub of the University of the Arts, the Canadian Society for the Study of Comics, the Society for Comics Researchers (USA). The educational direction of Comics Studies has been represented by bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral (doctor of philosophy) educational programs in higher education institutions of different countries: the University of Florida, University of Toronto, University of California Santa Cruz, University of Portland, West University, University Dundee, Teesside University, Lancaster University (UK), Kyoto Seika University (Japan). The growth of scientific knowledge in Comics Study, on the one hand, and on the other hand - the predominance of interdisciplinary approach in the studies necessitated the establishment of special scientific journals dedicated to comics, such as the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, Studies in Comics, European Comic Art. In Ukraine, the study of comics at the dissertation level took place in the dimension of pedagogy and philology. However, some scientific research on comics is available in journalism, press studies, publishing, political science, literature, journalism, and social communications. It has been found that as a multifunctional and unique information product and object of library activity, comics have not yet become the subject of study for bibliologists and librarians. The prospects of separating the corresponding research direction in bibliology and library science are substantiated.

Book Reviews

Jan Baetens, Rebuilding Story Worlds: The Obscure Cities by Schuiten and Peeters (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2020). 198 pp. ISBN: 978-1-97880-847-8 ($29.95)Philippe Delisle, La BD au prisme de l’Histoire: Hergé, Maurras, les Jésuites et quelques autres… (Paris: Karthala, 2019). 206 pp. ISBN: 978-2-8111-2608-7 (€18.00)Kim A. Munson, ed., Comic Art in Museums (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2020). 386 + xii pp. ISBN 978-1-4968-2807-1 ($30)Paul Fisher Davies, Comics as Communication: A Functional Approach (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). 338 pp. ISBN: 978-3-030-29722-0 (eBook: €50.28)Sean Eedy, Four-Color Communism: Comics Books and Contested Power in the German Democratic Republic (New York: Berghahn Books, 2021). 218 pp. ISBN: 978-1-80073-000-7 ($120)

A journey of gender in health: Transforming health by promoting gender considerations through comic art

Sex and gender are determinants of health outcomes across an individual’s life course. However, often in health research and practice, sex and gender considerations are either overlooked or confounded. Recent developments in health research and practice ask for the inclusion of sex and gender considerations within health research and practice. This article is a reaction to these calls. It explores the ways in which an international team of health researchers created a comic book that highlighted the impact of gender in many areas of health across an individual’s life course. The creative processes are critically explored, as well as selected images. Through this work, it is proposed that comic art knowledge mobilization projects can be viewed as means to transform health research and practice by critiquing and disrupting dominant cis-heteronormative sex and gender discourses.

Rethinking science communication: reflections on what happens when science meets comic art

In this essay, we explore what happens when science meets comic art and how such meeting offers an opportunity to rethink science communication. We base our discussion on our own experience, as research scholars, of engaging in a collaboration with a comic artist. Three key reflections are developed: how comic art may help to (1) conceptualize ideas in an early research phase, (2) clarify the main argument by making the (un)written word visible; and (3) communicate science with an open end. These aspects contribute to an increased understanding of science communication in both research and society.