Comics and the invisible
The ebook “Comics and the Invisible” collects some of the talks that took place during the international conference Comics and the Invisible: Intertwining Academic and Artistic Perspectives, held at Fondazione Giorgio Cini on 3-4 June 2022.
Inspired by the EU funded project Invisible Lines, the conference investigated different aspects of the invisible in comics culture, as a complex notion that can offer a fresh perspective around what is seen and what is not seen - and the motivations behind these absences - within the historical and contemporary traditions of the ninth art.
The conference featured 11 comics scholars from international universities and research institutions, selected through an open call for papers, and some of the most relevant European comic artists: Lorenzo Mattotti, Dominique Goblet, Juraj Horvàth, Stefano Ricci, Manuele Fior and David B.
Invisible minorities
Do you know this character? He is a French comic book author named Marcel Gotlib. He worked for a French magazine, “Pilote”, he did humorous comics and I loved him when I was little...
A third meaning
Observing the works of Dominique Goblet and Stefano Ricci, one can see a strategy for expressing the invisible made up of fragments placed side by side, a way of putting things into relation using fragments that break with the linear nature of time...
Building the Invisible
The invisible is part of the creative process: first there is nothing and then there is something. I would like to start from this, and from the memory of some things you have said to me, and which I will now quote simply to introduce the question...
Translations by Emma Lidia Squillari.
Invisible Lines thanks all the artists for the interviews.
Images appearing in the articles are from the following sources:
David B., L’Ascension du Haut Mal, L’Association, 1996-2003 (Italian edition Il grande male, Coconino Press, ANNO)
David B., Mon frère et le roi du monde, L’Association, 2016
Manuele Fior, 5000 km al secondo, Coconino Press, 2010
Manuele Fior, L’intervista, Coconino Press, 2013
Manuele Fior, Celestia, Oblomov Edizioni, 2019
Dominique Goblet, Kai Pfeiffer, Plus si entente, Actes Sud BD, 2014
Dominique Goblet, Ostende, FRMK, 2022
Gotlieb, Chanson aigre-douce, “Pilote”. 1969
Lorenzo Mattotti, Fuochi, Penguin Books, 1986
Lorenzo Mattotti, Jerry Kramsky, Ghirlanda,#logosedizioni, 2017
Stefano Ricci, Mia madre si chiama Loredana, Quodlibet, 2016
Some of the photographs appearing in the David B. interview are courtesy of the artist’s personal archive.
Invisible Lines will be at complete disposal to whom might be related to the unidentified sources.