Blog: Doom Described

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I had some DELIGHTFUL comics news this week - my article Image Quotation of Past Events to Enforce Storyworld Continuity in John Byrne’s Fantastic Four has been published in the current issue of 'Closure'. 'Closure' is a German open access academic journal about comics, and this particular issue features papers based on the 2021 Comfor conference that I attended.

I'm really happy that my paper's out there as it is about something that I think it is DEAD INTERESTING. It looks at three issues of John Byrne's run on "The Fantastic Four" during the 1980s when he tried very hard to make himself the one true successor to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. One of the ways he did this was by using "Image quotation" (basically copying previous panels as part of flashbacks) to enforce the idea that he was the only person who could decide what was or wasn't "true" for that set of characters. I found it REALLY FASCINATING, and hopefully some of that comes across in the article.

I'm also happy because of the COMPANY I'm keeping - the ComFor lot are a RIGHT bunch of SUPERBRANES, so I'm delighted to have SNUCK IN amongst them. Now I'm off to have a proper READ of what they all said!

posted 15/8/2023 by MJ Hibbett

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Comments:

I think you're thinking of "metatextual" - "paratext" in comics studies refers to things like adverts, letters pages etc that sit alongside the text of the story. The sort of thing what I talked about in THIS paper, in fact: https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/16017/1/MarkHibbettMiddleSpacesFinal.pdf
posted 19/8/2023 by MJ Hibbett

The Stan Lee banner is paratextual. I'd argue. You managed to fit in textual, hypertextual, intertextual, transtextual... and an entirely unnecessary mention of Foucault for added credibility. Just add metatextual and subtextual, and you're well on the way to scoring at COMIC CONNOISSEUR BINGO! Good effort!
posted 19/8/2023 by How many philosophers can dance on the edge of a comic book staple?

The Stan Lee banner's definitely not paratextual, it's part of the text along with the writer credits. For more on this, BUY MY BOOK! PS any mention of Foucault is unnecessary if you ask me but what can you do?
posted 19/8/2023 by MJ Hibbett

It's a little disappointing that you didn't use 'paratextual" in your essay, or in your essay about your essay.
posted 19/8/2023 by journal articles are just formalized blog posts with pretensions.

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