It Used to Be Easy: Comics about Growth and Change is out now!
The comics were made by MA studentsof MOME ANIM during our Storytellings with Comics course in November 2022. These are personal and cool comics. It was a pleasure to work with the students both as an instructor as an editor: they were eager to learn, listened to advice, and kept very tight deadlines. I absolutely loved teaching this course.
This past year I’ve been part of the History in Comics research project, initiated by Eli Woock at Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic. We have had meetings, presentations, and discussion every second month, and we have had a great time. This research group meant that I could get connected to other comics scholars and I could think about questions that are not part of my usual what the fuck is going on in Hungary? routine. I have learnt a lot from the project participants, who are:
This is the abstract of the paper that I will present next week in Dún Laughaire at the International Graphic Novels and Comics Conference. The theme of the conference is “Comics and Conscience: Ethics, Morality, and Great Responsibility”
„I spotted you on TV, you have 10 minutes to get back home” – Comics of the Lebanese Revolution
A Virtual Roundtable with Hugo Frey, Hillary Chute, Mark McKinney, and Eszter Szep, moderated by Aubrey Gabel
UPDATE: The panel isavailable on youtube. I was the fourth speaker, and I talked about comics as “poetry + graphic design” (said by Seth) and how it enables us to rethink the concept of comics and the practices around it and show this on the example of a fantastic collection of comics made by graphic desing students studying at the American University of Beirut about the 2019 Revolution in Lebanon.
A catalog showcasing contemporary Hungarian comics came out in fall 2021, but I completely forgot to share the news here.
I was working on New Hungarian Comics and Graphic Novels: Speech Bubbles to Leave You Speechless in the spring, it was commissioned by the Petőfi Literary Fund. It was big work: I selected the artists and comics featured in this beautiful catalog, wrote the text about each of them, and selected the images, too. Many of the featured titles has won or has been nominated to the Hungarian comics award.
When I was looking back on 2020 in my January 2021 post, I wrote that the best decision I made was quitting my job at a multinational company in the summer of 2020 (in spite of the pandemic, etc). I was grateful for that decision each and every day of 2021. Though freelancing is hard, it is getting easier and easier to find work. I still could not support myself financially if I lived alone, but I do not live alone, and I can rely on a partner who supports my freelancing projects. All year round, I could work on projects that make sense, which is a wonderful feeling.
In October 2021 I was invited by Lina Ghaibeh to hold a lecture to graphic design students about drawing and comics. I was and am still honored by this opportunity.
Andrew Godfrey-Meers reviewed Comics and the Body: Drawing, Reading, and Vulnerability for the Comics Grid. I have been so anxious (you can imagine), and it is such an honor to have one’s book read by a reviewer who understands the stake of the book and comments on it critically. Andrew Godfrey-Meers looks at Comics and the Body from the perspective of Graphic Medicine, and offers precious insight into how the issues raised and theories formulated in the book could be used to talk about the Covid experience of people with disabilities in the UK.
I am happy to share that I am the new book reviews editor of the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. I am really excited about this job and cannot wait to read and publish tons (!) of interesting reviews of books on comics.
I have been a secret book reviews enthusiast in the past 10 years or so, and I think many of you agree with me that there is a lot going on in comics research now. The field is becoming more international and more global, newer and newer chapters are explored in the history of the medium, and there is a great number of monographs and collections that offer syntheses of and guides to this expanding field. If you are interested in reviewing books for the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, please contact me (eszterszep AT gmail DOT com).
Doctoral students, postdocs, independent scholars, as well as tenured and non-tenured faculty are all welcome!
Please write a few lines about yourself, as well as about your areas of expertise and interest. If you already have a title in mind, do not hesitate to share it!
Finally, here is a comic I made about our book review philosophy. The strip was deeply influenced by Hungarian critic József Lapis’s several funny essays and self-reflections on reviews and the roles of reviewers.
Eszter Szép 