Here we explain what this journal is, who is behind it and how to contribute.

“The Comics Grid is a fantastic invention!”

-Dr Roger Sabin, Reader in Popular Culture, Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design, University of the Arts, London, England. 23 March 2011

“I have enjoyed and learned from your contributions to The Comics Grid. Do keep up the fine work!”

-Dr Charles Hatfield, Associate Professor of English at California State University, Northridge, USA. 06 April 2011

The Comics Grid was initially conceived by comics scholars Roberto Bartual (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), Esther Claudio (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Ernesto Priego (University College London), Greice Schneider (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) and Tony Venezia (Birkbeck College, London) in discussions during conferences in London, Manchester, Copenhagen and Leeds.

This is a collaborative, peer-edited online academic journal dedicated to comics scholarship. Its purpose is to make or iginal contributions to the field of comics scholarship and to advance the appreciation of comic art within academia and the general cultural mediascape. Our ISSN is 2048-0792.

We believe that online, open access, rapid scholarly publication offers great potential to maximise academic research and teaching impact.  All contributions, including those by members of the Editorial Board, are collectively reviewed, edited and discussed by academic peers prior to publication. 

We are passionate about the importance of digital literacy and public engagement. As a side-effect of our initiative we also encourage scholars to become fluent in online publishing and to engage in online dissemination and public engagement practices through effective uses of social media and other online strategies.

Coordinating Editor:

Deputy Editor:

Editorial Board 2010-2012:

Editorial Board 2012-2013:

  • Brad Brooks  (Grafica by the Sea and Comic Book Alliance, UK)
  • Kathleen Dunley (Rio Salado College, Tempe, Arizona, USA)
  • Michael Hill (former Director of the Master of Animation course at the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia)
  • Roger Whitson (Washington State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA)

We have a rotating team of peer editors and contributors and we are always open to collaborating with others and expanding the editorial team. Our call for submissions is permanent and it can be found  at <http://www.comicsgrid.com/cfp/>.

The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the individual authors and are not meant to represent the opinions or official positions of the members of the editorial board, the organisations they represent or belong to and/or The Comics Grid.

You will find two main categories on this journal:

  1. The Comics Grid, which is our regular section, dedicated to brief scholarly articles on specific comic art examples (indexed on the home page)
  2. Meta Grid, a sporadic section dedicated to ancillary features such as interviews, calls for collaboration, conference reports, etc.

This journal seeks to function as an online laboratory where different critical approaches to comics are publicly and collectively put to test. Though our scope wants to be as diverse as possible, our initial aim is to focus on the analysis of specific comics page layouts and panels.

We want The Comics Grid to attract readers from different backgrounds, but we also want to become a trustworthy, authoritative, academic source.  All contributions are collectively reviewed and edited, and revisions are signed and openly visibile to contributors on their own dashboards. Our mission statement and editorial and guidelines exist as online documents which are shared amongst all contributors and editors.

Our research is inspired by, but not limited to, the following questions:

  • How are form and format interconnected in comics?
  • What is the meaning of “content”?
  • How are page sizes related to what is contained in them?
  • How do different technologies affect the processes of creating and reading a comics page?
  • How do different panel arrangements work?
  • What is the media-specificity of a comics page?
  • What are some of the different possible ways of reading comics pages?

Occasionally, The Comics Grid will also help to promote and discuss current comics scholarly activity such as conferences, courses, research projects, calls for submissions, publications, online resources, archives, etc., through this blog or our Twitter account @ComicsGrid.

We also will be posting links related to comics education through The #ComicsEdu Daily.

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Please read our Academic Fair Use Policy here.


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ISSN 2048-0792