As a medium dealing with – and in some cases, challenging – the boundaries of visual and narrative dimensions in contemporary culture, “Comics and the Invisible” calls for a set of ideas, analytical methodologies, and theoretical vocabularies to articulate the limits of visibility within comics culture. In which terms comics can be understood as an invisible art or, from a very different perspective, as an art of the invisible? How can comics be a tool for a fruitful storytelling and visualization of ideas/topics that rarely find space within the ordinary ecology of visual media? Is this art of the invisible an instrument to connect with other dimensions (mental, psychological, spiritual, ontological)?

Inspired by the EU funded project “Invisible Lines” we invite participants to investigate 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/or contemporary traditions of the ninth art. We welcome submissions that explore the invisible in comics and illustration, stemming from every tradition of comics culture as well as in cultural, media, art theory that deals with ninth art and sequential narratives.

The deadline to apply is 15th January, 2022.