Curating the Digital Reading Network Blog

The Max Fleischer Studios in 1935, where Jack Kirby started his career (Evanier 2008)
The Max Fleischer Studios in 1935, where Jack Kirby started his career (Evanier 2008)

This month I will be participating as a “curator” of the Digital Reading Network’s blog by posting some brief articles around the general topic of “digital comics”.

As explained on their ‘About’ page, “The Digital Reading Network brings together academics, practitioners, stakeholders and ordinary readers to explore the impact of digitisation on readers and reading, with a focus on the reading of literary texts.” It is funded by the UK’s AHRC within the Digital Transformations theme.

It is my intention to use this month’s topic to post on different online platforms that will link back to the Digital Reading Network blog, and hence try to expand the “network” part of the project by linking back to this blog and reciprocally to link to the other resources. I will in fact be “reblogging” myself there (or over there?) and as such also attempt to play critically on the notion of “original publication” on line.

Instead of starting directly addressing “digital comics” as such, I have taken a look at the assembly-line like conditions of production of American comic books before computers became the norm.

Graphixia is a collaborative comics blog published weekly on Tuesdays. Today it was my turn at Graphixia so I published a post titled “Comic Books: Art Made in the Assembly Line”.