iCOn-MICs Work Group 3: Iberian comics as a form of intercultural dialogue

About iCOn-MICs

The project ‘Investigation on Comics and Graphic Novels from the Iberian Cultural Area’ is a COST Action for the promotion, dissemination and networking of researchers on Iberian comics, as well as their relationship with professionals and the comics industry. The timescale for this Action financed by the COST Association to develop its objectives is 2020-2024.

We understand «Iberian» in an encompassing sense that includes the Iberian Peninsula itself, Ibero-America as well as all those geographical and socio-cultural locations that may have been reached by the literal or figurative diaspora originating from these peoples.

We start from the conviction that this Iberian cultural area has contributed in a very valuable way to the development of the ninth art that is the comic throughout history and that it continues to do so with enormous vitality.  The growing corpus on Iberian comics deserves the international attention of both the general public and the academic community. This COST Action will generate knowledge of the comics themselves and access to the volume of scientific literature that already exists.

Our general purpose is to facilitate the creation of research networks, locating those investigators who are already researching Iberian comics in order to boost their efforts and connect them with investigators from other countries participating in the Action.

Thus, iCOn-MICs is in alignment with the aspirations and goals of the COST Association: to connect investigators and research initiatives across Europe and beyond.

About Work Group 3: Iberian comics as a form of intercultural dialogue 

WG3 looks at the circulation of comics works and authors of the Iberian cultural area, their influence in other comics cultures while, conversely, fostering an understanding of the influence of other comics cultures in Iberian comics. In addition, WG3 will promote exchanges within the research and publishing fields of Portuguese and Spanish-speaking communities. 

WG3 centers its activities around the idea of intercultural dialogue, which we define as expressions of any ongoing or past cultural exchanges between different comics traditions and their material expression in the published comic book. These expressions normally imply mediation through textual translation (as its most visible expression), but other processes are involved in these exchanges, such as migration, formal or informal pathways to trade (both physical and virtual), and the dynamics of popular genres and visual culture traditions, understood both in their published outputs and their reception (e.g., fandoms, press reviews, etc.). 

WG3 is currently involved in fostering the development of comics-specific translation resources and skills, and in the creation of a bibliography of relevant primary and secondary sources to the study of intercultural dialogue in the Iberian cultural area.