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The article focuses the designing of characters in comics from the perspective of Art Education. Selected examples help to understand fundamental aspects of drawing, reading and understanding comics, where character design oscillates between simplification and differentiation. The tension and the range of possibilities between simplification and differentiation influences the interplay of form and content and the narrative qualities. How characters are embedded in a comic narrative can be seen as both a specific potential and challenge of working with comics as a medium. The article shows examples of comic character design inspired by personal experiences with students in school and higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article uses empirical data to show how a discursive engagement with the literary-aesthetic medium of comics can stimulate learning processes. By approaching the narration as well as the design of the comic through communication and interaction, the students’ personal view of the interdependence of word and image is sensitised. This article discusses how such an interactional approach can be successfully supported by teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The project “Visualities of Gender in German-language Comics”, funded by the FWF and located at the Department of German Philology at the University of Vienna, systematically investigates how gender is narrated in comics through linguistic and visual codes and to what extent gender norms are discussed. The article presents the research project, its conception and goals, the corpus as well as the essential data- base and, last but not least, its theoretical approaches. In addition, characteristics of comics with regard to gender and points of contact with frida are addressed. Indeed, comics by women, including numerous autobiographical works, have been an integral part of the comics boom of recent decades. Even more so, comics by and for women ap- pear to be an appropriate medium for taboos, articulating illness, sexuality, trauma, violence, and injuries of various kinds in a way that is of both personal and societal interest. Auto_biographical documents are important elements of these artistic explorations. One example is Ulli Lust’s autobiographical comic “Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life” (2009). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comic books have been part of the stock of public libraries for a long time. They belong to the group of books that are borrowed frequently. Although their reputation is not the best, an appropriate selection and a skillful presentation can turn the comic book stock into an attractive segment of every library. This article describes how comic books are handled at the Cologne Public Library. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on interviews and empirical data this article analysis whether comic books, graphic novels, and manga still can be considered as neglected, marginal media in the library landscape, or if collection building and cataloguing procedures and routines have changed since the 1970s seeing comics become remarkable parts of the libraries' collections sufficient to satisfy readers and researchers. A further aspect of the article is the level of national organization of cataloguing and collecting. The main thesis in this paper is, that major developments in the general field of librarianship but also on the specific field of comics librarianship have passed without inducing any further recognition in the treatment of comic books in German libraries: Not only a comparative view on major comic collections in other countries shows the enormous effort necessary for integrating comics in modern German librarianship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]