Founded in 2010, The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship is a researcher-led, open-access, peer-reviewed academic journal. The journal aims to publish original and specialised contributions to the field of comics scholarship from multidisciplinary and media-specific perspectives.

Since 2015, The Comics Grid is published by Open Library of Humanities. The journal has its main editorial headquarters at the Centre for Human-Computer Interaction Design, City, University of London.

The journal aims to promote innovative comics scholarship where the writing is energetic and theoretically and interpretively bold, and that presents specialised knowledge in accessible and engaging forms. It also considers submissions that explore the ways in which comics can be used for scholarly purposes. 

The journal has peer-reviewed and non peer-reviewed sections. All claims expressed in articles published by this journal are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers.

Focus and Scope

This journal’s purpose is to make original and specialised media-specific contributions to the field of comics scholarship and to advance the appreciation of graphic narrative and comic art.

Our focus is inspired by, but not limited to, the following questions:

• How are form and format interconnected in comics?

• What is the meaning of “content” in comics?

• How are page sizes related to what is contained in them?

• What is the role of the characteristics of panel layouts and/or page sizes and formats in specific comics texts?

• How do different technologies affect the processes of creating and reading a comics page?

• How do different panel arrangements work?

• What is the media-specificity of a comics page?

• What are some of the different possible ways of reading comics pages?

• What other cultural practices or artistic forms or phenomena intersect with comics and could benefit from comics-focused critical approaches?

• What comics, aspects of comics, disciplines and methodologies are underrepresented in current comics studies?

• What are the characteristics of the “user experience” in comics?

In addition, we welcome articles that explore the ways in which comics, narrative drawing, and other graphic means of communication can be used for scholarly purposes, including:

• comics as scholarship
• practice-based research 
• research-based narratives
• and forms of network or data-visualisation

Explore and search the journal's content from our Articles page.

History

The Comics Grid was initially conceived and developed between 2009 and 2010 as an academic and artistic 'collaboratory' by comics scholars Roberto Bartual, Esther Claudio, Ernesto Priego, Greice Schneider and Tony Venezia in discussions during comics studies conferences in London, Manchester, Copenhagen and Leeds. It launched in 2010 as an “open-access, collaborative peer-reviewed comics studies blog”. The motivation was the need to create an international network of comics scholars and artists that worked on an open-access publishing platform dedicated to comics scholarship that embraced the values of frictionless sharing and public engagement.  

Led by Ernesto Priego (City, University of London), The Comics Grid  became a full-fledged open-access peer-reviewed journal in 2013.

An open-access compilation of the peer-reviewed articles published between January 2011 and January 2012 is available to download as The Comics Grid: Year One. All articles published between 2011 and 2013 on our initial blog platform are still available via the Wayback Machine, UK Web Archive. We also have a basic back-up site for all the pre-2013 content.

Find the journal's current and previous editorial board members in our Editorial Board page.