(First) Top Ten
The Comic Art Working Group is pleased to announce the publication of its collection "(First) Top Ten", edited by former Chair Geisa Fernandes.
The book celebrates 35 years of IAMCR's Comic Art Working Group's existence, and comprises a selection of the best papers presented in the Working Group sessions at IAMCR conferences in recent years.
The book was funded by the Section and Working Group Project Fund.
In the first part of a two-part article, Geisa Fernandes, former chair of the Comic Art Working Group and editor of the book, tells about its making.
The making of the ebook
During my term as Chair (2016-2020), the Comic Art Working Group, created by Professor John A. Lent in 1984, completed 35 years of important contributions to comic book scholars. I understood that such a milestone deserved to be celebrated appropriately and applied for the Section and Working Group Projects Fund. In August 2018, the project for an e-book entitled: "The Comic Art Working Group (first) Top 10" and a podcast series called: "Comic Art Working Group Comments on the Top", was approved by the IAMCR Executive Board.
The news made us very happy, but little did we know that it would only be the beginning of a small saga, which would only end in 2023. Today, the story of the troubled production of the e-book.
At first, everything was going well. Among our colleagues, we had found a partner who offered us the technological support to create the first compilation of the best ten articles presented at the group meetings. The articles were selected by Professor Lent, and after the initial work of digitizing those that until then were only available on paper, the project progressed quite well and we even had a design for the e-book cover ready.
During the business meeting at IAMCR 2019 in Madrid, we shared the updates with group members. We even had time for a get together in the best Spanish style, with a festival of tapas and drinks and lots of interaction. A magical night that remains in the memory of the members of the group, as remembered in the second season of the podcast, but we will talk about it later. Anyway, we were on schedule, everybody was pleased and things were looking fine for 2020.
We all know what comes next: many delays and rearrangements due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Our project was temporarily suspended, but I still heard from our production partner from time to time, so I believed we would soon be back on track. In 2021, however, when appointments began to be rescheduled everywhere; our partner simply stopped returning my messages. It was a very difficult time until June 2022, when the new chairs of the group came to join efforts and made it possible to finish the production of the e-book, which was finally released this year. I am very grateful for their wonderful contribution.
In the meantime, I produced the podcast episodes, which will be the subject of the second part of this article. See you then!
Geisa Fernandes
Chair of Comic Art Working Group / 2016-2020