“Mission to the Unknown: the rise of Doctor Who: How the show was created, influenced and precursors (H.G. Wells, Quatermass, British culture and living in 1963). From history lessons to ‘Dalekmania’, embracing ‘bug-eyed monsters’.

From smacked bottoms to cosmic kisses: the Doctor’s women: The role of the female companion, and how it changed from screaming girls, to beating up Daleks with baseball bats, to “the most important woman in the universe”, the changing portrayal of women on television, and the women behind the camera.

Edge of Destruction: the wilderness years: How the fan community kept the show alive during the years when it was off-air, fan fiction,and how they embraced different technologiesto generate new content. The lost episodes;the task of restoration.

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy: the regeneration of Doctor Who: Looking at how the show was revived into a successful, new – yet still recognisable – format, and how it has grown to become one of the BBC’s flagship shows. And a look to the future… How many more Doctors can there be?”

More details and information can be found on the university’s website here.

“This is a very exciting time for comics scholarship, and I am delighted to be able to offer this postgraduate course on comics, ” commented Doctor Murray. “This is a unique opportunity to give this important medium the attention it deserves, and to allow those with an interest in comics to study it in detail.” With respect to the more practical modules in the course he noted that it wasn’t just about academic theory and study but also sharperning skills that can lead to graduates being more employable: “There will be practical advice on publishing and developing a career as a comics scholar, writer or artist, and we hope to arrange work placements for students… A range of activities of interest to students, such as conferences, talks and workshops featuring some of the most influential figures from the comics industry, and worldwide experts on comics and graphic novels will support the academic work. These will be of great interest to students and will allow them to make contact with influential figures from within the industry.” A follow up PhD course will be available to those who complete the MLitt degree. More details, including a downloadable brochure, can be found on the university’s site.

UPDATE: John Freeman on Down the Tubes has been busy updating news on this course, specifically a rather negative reaction from Scottish Labour MP Tom Harris, who has been questioning the course. While it is, of course, fine to question and debte, the tone of Mr Harris’ criticism was something I found quite objectionable: “Dundee University is launching a degree in comic books. That’ll show those who say degrees are being dumbed down!” Frankly I was quite angry at this response from one of our elected representatives, it sounded very much to me like someone who didn’t have deep inside knowledge of the medium and the industry and who clearly had not paid full attention to the course details, which explain that is is not just an theoretical course, it has specific practical training and honing of skills that can be used to help gain employment (as indeed Dr Murray pointed out in a Twitter response to the MP).

It has blown up into quite a hornet’s nest on Twitter, with several people, including John, Mike Donachie, course organiser Dr Chris Murray and myself debating these points with the MP and wondering why he seems so opposed to creating a proper form of training, innovation and encouragement for new talent to help them follow in the footsteps trailblazed by numerous Scots and Brit comic creators who carved out international reputations for themselves. Surely not to offer some form of initiative to capitalise on that reputation and help the talent pool of the next generation to draw on it would be foolish? I asked Mr Harris is he had much knowledge of the medium and industry and he said “more than average”. Asked why he was against this new course he replied to me “I don’t think you can just take any subject that you’re interested in and make it the subject of an academic qualification.” Which is rather missing the point and, to my ears, sounded like elitist snobbery – as if this is only comics and not ‘worthy’.

As I pointed out the course is aimed at creating practical skills that can be used by new talent to get work in an important industry and those skills – writing, design, art – are all equally useable in related industries which we enjoy worldwide reputations in also, such as games design, graphic design, film and television work and other related fields. With publishing and media, including comics, changing rapidly it seems to me that if we wish to maintain our reputation for top flight, world class talent then we capitalise on the existing reputation by creating proper courses and places where new talent is nurtured, encouraged, trained in the correct skills that will be required of them and helped to work with possible employers to help them get their foot in the door. I fail to see why this is not a laudable aim and why Mr Harris seems to denigrate it so; frankly his position seems to me to be condescending simply because the medium is comics. Well, Dr Murray, I think your course is a splendid idea and should be applauded for bringing something positive and helpful to our industry and medium. What a shame elected representatives carp rather than support innovation.

“”Last week, to my great surprise, the University made me a ‘Visiting Professor in the School of Arts’ in recognition of my past work in British comics. Once I’d got over all the blushing and the obvious ‘Prof’ jokes from my partner and friends (Please! No more!!) there’s one thing in particular about this that delights me: the appointment is intended to help raise the profile of British comics, British creators and what we can achieve in the comic media in Britain.”

(Pat Mills, photo borrowed from Wiki)

Well done the University of Liverpool and nice to see them taking comics forms seriously and giving them such a high profile. I am not entirely surprised though, as I know that for many years the university has also been home to the excellent Andy Sawyer who oversees their Science Fiction Foundation collection and thuniversity’s MA in Science Fiction Studies.

“The Comics Forum was comprised of two parts, day 1 was the second edition of the Women in Comics conference, chaired by Sarah Lightman (Glasgow University). Day 2 was chaired by Ian Hague (University of Chichester), and was titled “Theory and Practice”. Both days were integral parts of a whole, some presenters participating the two days with different approaches and topics, and delegates attending both days too.

I was delighted to see so many familiar faces, to reencounter old friends and to make new ones; basically a big section of the ‘Who’s Who’ of UK comics scholarship was there (check the programme!). Members of the editorial boards of the two main British academic comics journals, The Journal of Comics and Graphic Novels (Routledge) and Studies in Comics (Intellect) were also at the conference, either presenting, chairing or attending as delegates. Graduate students, practitioners, editors and professors presented, discussed, and networked in a friendly, respectful and engaging way.“

What looks to be the complete first issue of Routledge’s Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics has been placed online to read as PDFs or in HTML, even boasting (in proper academic fashion) abstracts for each of the articles so you can check those to see if the main article is what you are after. From the introductory editorial by David Huxley and Jane Ormrod:

“The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics incorporates all aspects of the graphic novel, comic strip and comic book. Its scope is interdisciplinary and international, covering not only English language comics but also worldwide comic culture. The journal will reflect interdisciplinary research in comics and aims to establish a dialogue between academics, historians, theoreticians and practitioners of comics. It will include all forms of ‘sequential imagery’ including precursors of the comic, but in the main emphasis will be on twentieth and twenty-first century examples, reflecting the increasing interest in the modern forms of the comic, its production and cultural consumption.

Academic and serious study of the comic and comic strip increased very slowly throughout the twentieth century. This, in part, is due to a perception that comics are trash culture in the USA and the UK and therefore unworthy of serious academic study. Although progress has been painfully slow, arguably this field of study is now in a similar situation to that of film studies in the 1930s; subject to not only an increasing interest, but also an increasing respectability. English language studies of comics have lagged behind pioneering European scholars such as Francis Lacassin and Umberto Eco, but now comics in all their forms and from all over the world are attracting a wide range of academic interest.”

(a panel from V For Vendetta from the long gone but fondly remembered Warrior, by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, borrowed from Maggie Gray’s essay on comics as cultural resistance)

As someone who did more than his fair share of film studies during college I find the likening of comics study in the Anglophone world to the way film studies was initially received in academia in its early days quite interesting, I can certainly see some parallels – a lot of early work regarding the medium as a serious artform coming from Europe, initial resistance then slow acceptance of the value of such studies and the development of an academic ‘language’ for discussing the medium, initially borrowing from older, more established forms of media studies (just as early film studies often borrowed from literary studies to develop models of analysis) before developing tools more suited to the particulars of the medium, all going hand in hand with both academic and general cultural acceptance of the medium, moving from a dismissive view of it as all disposable pop culture to accepting some of it as having genuine artistic and culture merits (you may all stroke your lecturer-style beards thoughtfully at this point).

It’s rather nice to see Routledge taking the subject of academic comics studies seriously too – I know from my many years in the book trade that they are a very respected purveyor of academic texts, so it’s quite pleasing to me to see comics studies included as one of their titles. The first volume includes “From Iky Mo to Lord Horror: representations of Jews in British comics” by Paul Gravett, “From fan appropriation to industry re-appropriation: the sexual identity of comic superheroes” by Gareth Schott, “‘A fistful of dead roses…’. Comics as cultural resistance: Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s V for Vendetta” by Maggie Gray, “The absence of black supervillains in mainstream comics” by Phillip Lamarr Cunningham and “Redrawing nationalism: Chester Brown’s Louis Riel: a comic-strip biography” by Andrew Lesk, as well as several comics related book reviews. This is obviously aimed at a more academic audience than a normal comics review or criticism, but I imagine quite a lot of our readers will find it interesting; there is a call for papers for consideration for the 2011 editions. (tip of the hat to Melissa Hutt and Christian Sager for the link)

“The review panel are seeking papers for the conference, or proposals
for potential panels on a particular subject. We invite presentations
from the perspective of any discipline; literary studies, cultural
studies, film studies, art, philosophy, linguistics, politics, sociology and others. Potential topics for papers or panels might include, but are not restricted to:

* Comic revisionism and the graphic novel
* Comics and literature
* The political philosophy of Moore’s canon
* Moore’s relationship to the mainstream comic industry
* Adaptations of Moore’s work to screen and other media
* Psychogeography and place in Moore’s work
* Magick and spirituality
* Site-specific events
* Pornography and erotica in Moore’s work
* Fandom and reception
* The underground press
* Collaborations and networks
* Music and musical collaborations
* Intertextuality and referentiality”

(Alan with Pádraig on a recruitment drive for Reppion’s Zombie Army)

It seems to me to be quite appropriate that as academia in the UK takes the comics form more seriously that they should choose to focus on the fascinating work of Alan Moore. An abstract of no more than 300 words for papers to be considered should be sent for review by the committee by December 4th; details etc contact nathan.wiseman-trowse@northampton.ac.uk or write to Dr Nathan Wiseman-Trowse, Senior Lecturer in Popular Culture, The School of the Arts, The University of Northampton, Avenue Campus, St George’s Avenue, Northampton, NN2 6JD (via Leah Moore’s Twitter); Pádraig’s 3-part interview with Alan can be read here.