The first meeting of the U-C Comics Colloquium was held August 17, 2019 at Riggs Beer Company in Urbana.
We discussed Emily Carroll’s latest book When I Arrived at the Castle (2019, Koyama Press), along with David Annwn Jones’s Studies in Comics essay “‘Graphic Resurgence’: The Return of the Early Gothic Comic Strip in Trans-Medial Discourse.” Carroll’s book features the same bold graphic style as her 2014 debut, simultaneously evoking Edward Gorey and contemporary manga. The plot was provocatively perplexing, with a bit more ambiguity than some readers enjoyed, but it definitely inspired some great conversation. Jones’s article framed the history of Gothic illustration, tracing a genealogy back to 19th century sequential art, forward through Gustave Dore, to modern horror and goth comics. We enjoyed some great local beers and talked housekeeping for the new group (which includes this blog!).
We’ll continue to meet monthly, and our next gathering will be in September at the Urbana Zine Library. We’ll be reading George Takei’s new book They Called Us Enemy (2019, Top Shelf Productions), and looking at other graphic representations of Japanese internment.