BCCS Symposium & Comics Tea Party

Coming soon: British Consortium of Comics Scholars are hosting a symposium and 'comics tea party' at Sussex University. Details are here: https://britishcomicsscholars.wordpress.com

The event is on 30th May 2015 from 10pm. Looking forward to it!

Modernist Afterlives

I'm speaking at University of London's Contemporary Fiction seminar this weekend, on the subject of echoes of modernism in Abstract Comics. Should be interesting!

http://events.sas.ac.uk/ies/events/view/13432/Contemporary+Fiction+Research+Seminar

Over at Graphixia, Peter Wilkins has a writeup of the Bournemouth Comics Rock conference, at which I presented on the work done at Park College creating '24-hour' comics. Both days are covered over two posts, and Peter's review is also appearing on The Comics Grid.

Comics Forum FB Page

Just started helping out with Comics Forum by starting a Facebook page - which you can find at http://www.facebook.com/comicsforumpage.

Article: 5 Film-School Violations in Videogame Cut-Scenes

5 Film-School Violations in Videogame Cut-Scenes
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/09/videogame-cutscenes/

Popped into Dave's Comics today to find that they'd sold all the handful of copies of Because I Am they were keeping there.  Yay!

I'll take them a few more soon - just going to add sticky labels including quotes from the generous reviews it's got. ;)

Cinematics Sans Cutscenes

Excellent article about storytelling in videogames - without giving up and making you sit down and watch a movie.

Notable for its use of Mascelli's Five C's of Cinematography - though I think there's more to be explored here.

"Jaws" by "Charles Schulz" blo... (ifc.com)

A more 'pop culture' R. Sikoryak. 

"Jaws" by "Charles Schulz" blows our minds
http://www.ifc.com/news/2011/08/charles-schulz-jaws.php?fb_ref=news

Shadow Emotions and Primary Emotions

Interesting article on the evocation of emotions in fictional media, contrasting the emotions evoked by videogames with those evoked by, say, the novel. 

The argument here is that video games can evoke 'real' ('primary') emotions, such as loss and anger; whereas other fictional media can only evoke 'shadow' emotions - empathic feelings experienced at one remove, hence weaker. 

(In fact, videogames designers often go all out to evoke more of these 'shadow' emotions, by utilising the strategies of traditional narrative and framing the game experience with them.) 

I can see that there is a counter-argument to be made here, exposed by a change of terminology: if we call them empathic emotions, rather than shadow emotions, then we stress their social function - it's the 'higher' response of feeling-for-another, rather than the 'selfish' emotion for oneself. 

Of course one can feel 'real' loss from a book, if one loses the physical book - but is this feeling more valid than the empathic loss felt about a character's death?  Perhaps I'm cheating here by shifting diegesis. 

Shadow Emotions and Primary Emotions
http://www.lostgarden.com/2011/07/shadow-emotions-and-primary-emotions.html

Acceptance of Comics (thecomicsbureau.co.uk)

I guess the Blabin will do as a spot for comics links...

Acceptance of Comics
http://thecomicsbureau.co.uk/2011/06/acceptance-of-comics/