See no evil, print no evil: the criminalization of free speech in DMZ

This article examines contemporary notions on free speech and the criminalisation of journalistic expression since 9/11, via discussion of Brian Wood’s DMZ comics (DC Vertigo). Free speech and the importance of a free press are widely accepted notions, yet journalistic and artistic freedom is arguably under attack in our post-9/11 world (Ash, 2016; Article 19, 2007). State responses to global terror threats have criminalised free speech, particularly speech seen as ‘glorifying’ or ‘supporting’ terrorism via anti-terror or restrictive media laws. This article examines these issues via DMZ ’s discussion of a second American civil war in which freedom of the press has all but disappeared, arguing that DMZ ’s ‘War on Terror’ narrative and depiction of controlled news access serve as allegories for contemporary free speech restrictions. DMZ illustrates contemporary concerns about a perceived social problem in its representation of corruption, abuse of power and restrictions on the public’s right to know

“Corpses … coast to coast!” Trauma, gender, and race in 1950s horror comics

During the 1950s, a moral panic around youth culture and delinquency dominated the contemporary imagination. Rock n' roll and the new wave of youth-focused films seemed to critics to posit an alternative culture antagonistic to that of older generations. One cultural form sparked particular censorious intent: the horror comic book. Many critics of the 1940s and 1950s dwelt obsessively on the impact of horror comics on youthful readers. The culmination of this movement was the 1954 Senate Subcommittee Hearings on Juvenile Delinquency, which resulted in the implementation of a harsh new self-regulatory comics code and the end of the horror and crime genres. In this study, we argue that rather than (or perhaps as well as) promoting juvenile delinquency, horror comics served an important social function in that they presented a challenge to the dominant culture in cold war America. They corroborated the veteran experience; questioned faith in science and industry; recognised women as victims of war; and embodied, on occasion, many of the themes of the early Civil Rights movement. It was because of these countercultural impulses that the horror genre in comics was, ultimately, brought to an untimely end

Reading Graphic Novels in School: texts, contexts and the interpretive work of critical reading

This paper uses the example of an extra-curricular Graphic Novel Reading Group in order to explore the institutional critical reading practices that take place in English classrooms in the senior years of secondary school. Drawing on Stanley Fish's theory of interpretive communities, it questions the restrictive interpretive strategies applied to literary texts in curriculum English. By looking closely at the interpretive strategies pupils apply to a different kind of text (graphic novels) in an alternative context (an extra-curricular space) the paper suggests that there may be other ways of engaging with text that pupils find less alienating, more pleasurable and less reminiscent of 'work'

Misty, Spellbound and the lost Gothic of British girls’ comics.

This article is a case study of the 1970s British girls’ comics Spellbound (DC Thomson, 1976–1977) and Misty (IPC, 1978–1980). These mystery anthology comics followed the more famous American horror comics from publishers like EC Comics - but were aimed at pre-teen girls. The article situates these comics with respect to Gothic critical theory and within the wider landscape of British girls’ comics. Firstly, it closely considers and compares the structure and content of their stories with respect to theories of the terror and horror Gothic. It discovers that both comics offer similar fare, with a subversive streak that undercuts established horror archetypes. The article then looks closely at both titles’ aesthetics and their use of the page to draw comparisons. It uses comics theory and Gothic cinematic theory to demonstrate that the appearance of Misty is more strongly Gothic than the aesthetic of Spellbound. Finally, it considers a selection of stories from both comics and analyses their common themes using Gothic critical theory. It argues that both comics rework Gothic themes into new forms that are relevant to their pre-teen and teenage readers. It concludes by summarising the study’s findings and suggesting that these comics offer a “Gothic for Girls” that is part cautionary tale and part bildungsroman. This article is published as part of a collection on Gothic and horror

Virtual Reality as a Tool for Evaluation of Repetitive Rhythmic Movements in the Elderly and Parkinson's Disease Patients

This work presents an immersive Virtual Reality (VR) system to evaluate, and potentially treat, the alterations in rhythmic hand movements seen in Parkinson's disease (PD) and the elderly (EC), by comparison with healthy young controls (YC). The system integrates the subjects into a VR environment by means of a Head Mounted Display, such that subjects perceive themselves in a virtual world consisting of a table within a room. In this experiment, subjects are presented in 1st person perspective, so that the avatar reproduces finger tapping movements performed by the subjects. The task, known as the finger tapping test (FT), was performed by all three subject groups, PD, EC and YC. FT was carried out by each subject on two different days (sessions), one week apart. In each FT session all subjects performed FT in the real world (FTREAL) and in the VR (FTVR); each mode was repeated three times in randomized order. During FT both the tapping frequency and the coefficient of variation of inter-tap interval were registered. FTVR was a valid test to detect differences in rhythm formation between the three groups. Intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) and mean difference between days for FTVR (for each group) showed reliable results. Finally, the analysis of ICC and mean difference between FTVR vs FTREAL, for each variable and group, also showed high reliability. This shows that FT evaluation in VR environments is valid as real world alternative, as VR evaluation did not distort movement execution and detects alteration in rhythm formation. These results support the use of VR as a promising tool to study alterations and the control of movement in different subject groups in unusual environments, such as during fMRI or other imaging studies

Fantastically reasonable: ambivalence in the representation of science and technology in super-hero comics

A long-standing contrast in academic discussions of science concerns its perceived disenchanting or enchanting public impact. In one image, science displaces magical belief in unknowable entities with belief in knowable forces and processes and reduces all things to a single technical measure. In the other, science is itself magically transcendent, expressed in technological adulation and an image of scientists as wizards or priests. This paper shows that these contrasting images are also found in representations of science in super-hero comics, which, given their lowly status in Anglo-American culture, would seem an unlikely place to find such commonality with academic discourse. It is argued that this is evidence that the contrast constitutes an ambivalence arising from the dilemmas that science poses; they are shared rhetorics arising from and reflexively feeding a set of broad cultural concerns. This is explored through consideration of representations of science at a number of levels in the comics, with particular focus on the science-magic constellation, and enchanted and disenchanted imagery in representations of technology and scientists. It is concluded that super-hero comics are one cultural arena where the public meaning of science is actively worked out, an activity that unites “expert” and “non-expert” alike

The Case For A Victimology of Nonhuman Animal Harms

For the last twenty years 'victimology', the study of crime victims and victimisation has developed markedly. Like its 'parent' discipline of criminology, however, very little work has been done in this field around the notion of environmental victimisation. Like criminology itself, victimology has been almost exclusively anthropocentric in its outlook and indeed even more recent discussions of environmental victims - prompted by the development of green criminology - have failed to consider in any depth the victimisation of nonhuman animals. In this paper, we examine the shortfall in provision for and discussions of nonhuman animal victims with reference to Christie's (1986) notion of the 'ideal victim' and Boutellier's concept of the 'victimalization of morality'. We argue that as victimology has increasingly embraced concepts of victimisation based on 'social harms' rather than strict legalistic categorises, its rejection of nonhuman victims from the ambit of study is no longer conceptually or philosophically justified

The Influence of Manga on the Graphic Novel

This material has been published in The Cambridge History of the Graphic Novel edited by Jan Baetens, Hugo Frey, Stephen E. Tabachnick. This version is free to view and download for personal use only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. © Cambridge University PressProviding a range of cogent examples, this chapter describes the influences of the Manga genre of comics strip on the Graphic Novel genre, over the last 35 years, considering the functions of domestication, foreignisation and transmedia on readers, markets and forms