Comics studies

The comic research is the scientific examination of the literary and artistic expression comic. In addition to direct confrontation with these comics are also available as reference material for art-historical, journalistic and sociological, semiotic- linguistic and cultural-historical investigations.

In Germany the company for Comic Studies ( ComFor ) was born on 11 February 2005 in Koblenz eight comic experts from all over Germany founded the interdisciplinary research operates and includes disciplines such as literature, applied linguistics, art history, folklore, newspaper and historians. The company sets itself the task of promoting the comic research in German-speaking and networking.

The history of German comics is so far explored only partially; but where this is the case, the research nostalgic transfiguration is accused. With the yearbook German comic publisher of research Eckart Sackmann wants to close gaps in the research of the media in Germany. Each volume of the series published since 2005 covers the whole spectrum of German comics from early to more recent examples. This blind man follows the broad comic concept that is represented for some time by Scott McCloud and the international research group Platinum. Important institutions in the German-speaking countries are also the Institute for Youth Book Research in Frankfurt and the Wilhelm Busch Museum in Hanover. At the Institute for German Studies at the University of Hamburg, the job exists for Graphic Literature ( argl ), which has its own special library ( " Bédéthek " ), with about 12,000 media units.

At other universities, independent institutions for researching comics are rare, comic research but is operated in recent years, not only outside the universities, but increasingly in other academic disciplines, such as in (language and literature ), as well as media studies and pedagogy. Among the topics include the analysis of various forms of comics and its reception, graphic narrative strategies and stylistic devices, certain authors and styles as well as studies on the history of comics. Contributions to the comic research can also be found in comic magazines that are not involved in scientific institutions, such as Reddition ( German ) and The Comics Journal ( english, ISSN 0194-7869 ). However, science and journalism or fandom are not always clearly separated. Devoted entirely to scientific research are the comic in 1999, founded the International Journal of Comic Art ( ISSN 1531-6793 ) was founded in 2004 and the e-journal Image Text ( ISSN 1549-6732 ).

As a standard work of researching comics applies, inter alia, Read Comics correctly ( Understanding Comics, 1993) by Scott McCloud, which is itself written in the form of a comic.