This interest and intellectual appraisal has extended to the rich
history of comics and related forms as well. However, hitherto the
(still scarce) current scientific research tends to focus on post-1930s
publications, and early comics remain largely unexplored. SIGNs aims at
bridging this gap. Notwithstanding impressive field work by pioneers
like David Kunzle in his two volumes of The History of the Comic Strip,
the medium still suffers from a somewhat meager historiographic
‘legacy’.
Since Kunzle’s opus, though, a small body of research has dwelt on the
intersections between visual and print cultures worldwide, mostly
centered on the 19th century. This process is making possible the
rediscovery and understanding of pioneering figures (such as Töpffer,
Cham, Frost), contents and aesthetic models, formal and technological
aspects (the ‘book format’ and the idea of album or graphic novel),
cultural values and artistic traditions (relations between ideas of
art, drawing, illustration, caricature, graphics), industrial models
(the early days of licensing and merchandising industries), social
discourses (the early star system of comics)...
Yet, a basis of shared facts so far remains to be devised, so SIGNs
has the ambition to become a regular forum for establishing a common
historical knowledge on comics, dismissing surviving myths and putting
modernity under the limelight. SIGNs strives for the multi-disciplinary
approach which is common today in other fields, encompassing economy,
linguistics, cultural studies, aesthetics, publishing history and art
theory, thus offering new pieces for the completion of the dispersed
sort of puzzle that constitutes comics history.
SIGNs has the ambition to push forward the historiography on the
medium by bringing together the best researchers and publishing
articles on Graphic Narratives – let them be called comics, graphic
novels or sequential art – printed worldwide in a period roughly
encompassing the 1830s and the 1930s. Each issue will also contain high-
quality reprints of rare material, reproductions and translations of
hard to find texts, and, in forthcoming issues, a review section
surveying publications of relevance.
Even if our ambition is scientific, text readability and attractive,
profusely illustrated, layouts are of great importance as well. We hope
that the reader will find it a pleasure to glance over the pages, to
become charmed by the drawings or to be caught up in a solid
discussion.
Something is changing in the world of comics today. And in the current
transitional climate – where digital media are restructuring our
cultural scape – the self-consciousness of contemporary comics culture
is linked to a reworking of comics history and memory. If retracing its
past may contribute to redefining its nature, then historical studies
are definitively a direction worth taking.
SIGNs wordt gemaakt door o.a. Michel Kempeneers en Roger Sabin.
