Below you will find resources that I have found useful as a comic book scholar. It also includes some wonderful suggestions from the comic studies community on twitter (thank you, you know who you are).
Everything is listed in no particular order of importance.
Blogs/Podcasts/Online Journals
Comic Book Historians:
Comics Book Historians, run by Alex Grand and Jim Thompson, has a great blog and podcast. These two guys do a lot of hard work to bring you interviews with comic book creators and experts.
The Middle Spaces:
The Middles Spaces, run by Osvaldo Oyola, is a website that features articles on comics that I would describe as academic yet accessible, with a heavy focus on gender and race.
Women Write About Comics:
Women Write About Comics is an online journal that features a wide variety of articles on everything comics, written by feminists. WWAC aims to provide a safe space for women and nonbinary people.
Remembering British Comics:
Remembering British Comics is a curated blog series featured on Henry Jenkins’s website that aims to keep the history of the British comic alive. It features contributions from people such as Joan Ormrod and Mel Gibson.
Solrad:
Solrad, a production of Fieldmouse Press that features comics journalism, including but not limited to comics criticism and essays.
Strip Panel Naked:
Strip Panel Naked is a YouTube series in which Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou deconstructs analyzes the way comics work and the work that it takes to make them.
PROCESS:
PROCESS is a podcast in which Steve Walsh interviews comics creators about the various mechanics of comics.
Understanding the Comic
Visual Language Lab:
Visual Language Lab is Neil Cohn’s website where he discusses his research on visual language and drawing. He does amazing work that focuses on how sequential images function as or create a language.
Spin Weave and Cut:
Spin Weave and Cut is comics artist and educator Nick Sousanis’s website where (among other things) he provides exercises and information relating to the construction and inner-workings of comics. He also has a great page on using comics in the classroom.
Journals and Magazines:
The journal Of Graphic Novels and Comics:
The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics primarily (not exclusively) features scholarship that focuses on twentieth and the twenty-first centuries comics, graphic novels, comic strips and the like. It has an amazing editorial board and it’s senior editors are Joan Ormrod and David Huxley (both from Faculty of Art & Design, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK).
Inks: The Journal of the comics studies society
Inks is the journal of the Comics Studies Society and publishes a variety of scholarship on everything comics. It features an amazing editorial board with its head editor being Qiana Whitted (University of South Carolina).
SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education
SANE is an academic journal that deals with comics their intersection with pre-k to post-secondary education.
The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship
The Comics Grid deals with a wide range of comics scholarship and is open access and open peer reviewed.
PanelxPanel
PanelXPanel is a Eisner winning digital monthly magazine that features work by critics and comics creators.
Annual Conferences
The Michigan State University Comics Forum
MSU Comics Forum is an annual comics studies conference that also features a small, wonderful artist alley. It notably has two keynote speakers, one artist and one academic, making it a very well-rounded conference.
The Annual Conference of the Comics Studies Society
CSS’s annual conference deals with critical analysis and discussion of comics among creators and academics. Its theme and location changes yearly. Membership is required upon conference registration.
The International Comics Art Forum
ICAF’s annual conference original, critical proposals on any subject of comics and cartooning from any discipline or theoretical background. It is one of the most competitive and respected conferences in the field.
Queers & Comics:
Queers & Comics is a biennial LGBTQ cartoonists conference that features a variety of panels on the topic.
The Comics Art Conference:
CAC is the academic conference that takes place within WonderCon and San Diego Comic-Con International. It gives participants an opportunity to interact with other academics as well as professionals and grants the access to the con in which they are presenting. Applications for each conference are made and judged separately. Proposals must deal with the comic format.
Societies and Networks
The Oxford Comics Network:
The Oxford Comics Network is an interdisciplinary network that brings together academics and professionals of all levels to discuss comics at a critical level. It features biweekly seminars and talks from visiting practitioners and scholars. It is currently run by Enrique Del Rey Cabero & Michael Goodrum.
The Comics Studies Society:
CSS is an interdisciplinary society open to everyone who wishes to engage in and promote critical analysis of comics, aid in comics education, and the like. There are multiple types of membership on offer (student, professional, etc.), which grants you access to their list-serve and a subscription to their journal.
Canadian Society for the Studies of Comics:
CSSC/SCEBD is a Canadian comics studies society that offers an annual conference and promotes the study of comics in every language and period. It has two official languages: French and English.
Archives/Libraries/Databases/Bibliographies
Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum:
The Billy Ireland (part of the Ohio State University Libraries) holds he world’s largest collection of cartoons and comics related materials. In its effort to promote comics studies, it holds regular workshops, seminars, round tables, exhibits, and other educational programs.
The Comic Art Collection at Michigan State University:
MSU’s Comic Art Collection holds over 300,000 items related to comics, including the world’s largest collection of comic books. It has an easily searchable online index and welcomes researches to its special reading rooms.
Ray & Pat Browne Library for Popular Culture Studies and Comics LIbGuide
Bowling Green University has both the Brown Pop Culture Library and a very useful comics LibGuide for navigating its comics collection (which is comprised of over 50,000 comics!).
Comic Book Plus:
Comic Book Plus is an amazing online archive of public domain comics, primarily from the 1950s (or earlier). However, they also have other great finds such as British annuals and pulp fiction! As someone who researches romance comics published during the 1950s, I have found this website invaluable.
Digital Comics Museum:
Digital Comics Museum is much like Comic Book Plus in that they feature free public domain Golden Age comics. Their search feature is a bit different than Comic Book Plus and I find both websites equally useful.
The Grand Comics Database (GCD):
The Grand Comics Database is an invaluable tool for the moments when you are trying to find information on specific issues or comics series. I use this frequently when creating citations or doing cursory research.
Bonn Online Bibliography of Comics Research:
The Bonn Online Bibliography of Comics Research is an international bibliographic database for scholarship on graphic novels, manga, comics and the like.
Graphic Possibilities: A Comics Research Guide:
Graphic Possibilities: A Comics Research Guide is Michigan State University’s resource for helping scholars and students navigate everything comics studies related. It features helpful, themed bibliographies as well as other resources!
South Asian Comic Collection:
South Asian Comic Collection is the University of Illinois Library’s initiative to provide resources for the research of South Asian comics. They not only collect South Asian comics and graphic novels, they also have a great bibliography on the topic as well as other resources.