What connects two panels placed side by side? The default answer, more often than not, is ›narrative.‹ Scott McCloud, for one, calls for an unravelling of the »[m]ysteries surrounding the invisible art of comics storytelling« (74). Issue #8 of CLOSURE contests this narrative reduction and uncovers a non-narrative art of comics beyond storytelling. From a variety of perspectives, our articles show how comics subtract narrative, withhold closure, stall storytelling – and theorize the unfamiliar formal, abstract, nonfictional or poetic constellations that emerge as a result. »Must Narrative Be Renounced?« (Groensteen, 174) Our contributors experimentally answer ›yes‹ to this question and outline the logical, affective, designed connections that emerge in place of narrative.  Bitte weiterlesen

 

What do comics know? To answer this question, comic researchers, students and artists from various time zones came together in virtual space in October 2020 to deal with the transfer of knowledge through comics. At the interdisciplinary Autumn School »Graphic Knowledge: Comic, Research, Mediation«, the participants were able to explore the forms of knowledge that are laid out in text and images, in panels and sequences, in cartoons and symbols. In keeping with the principles of CLOSURE, the comic should be developed as a versatile means of expression that enables new perspectives on known knowledge. The conference report and the graphic recording by Tim Eckhorst for the key note by Jörn Ahrens are now online (available in german language only).