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The Comic Style Markers (CSM) is a questionnaire that allows a fine-grained description of how people differ in the way they display humor in their daily lives. It includes 48 statements capturing eight interrelated, yet distinct comic styles: fun, irony, wit, sarcasm, benevolent humor, satire, nonsense humor, and cynicism. Despite the independent conceptual roots of these humorous domains, the analysis of the CSM scales' latent structure shows that their empirical distinction needs to be improved. Using the information derived from a competitive latent approach, including confirmatory factor analysis, bifactor analysis, and exploratory structural equation modeling, we proposed and validated a shorter 24-item version of the CSM in a large sample of 925 Spanish individuals (SP-CSM-24). This scale-refinement improved the psychometric differentiation of the eight comic styles without undermining the good internal consistency and the temporal stability of the CSM scores. Strong invariance was held for gender and age groups, and partial scalar invariance for countries also emerged using a sample of 318 U.S. American adults. Structural equation modeling also corroborated a convincing test-criterion validity for the SP-CSM-24, with dispositional expressions of benevolent humor (positively) and cynicism (negatively) outperforming other comic styles in accounting for individuals' well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates single-panel cartoons portraying official corruption in China's longest- running state-owned cartoon newspaper Cartoon Weekly (Fengci yu youmo). A total of 433 cartoons are identified as relating to corrupt officialdom between 2012 and 2019 in the wake of Xi Jinping's anti-corruption signature policy. In contrast with the individualizing critique of political cartooning in liberal democracies, the corpus of corruption cartoons investigated in this article is argued as a didactic form of visual schematization in a pseudo-self-critical discourse typically buttressed by verbal reading instructions. To support this claim, the article addresses its politics of visual discourse by employing Peircean hypoiconicity, consisting of direct resemblance, diagrammatic schematization and metaphoric displacement. Accordingly, the article identifies three major features of corruption cartoons as anonymization of direct resemblance, visual schematization of policy and metaphoric displacement of conventional symbols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Aim: Childhood dental trauma poses a prevalent concern, and the limited knowledge of lay caregivers toward the needed immediate actions can adversely affect a child's well‐being. This study aimed to create and validate an educational comic book for lay individuals, designed to guide immediate actions in dental trauma cases, and assess its effects toward enhancing reader knowledge. Methodology: The four‐stage study involved: (1) Literature review and script development; (2) Version 1 of the comic book creation (including illustrations, layout, and design) and Flesch Readability Index (FI) calculation; (3) Version 1 validation by expert judges, assessed by the Content Validity Index (CVI); (4) Version 1 refinement based on the judges' feedback, recalculation of FI, and a pilot test (CVI) involving lay individuals who validated the final material (Version 2). The validation process involved 67 participants, including 13 specialist judges and 54 elementary school teachers. Results: The CVI for Version 1 was calculated at 0.89 (89%), indicating a favorable level of agreement on the evaluated criteria. The FI was determined as 91.1%, indicating a high level of readability. The FI for Version 2 was 92.1% (indicating a very easy level of comprehension). The CVI calculated for the target audience after the pilot test was 0.99 (99%), denoting a substantial agreement among the participants. In assessing the level of knowledge, a significant increase was observed in the rate of correct answers after the comic book was read by lay individuals (p < 0.05), inasmuch as the percentage rose from 50.5% before to 81.2% after reading it. Conclusion: The educational comic book proved valid in terms of readability, appearance, and content. Furthermore, it had a positive impact on gaining the knowledge needed to take the appropriate actions, thus making it a valuable tool for guiding the lay population in cases of dental trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learner-generated comics are powerful communication tools that allow students to convey complex thoughts and emotions through both verbal and visual modes. In this study, comics were used to explore students' experiences with and perceptions of distance learning (DL) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Female university students were chosen as a purposive sample to discover deep sociocultural meanings in society that could be invisible to men. This study analyzed thirty-two comics created by students using a suggested new analytical framework that draws on systemic functional linguistics theory. The findings were categorized into three dimensions: ideational (who, where, and what), interpersonal (relationships and emotions), and textual (main themes of the comics' stories). Quantitative content analysis was applied to analyze ideational and interpersonal dimensions (frequency), and qualitative analysis was applied to analyze textual dimensions (themes). Thematic analyses were categorized into three themes: challenges, advantages, and disadvantages. The findings were interpreted through a cultural lens in a style that presents the chief subjects that should be carefully considered in future scenarios of digital education. Several implications and future studies are suggested, especially about cultural issues in education, the quality of DL, and addressing the challenges and disadvantages associated with it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing further from a slightly Marxist perspective of the conflict-fuelled era of competing ideologies between the ruling and working classes during the Counterculture era of the 1960s and 70s in the United States, this article positions establishment institutions such as the government, media, and family units under Louis Althusser's idea of the State Apparatus with the Underground Comix movement and R. Crumb's early work squarely against it. This article argues the presence of Dissensus, as put forth by Ranciere, in the form of social, racial, and political anti-ideological motifs within Robert Crumb's Zap Comics. These motifs entered the cultural infrastructure through the medium of comics, stirring up passions and encouraging a necessary discord among classes and groups. Moreover, it discusses the assimilation of many of these anti-ideological motifs into modern mass culture, through a case study of the 2019 TV show The Boys and its opposition to today's State Apparatus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is often argued that 1954 was a very important year for comics in the United States because of the consequences of Fredric Wertham's major work appearance. However, long before that, there was already a multitude of academic publications about comics, children and education. Apart from sensationalist and apocalyptic publications, there are several academic references previous to 1954 focusing on topics related to education, language and comics as an object of learning. Most of these references develop very important empirical work in terms of the size of the samples studied, while others incorporate innovative methodologies for the time, such as factor analysis or qualitative interviews. In part, these advances can be explained by the conjunction of two factors: firstly, the dynamics of the social sciences in the United States, where quantitative fieldwork became commonplace from the 1930s onwards. Secondly, the popularisation of comics with the arrival of comic books, first, and the appearance of Superman, later. This article attempts to develop a systematic review of academic publications published before 1954 in the United States. 35 empirical publications are identified and analysed attending to the author's gender, sample size and number of citations, among other variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this interview, Teresa Wong discusses her artistic practice and creative process with particular reference to her graphic narrative Dear Scarlet: The Story of My Postpartum Depression. This interview aims to create a dialogue by exploring the facets of creation and consumption of Dear Scarlet: The Story of My Postpartum Depression. She talks about the process of turning her life experience into a story, her choice of the medium, the art of visual storytelling, visual strategies employed, artistic influences, the magic of combining words and images, the significance of graphic works by women of colour and her ongoing projects among others. The interview is divided into three sections: in the first section, entitled Before the text: Genesis, the author responds to questions related to the author's artistic vision and the creation of Dear Scarlet: The Story of My Postpartum Depression; in the second section entitled The text: form and theme, the author responds to questions pertaining to the formal aspects and themes of the graphic novel and in the concluding section of the interview titled After the text: reception and pedagogy the author responds to inquiries about the social and pedagogical impacts of her work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development of digital era encourages creative industry to continue grow by raising many issues, nowadays many are found in various visual media using anti-hero characters as main character. Anti-hero is hero character who has traits and characters that deviate from depiction of a hero in general (Bagaskara, 2021). They have the same goal of doing good but in a way that may sometimes be wrong or unjustified (Wahyudi, 2020). This character is very appropriate to express human imperfection which in life always has advantages and disadvantages. In contrast to superhero characters who are too perfect to be used as exemplary figures in real life. The media that will be used is comic with theme entitled "The Second Shot" where main character who is half human and alien will be faced with many choices that can determine the future of the world, besides being disappointed or having hidden hatred as well. From past events from both human side who had deceived him and aliens who only took advantage of him. The use of comics media as visual media is based on fact that target audience is younger generation between ages 18-25 years who are more interested in reading picture books than those that contain too many words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a tropical country, Indonesia continues to grapple with the prevalence of tuberculosis. This study conducted by the Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, Indonesia, presented a novel approach to prevent tuberculosis through measures tailored to the socio-cultural context of the population. Specifically, this study assessed how effective the use of tuberculosis comics is as an educational tool to inform junior high school students about tuberculosis. This research was quasi-experimental, with a one-group pre-test-post-test design. Seventy junior high school students in Dukun District, Gresik, Indonesia participated in this study. Each participant received a questionnaire consisting of ten questions about tuberculosis. Afterward, tuberculosis education was shared through comics. The post-test was carried out using the same questions as the pre-test. The data were analyzed using the R Program for Windows, version 4.1.3 (Auckland University, New Zealand). The analysis revealed a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test results (p < 0.0001). As indicated by the data, comics proved to be an effective method of educating people about infectious diseases, specifically tuberculosis. Here, we introduce an educational tool designed to revitalize the educational method for disseminating knowledge about infectious diseases. Ultimately, comics can increase students' interest in learning about tuberculosis, including its etiology, prevention, and treatment strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research is aimed to analyze types of flouting maxim. To find cooperative principle of the implicature through the utterances expressed from the characters in comic strips. The method that will be used in this research is qualitative research design. The researchers use 12 chapters of the tiger comic strips from comics kingdom website as data source from December 01, 2023 to January 24, 2024. Then analyze the conversation that the character had. Likewise, this study attempts to discover the reason for using implicature in the comic strips. The researchers draw a conclusion where the flouting maxim of quantity (32.5%), the flouting maxim of quality (20%), the flouting maxim of manners (25%), and the flouting maxim of relevant (22.5%). The characters of “Tiger” digital comic strips mostly flouted the maxim of quantity since they avoid making others upset about lack of the answer, so they provide a comprehensive explanation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the winner of the 2022 Speculative Fictions and Cultures of Science Book Award, Nicole Starosielski's "Media Hot and Cold," which offers a groundbreaking examination of the intersections between popular culture, technology, and postwar U.S. society. Topics discussed include the exploration of motherhood in science fiction, the need for critical analysis of science fiction and fantasy comics, and the upcoming conference on graphic/visual science fiction.

Despite many philosophical and scientific appeals, physical inactivity, especially in children and young people, remains one of the most serious problems of contemporary civilisation. In our sub‐study of wider research, we focus on the use of Czech fiction and comics by Jaroslav Foglar as a motivational factor to increase readers' physical activity. The respondents (n = 1174) were mostly adults who had spent their childhood or adolescence reading the works of Jaroslav Foglar. These people valued exercise (70%) in this reading, with a high correlation (0.73) to a healthy lifestyle (abstinence from alcohol and smoking). For 57% of the respondents, these values from reading also become an inspiration for application in life (there is a causal link between the degree of awareness of being influenced by the work and the actual application of the physical activity), with even higher values recorded for camping and being in a natural environment, as well as moral behaviour, ethical principles, and helping others. Thus, we can confirm that the inspiration of the fictional world of literature can become a motivational impulse to increase physical activity in the real world, moreover in the context of a very strong awareness of ethical values and moral behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predicated upon a corpus of 4,200 films, this article documents, analyses, and interprets the international film industry's rhetorical disavowal of the comic book medium as a source for adaptation within advertising and promotional rhetoric for the cinematic adaptation of comic book texts. By analysing the statistical trends and patterns for comic book adaptations between 2000 and 2020, examining the language used within promotional trailers to conceptualise or promote the feature adaptation in relation to their comic book source material, and by comparing the type and scope of this rhetoric with other adapted texts of the same period, this article evidences and interrogates the overwhelming disavowal of the comic book medium despite the persistent and widely perceived ubiquity of comic book adaptation franchises. Above all, this article utilises statistical evidence and analysis to evidence clear patterns and trends within the perceived hierarchies of cultural taste or artistic value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article shows how Jonson devises a racialized comedy form to navigate the increasingly complex social terrain of early modern London. Reading the avant-garde "comical satire" Every Man Out of His Humour through the lens of Galenic humoralism, I argue that Jonson leverages the physiological discourse within his work to reimagine comedy's definitive purpose as the knowledge-production of social discernment — that is, a cultural system or logic of "reading" the humoral body as a social sign of one's status and interiority. Pretenders of wit, tobacco-fiends, and perfumed courtiers — these humor-ridden figures are racialized through Jonson's comic poetics as immutably inferior readers, inherently lacking in understanding that the rules of social discernment are always fluid, and open to others' manipulation. And conversely, Jonson begins to explore within the play a conception of the ideal, discerning reader as defined by his white, and ultimately undiscernible, corporeality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aimed to investigate whether preschoolers can recognise the emotions conveyed in panels of the Asterix comic series. The sample consisted of 40 pre-school children (22 boys and 18 girls), aged 52–72 months. They were presented with 8 panels, which in pairs conveyed the emotions of happiness, sadness, fear and anger. Adult raters (N = 109) have previously evaluated these panels as representatively conveying the emotions under investigation. Participants were asked to label the emotion felt by the heroes of each panel and to justify their responses by telling or pointing to the picture which parts of the image conveyed the emotion. Results revealed preschoolers' ability to recognise the conveyed emotions, with older participants presenting greater efficiency than younger ones. Moreover, happiness and sadness were recognised earlier than anger and fear. Finally, content analysis of children's responses revealed that they used for the justification of happiness and sadness mainly the facial expressions of the heroes, while for the justification of anger and fear they relied on the formal properties and the context of the panel respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals' interests, motivations, and knowledge about the environment can affect their behavior toward the environment. This mixed-methods sequential explanatory research study examined the effect of argumentation-supported educational comics used in science lessons on the environmental interest, motivation, and academic achievement of 5th-grade students (N = 290) and explored their experiences. Quantitative data collected in a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design using validated survey scales indicated that from pretest to posttest, the scores of three variables of experimental groups 1 and 2 were higher than those of the control group. Qualitative findings from semi-structured interviews (N = 36) indicated that students stated that argumentation-supported educational comics attracted their attention and increased their motivation. Also, according to them, comics are very useful in expanding their environmental knowledge. Taken together, this research suggests that designing argumentation via educational comics can boost positive learning processes and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Upon her introduction as the new Ms. Marvel in 2013, the Pakistani-American superhero Kamala Khan was celebrated, by audiences and critics alike, as a welcome addition to the world of superhero comics. Familiar superhero tropes and ethical dilemmas were given an added twist for Marvel's first Muslim protagonist as the teenage girl strives to reconcile her newfound powers with the moral authorities of her family and her faith. Many comics scholars reserved special praise for the nuanced and unobtrusive way in which the new Ms. Marvel introduces American readers to Muslim culture by following its eminently 'relatable' heroine on her search for moral guidance, whereas others were more sceptical of the extent to which the comic's representation of Muslims can be considered progress. This article probes this ambivalence by analysing the cultural authorities invoked in the first eleven issues of the series. Instead of resolving the critical disagreement, a close reading of Kamala Khan's implicit and explicit appeals to authority allows for a more complicated and richer understanding of the comic's, as well as its eponymous intersectional superheroine's, ambiguity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pocket cartoons are a regular feature of most contemporary newspapers and magazines. As such, they represent a way of conveying complex social and political commentary in a simple visual form. How well we enjoy verbal (oral) jokes depends on the number of mindstates in the joke, and here we ask whether this is also true of visual cartoons. We use survey data from a sample of 3,380 participants attending a public exhibition of published print media cartoons by well-known cartoonists to determine the extent to which viewers' ratings of cartoons are determined by the mentalizing content of cartoons, the participants' gender and age, and the publication date of the cartoon. We show that the number of mindstates involved in the cartoon affects its appreciation, just as in verbal jokes. In addition, we show that preferred topics vary by age and gender. While both genders strongly prefer cartoons that explore the complexities of romantic relationships, men rate visual jokes more highly than women do, whereas women prefer jokes that involve political commentary or the dynamics of close relationships. These differences seem to reflect differences in the way the social worlds of the two genders are organized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the best Western comic book series in the field of Franco-Belgian comics, the Blueberry series is widely acclaimed and has generated considerable symbolic capital. Mirroring its success in France and Belgium, this series has also been extensively (re)translated and (re)printed in several countries, such as Spain and Italy. In Anglophone countries, however, this editorial success has not been replicated. The Blueberry series has never been published in its entirety in English, nor has it acquired the symbolic capital that it enjoys in the Franco-Belgian comics field. This article focuses on the American editions of the Blueberry series. By adopting a translational framework based on Jean-Marc Gouanvic's works on the sociology of translation, this paper shifts the traditional focus of Translation Studies from the texts to the critical and often overlooked role of translators and other agents in the international circulation of (graphic) narratives. Based primarily on the analysis of interviews with the American translators and editors of the Blueberry series, coupled with close paratextual examination of selected comics samples, this article investigates the context behind the reception of this iconic Western series in the field of American comic books. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interesting book that detailly explains the development of webtoons in South Korea in four time periods. From the first appearance of amateur webcomics distributed via the internet (1998-–2002);, transmedia adaptation of webtoons in line with the establishment of online media (2003-–2009);, the growth of mobile phone-based ecosystems accompanied by monetization strategies (2010-–2013);, and efforts to present webtoons in the international arena (2014-present). The author seems to make great efforts to attract readers, especially those who are not familiar with webtoons, by exploiting the cutting-edge capabilities of the digital era in presenting webtoons, as well as and creating a new media ecosystem in all aspects of production, distribution, and consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long ago a child left a dentist office with a comic book on the proper way to brush their teeth. Over time, so many have read comics telling tales of their favorite Marvel hero or what is next for Snoopy and his colleagues or the political scene depicted in a Doonesbury comic strip. Today comics and graphic novels with pictures that look like us center on health topics to get us through a pandemic, being a caring caregiver, eating properly and learning about climate change. It is cliché, but pictures can represent a thousand words, especially when the topics may be complicated, but the images are comfortable for the reader. This Health Literacy column will define graphic medicine with its comics and graphic pathograhics, the elements needed for these tools to create a meaningful health related resource and illustrate it with examples. After an assessment of the services and populations served, health science librarians can use these suggestions and examples for collection development in their medical libraries and/or consumer health collections. The Librarian may even be involved in creating a comic or graphic pathographic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aims of the present research were to: (1) describe the scientific outputs indexed in the Scopus and Web of Science databases, from now onWoS, regarding the use of comic books as didactic resources in the teaching-learning of the sciences, and; (2) establish the conceptual structure of scientific output regarding the use of comic books as didactic resources in the teaching-learning of science. A quantitative-bibliometric methodology was followed on a sample of 60 scientific documents recovered using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses strategy, from now on PRISMA. Findings suggest that the topic is still emerging given the novelty of the discipline and that published studies tend to be low impact in terms of the number of citations they receive. With regards to the conceptual structure, the most relevant themes and trends to emerge pertained to medical education, comic books and illustrations, and the use of mobile devices. Finally, analysis of the keywords used by the top 20 most relevant authors, it was possible to infer a degree of correspondence between sources, keywords and the continents responsible for the greatest scientific output on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The permanent museography project for the Cuatro Caminos metro station in Madrid features two historical synthesis murals whose main methodological instrument is architectural drawing. In addition, they offer narrative proposals that use resources of the avant-garde comic, together with simultaneous representations of space and time in which the chronological sense of the narrative is even manipulated. This paper analyses the two murals from the conceptual framework of the comic book in terms of the combination of the simultaneous vision of the graphic medium and the partial visions of its contents. Moreover, it ponders on the use of these resources when transmitting complex realities in heritage dissemination works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the use of comics as an integrated tool for introducing socioscientific issues (SSI) in elementary school classrooms. To illustrate this, we provide implementation examples from two teachers who facilitated introducing SSI to students using comics. These case studies depict how teachers integrated comics into their classroom settings and combined them with various teaching activities. In this paper, we also emphasize the format of the comics we designed, which starts with an introduction to everyday stories and scientific concepts before delving into SSI scenarios within the comics. Additionally, we have incorporated a conclusion part in the comics to serve as a closing segment. Furthermore, we emphasize the role of SSI scenarios within the comics in establishing meaningful connections between students' personal experiences and real-life SSI scenarios. The discussions predominantly involve private discourse, enabling students to construct their reasoning and perspectives. This approach promotes the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills, aligning with the ultimate objective of linking the science classroom with societal issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, situated at the intersection of urban studies and comics studies, seeks to interrogate the nature of urban migration and the lives of construction workers in Simon Lamouret's The Alcazar (2022), a comic based on and in the city of Bangalore. The article begins with a paratextual analysis of the comic, followed by a Lefebvrian analysis of the construction site, to argue that cities like Bangalore are evolving fast "beyond the plan" (Benjamin,2015) to meet the accelerating market pressure, resulting in failed urban planning, infrastructure, and urban crisis. It will further explore what Lamouret's comic does specifically to intervene in the discourse of neoliberal urbanism and challenge that discourse. The article will also analyze the formal specificities of the comics form and the multiple visual tropes Lamouret employed to "visibilize" the migrant workers and to advance their legitimate rights to urban life in the cityscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alison Bechdel's graphic memoirs— Fun Home, Are You My Mother? and The Secret of Superhuman Strength —explore the relationship between word and image, both in their form, as comics, and narratively, via Bechdel's musings on self-expression, sexuality, psychoanalysis, and exercise. On each of these sites, she is deeply concerned with the pervasive dichotomies of subject/object, self/other, and past/present. The fraught dichotomy between words and images forms the organizing force for how she writes and draws about all dichotomies, as she disrupts the hierarchy between word and image of Lacan's symbolic order without, as many feminists scholars have, deeming the symbolic order of language inherently patriarchal. Drawing from Julia Kristeva's theorizing of Lacan's symbolic order, Hillary Chute's comics theory, as well as W.J.T. Mitchell's work on the relationship between word and image, I analyze each book sequentially. In her memoirs, Bechdel disrupts the very distinction between word and image. When she recreates book passages and letters, these are not simply transcriptions, but drawings of physical pages, treating words as images. Chute and DeKoven's definition of comics focuses on it as a dual medium, but in Bechdel's memoirs, the relationship between word and image is not as stable as duality. It is a collaboration requiring constant renegotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within a multimodal framework, this study investigates the images of Zhuangzi (author of the Chinese Classic Zhuangzi) represented by the front covers of both the comic adaptation 説 Zhuangzi Shuo and its three translations. It is found these covers represent different images of Zhuangzi through processes of recontextualization. In the Chinese adaptation Zhuangzi Shuo, Zhuangzi, while being emphasized as a revered ancient Chinese philosopher, is remolded from an author into a funny speaker absorbed in expressing his thoughts regardless of whether there is any audience. In Zhuangzi Speaks, an English translation published in America, Zhuangzi is repackaged as a friendly interlocutor sharing with readers his thoughts. In The Sayings of Zhuang Zi, another English translation published in Singapore, Zhuangzi is reshaped as a historical figure for detached observation, one frustrated by chaos in reality and investing his thought into his writing. In Lehrsprüche des Dschuang Dsi, a German translation translated indirectly from the Singaporean one, Zhuangzi, while being a historical figure for detached observation as well, is re-reshaped as a reputable Chinese sage, who is old-fashioned but accessible. Differences in these images can be ascribed to diverse perceptions of comics and Zhuangzi in the countries concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on an analysis of Machon fr. 16.258-284 Gow, highlighting the nuances of comic receptions and the interplay between symposia and literary criticism. Topics include the examination of the anecdote's setting at a symposium, its potential for oral performance, and its implications for the relationship between comedy and symposia in ancient culture.

The war in Syria has been communicated to global audiences through images of dead and injured children, decapitated and tortured bodies, and ruined cities. The article shows how news media coverage of the war's impact on the city of Aleppo invoked a Gothic tradition. Drawing on Kristeva and Freud's concepts of the abject and the uncanny, the article argues that the Gothic tradition can further International Relations research on the constitution of Selves and Others. The Gothic Other is constituted through the (Gothic) Self's repulsion, fascination, and desire, and the Gothic tradition revolves around an understanding of the invisible as an in-between space of fear and anticipation. The ability to recognise Gothic themes in an image depends on one's familiarity with the Gothic tradition, hence images are theorised as having a Gothic potentiality. The article focuses on how the Anglo-Saxon Gothic tradition enabled Western readers to identify Gothic themes in news coverage of the war in Aleppo. The article adopts a multimethod strategy including a content analysis of 457 images published by Western news media; a discourse analysis of news stories; an analysis of three Gothic, uncanny iconic motifs; and an author-created comic drawing on Gothic elements from the published photographs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the prevalence of deadpan and ironic modes of humour undermines the possibility of clear and stable interpretation in online contexts. Analysing key examples of online deadpan humour through the lens of literary and critical models of irony, I argue that the decontextualisation of deadpan humour in online spaces accentuates the deadpan comic mode's tendency towards ambiguity in ways that hypothetically destabilise any claim to textual certainty. Drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, I propose the 'comic disposition' as a means to theorise how audiences learn to process the comic ambiguity of online deadpan humour, and suggest how the 'comic disposition' can be understood to inform observed tendencies towards distrust and confusion in digital culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sira’s monologue in Merc. 817 ff. is one of the most well-known scenes in the play: she offers a surprising – and at times paradoxical – meditation on the behaviour of a husband and wife. In the ironic ‘feminism’ of this anus one inevitably glimpses literary constructions and problematic knots, capable of reviving, albeit with a comic smile, a subject of great cultural and legal relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay discusses the speculative turn in recent Arab literature and arts by focusing on the comics genre. It first attempts to outline the genealogies and ramifications of a growing canon of graphic narratives— qiṣaṣ muṣawwara as they are known in Arabic—concerned with the speculative element as a lens or tool to deal with socio-political aspects. Moreover, it focuses on the analysis of selected works by the Lebanese comic artist Barrack Rima in order to examine the ways in which speculative fiction figures the city of Beirut as the central nexus of dystopias, thereby responding to present anxieties and providing realms for projecting future visions. Paying particular attention to recurrent key tropes in Rima's multi-layered and multi-temporal dystopic narratives as well as aesthetic and literary strategies, the genre's potential suitability to engage with speculative futurity is explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the January 2011 revolution, Egyptian artists had the opportunity to express their ideas more openly. One of the major productions that started in 2011 in Egypt was TokTok, a comic magazine for adults. During the period of 2011–2015, TokTok issued fifteen issues that incorporated a collection of comics and comic strips created by different Egyptian artists. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether cringe humor has been an integral part of the drawings and stories presented in TokTok and how this type of humor reflected the socio-cultural and political scene in Egypt during that period. For this paper, Kress and Van Leeuwen's (2006. Reading images: The grammar of visual design. Routledge) model of multimodal analysis was applied to selected comics from the fifteen issues of TokTok to investigate possible elements of cringe humor as depicted in this Egyptian graphic magazine. Major results show that elements of cringe humor are not evident in all analyzed comics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose in the following pages to approach the study of the dynamics of the press with political cartoons generated in the context of the liberal regimes that ruled Mexico between 1867 and 1911. That is, we will focus our attention on the behavior of indicators such as start, circulation and closure of newspapers with the purpose of analyzing the phenomenon in a political key. Indeed, it is about putting into perspective the prevailing governmental lines and their relationship with the world of satirical-visual publications, to understand the ways in which they had repercussions and influenced each other, and vice versa, and the way in which that this interaction allows us to understand certain characteristics of the development of public space, in particular the balances between actors and political forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, titled "A Primer for The Comic in Dialogue," presents a conversation between Mr. Isaacs and Mr. Amicus about the nature of comic laughter and the cultural artifacts that elicit laughter. They discuss the influence of Bakhtin in Donald Trump's tweets, the use of psychoanalysis in understanding humor, and the terminology used in the study of comic artifacts. Mr. Isaacs proposes using "The Comic" as an umbrella term to encompass all laughter-inducing cultural artifacts, as the terms "humor" and "comedy" have limitations in their historical and cultural contexts. The conversation explores the complexities of studying and defining humor and comedy. [Extracted from the article]

Neil Cohn's book, "Who Understands Comics? Questioning the Universality of Visual Language Comprehension," explores the fluency and comprehension of visual narratives. Cohn argues against the belief in the universality and transparency of sequential images, presenting evidence from diverse populations and cultures. He examines the developmental trajectory of visual narrative comprehension in children and the role of fluency in comprehension. Cohn also challenges assumptions about visual ability compensating for verbal language impairments in clinical populations. Overall, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the complexities of visual language comprehension and highlights the need for further research in this area. [Extracted from the article]