My Comic-Con presentation got a very nice mention from the good folks at David Mack Guide, which you can peruse here, here and here. I couldn’t be more grateful for their support.

I’m just starting this blog as a means of some web-based self promotion, but I wasn’t really flogging the address at Comic-Con since it’s not ready. Otherwise, since I’m not really anybody that special, I haven’t scored a whole lot of mentions online that I’ve found for my presentation, aside from wholesale reposts of the Comic-Con schedule write-up on other sites.

Any rate, a thorough Google search turned up this, Anime News Network and G4’s guide to anime and manga at Comic-Con International.

Comics Arts Conference: Visual Language
12:30pm – 2:00pm, Room 30AB

Yeah, so it sounds like a college course in how to not have fun at a comics convention, but this panel has a bunch of really smart guys, including Robert O’Nale Jr. from Henderson State University, dissecting manga art style and contrasting it with other international art. If you’re feeling high-minded or need material to rip off for your Media Arts 403 term paper, this is where you want to be.

This of course makes me shudder at the possibility of people having only attended to crib notes for classwork from presentations, but I suppose that’s at least some mark of legitimacy. Otherwise, while I’m thankful for the press mention, I have to point out here that the good folks at ANN and G4 have obviously confused my presentation with that of Neil Cohn. From the official program:

12:30-2:00 Comics Arts Conference Session #7: Visual Language— Neil Cohn (Tufts University) explores the visual language underlying the “manga style,” how it works and how it differs from the visual languages in comics developed in other cultures. Robert O’Nale Jr. (Henderson State University) uses David Mack’s Kabuki to illustrate how gestalt can be an important avenue for analyzing design and meaning in comics. Alec Hosterman (Indiana University South Bend) demonstrates the dominance of hyperreality in comic art and explains how it can be utilized for further study of the art form.

I have to wonder–was it the use of Kabuki as source material that perhaps led to the confusion? Anyone who’s seen Mack’s work recognizes that, while it obviously draws from Japanese culture, it’s not particularly manga.