The Comics and Cartoon Studies Minor at the University of Oregon will be participating in Portland’s Rose City Comic Con September 13 – 15. Program director Professor Ben Saunders will be representing the minor alongside other current and previous professors, students, and alumni associated with the program and the university’s comics publication, Art Ducko.

If you’re feeling so inclined, you should stop by the University of Oregon’s booth located on the exhibit map at table 603. At the time of writing, we should be across from the Dark Horse table at the edge of Artist Alley by the entrance across from Lobbies B and C. The Duck will also, reportedly (allegedly), be in attendance.

Though we currently do not have programming information for the panels featuring our associated faculty and alumni, keep a weather eye out for panels with Professors Ben Saunders, Tara Fickle, Mat Johnson, Kate Kelp-Stebbins, Elizabeth Wheeler, as well as Dr. Andréa Gilroy and Turner Lobey. Information will presumably be on the programming page as the convention draws nearer.

In addition to supporting panels featuring our current faculty or alumni, check program listings for panels and tables including the following comics creators planning to attend this year’s event: Neal Adams, Marguerite Bennett, Mark Brooks, Amy Chu, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Aaron Duran, David Finch, Andy Fish, Veronica Fish, Kelly Fitzpatrick, Matt Fraction, Jocelyn Gageway, Adi Granov, Cully Hamner, Kyle Higgins, Jody Houser, Klaus Janson, Dave Johnson, Adam Kubert, Hyungsung “Creees” Lee, Mindy Lee, Matthew Loux, Ibrahim Moustafa, Cary Nord, Steve Orlando, Dan Panosian, Drew Rausch, Matthew Rosenberg, Greg Rucka, Dana Simpson, Josh Trujillo, James Tynion IV, and Joshua Williamson. All links will direct you to their Rose City profile. Though this list includes many highly-acclaimed creators and artists, we encourage potential attendees to also explore the work of unfamiliar names on this list in the lead-up to the event.

Calling all writers interested in comics and/or cartoons! Art Ducko, the University of Oregon’s comics and cartoons magazine, is currently looking for an article for their next issue, coming out in winter term. The theme is science fiction. It can be any kind of science fiction, such as space travel, futuristic technologies, dystopia or utopia, parallel universes, apocalyptic stories, time travel, alternate history, alien life, and more (if you are unsure about whether or not something counts as sci-fi, feel free to ask!). The essay must be related to either comics or cartoons (or both). It can be focused on one work or many. If you have an essay or article already, or if you are interested in writing one, please email lbryant@uoregon.edu .

Deadline: Monday, January 9, 2017
Length: usually around 2300 words (though length is flexible)

Check out the “Around the O” article here!

Check out this slideshow of work by the artists for Hip Hop and Comics, looped over a classic Mix Master Mike mix: Eye of the Cyklops.

Thanks to Andre Sirois, aka DJ Food Stamp, for putting this together.

To celebrate the opening of the “Aliens, Monsters, and Madmen: The Art of EC Comics” exhibit, the the Jordan Schnizter Museum of Art will host an exhibition opening on Friday, May 13, 2016 from 6:00pm-10:00pm in the Jordan Schnizter Museum of Art. The opening is free to all UO students and faculty. There will be food, drinks, and a DJ!

Entertaining Comics (EC) was the most aesthetically ambitious and politically radical commercial comic book publisher of the 20th century.  Primarily active between 1950 and 1955, the company produced such sensationalist, satirical, and subversive titles as Tales From The Crypt, Weird Science, Frontline Combat, and Mad.  At odds with the ideological conservatism of the era, EC rebuked racists and warmongers, critiqued the paranoid state, and mocked commercialism and consumer culture — provoking the ire of parents, schoolteachers, politicians, and cultural critics alike.  In fact, the company was ultimately forced out of business by the forces of reaction — with the notable exception of Mad, which survived the 1950s anti-comics backlash by becoming a magazine (and is still in print today).

The exhibition will feature over 120 original art pages on display, including several complete stories.  Every major EC artist and title, including Mad, will be represented by key works.

This exhibition is sponsored by the Coeta and Donald Barker Changing Exhibitions Endowment; The Harold and Arlene Schnitzer CARE Foundation; a grant from the Oregon Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the arts, a federal agency; Oregon Humanities Center’s Endowment for Public Outreach in the Arts, Sciences, and Humanities; Philip and Sandra Piele; UO Comics and Cartoon Studies Minor; UO College Scholars Program; and JSMA members.

A Public Lecture by Bart Beaty, Professor of English, University of Calgary.
February 6, 2015
3:00 p.m.
Lillis 112
Free & Open to the Public