Our Mission
Unique among English-language conferences, ICAF aims:
- to foster recognition of comic art as an international phenomenon, both by seeking common ground between various world traditions and by exploring the crucial differences between them;
- to welcome a multidisciplinary and pluralistic approach to the study of comic art, with due attention to larger cultural, political, literary and artistic contexts;
- to encourage discussion and collaboration among academics, independent scholars, comics professionals, and the wider public;
- to provide an accessible showcase for innovative comics scholarship and comic art, with special emphasis on traditions hitherto neglected in English-language studies.
In order to achieve these objectives, ICAF actively seeks collaboration with scholars, historians, critics, teachers, journalists, curators, artists and comics professionals from around the world. Each year we aim to create a supportive, collegial environment, one in which discussion can flourish, with the larger goals of enabling new work within the international scholarly community and inspiring greater scholarly and public appreciation of comic art. Download the bylaws for ICAF.
Meet the members of our Executive Planning Committee.
The History of ICAF
From its origins as an on-campus event at Georgetown University (1995), to its years of collaboration with the Small Press Expo (1997-2000, 2002, 2004), to its three-year stint at the Library of Congress (2005-2007), the International Comic Arts Forum, an annual symposium devoted to the study of comics in all its varieties, has gained a reputation as one of the premier conferences in the field.
Distinguished by its international focus, ICAF has helped introduce to scholars in North America outstanding comic art and comics scholarship from around the world, in the process greatly enlarging the scope of anglophone comics study. Many comic artists from abroad who are now known and respected in North America have made their first U.S. appearances at ICAF. In addition, distinguished scholars such as Donald Ault, Bart Beaty, Allen Douglas and Fedwa Malti-Douglas, Paul Gravett, Thierry Groensteen, M. Thomas Inge, David Kunzle, Jean-Pierre Mercier, Pascal Lefèvre, John Lent, and Joseph Witek have participated in ICAF, some repeatedly. Also, many scholars who are now considered up-and-coming leaders in the field have crafted and first presented their research at ICAF, and so have forged lasting relationships with the conference.
Moreover, ICAF enjoys an unsurpassed reputation for scholarly rigor. As America's only recurrent conference on comics to consistently jury its papers through a process of blind review, ICAF has upheld the highest standards and served as a launchpad for some of the best and most innovative work in comics studies. Much research premiered at ICAF has gone on to be published in monograph or refereed article form. ICAF is proud to support the principle of peer review and the development of solid, academically grounded comics scholarship, and at the same time to maintain a collegial and welcoming environment for scholars at all levels and from all disciplines.
In short, ICAF has played and continues to play a vital role in this, the critical period of comics studies' emergence as a recognized and increasingly productive scholarly field.
A Narrative History of ICAF
The International Comic Arts Forum (originally the International Comics & Animation Festival) began at Georgetown University in 1995 as a local event with international guests. Originally conceived as a festival featuring mostly artists and comics professionals, the event was proposed by Tristan Fonlladosa, an attaché for the Cultural Service of the French Embassy, who approached the Department of French at Georgetown, where he made contact with Prof. Guy Spielmann. Guy and Tristan worked together from the outset and did the crucial work of organizing the conference, Tristan marshaling logistical support from the French Embassy and other diplomatic posts, Guy helping to recruit guests with academic backgrounds and thus boosting the scholarly presence at the event.
Originally a one-off event, ICAF was revived the following year (1996) on a larger scale, in time to coincide with a traveling art exhibition sponsored by the CNBDI, France’s national comics museum. At that point the conference's focus was clearly western European, specifically francophone, bandes dessinées. The CNBDI exhibit, “European Comics: Another Image,” traveled to various North American cities in 1996-97, coinciding with that year’s much-touted centennial of American newspaper comic strips. Its showing in Washington’s Union Station generated publicity and support for that year’s ICAF, which was supported by diplomatic and French-speaking communities in the area.
That year, 1996, was the first year that a general ICAF Call for Papers was widely circulated beyond D.C. The work of brainstorming and organizing the 1996 conference was, again, collaboratively shared by Guy Spielmann and Tristan Fonlladosa. However, Tristan’s departure from D.C. (he was on a three-year rotation) was already scheduled, and so,at the conclusion of ICAF 1996, Guy approached a number of presenters and attendees to see if they would be interested in serving on an organizing committee to keep the conference going in future years. In this way, the ICAF Executive Committee was created. The purpose of the Committee was to help Guy sustain the conference after Tristan’s anticipated departure, a move that, as was understood, would both enlarge the focus of the conference and change its organizational structure.
Tristan Fonlladosa indeed moved on after 1996. ICAF 1997 marked the first year of Executive Committee involvement with running ICAF. However, the bulk of the organizing and logistical work in 1997 was still done by Guy Spielmann. In later years, the Committee would assume entire responsibility for running the conference.
ICAF 1997 continued the practice, now traditional, of programming ICAF events from Thursday through Saturday. Just as ICAF 1996 had taken place at a number of venues (including Georgetown and the Alliance Francaise in D.C.), so ICAF 1997 was divided between two main venues: Georgetown and the then still-nascent Small Press Expo, or SPX (then held in Silver Springs, Maryland). Saturday’s ICAF programming took place at SPX, where ICAF’s role was primarily to provide artist-based programming, in the form of conversations with or presentations by both European and American cartoonists. Thus ICAF developed a practice of favoring specialized academic presentations on Thursdays and Fridays, followed by more festival-like programming on Saturdays for a larger public.
ICAF 1998 was a dramatic transition year, as it marked ICAF’s first year entirely at SPX (now in Bethesda, Maryland). This was a very robust year for international representation at ICAF, and the beginning of a long-lasting collaboration with SPX (continued in 1999 and 2000, then again in 2002 and 2004).
In 1999-2000 ICAF’s role was to generate most of SPX’s daytime programming, an arrangement that greatly benefited both organizations. In fact ICAF brought to SPX, and thus to the attention of many U.S. comics readers, many outstanding artists who have since become better-known in America, such as Anke Feuchtenberger, Dupuy & Berberian, Max, and Rutu Modan.
Sadly, ICAF and SPX 2001 had to be canceled due to the events of 9/11. The ICAF/SPX partnership resumed in 2002; then, in an effort to better organize the conference and control its costs, ICAF 2003 returned to Georgetown as its primary location, while shortening its Saturday programming to allow attendees to visit SPX. Other venues for 2003 included the Art Institute in Arlington and the Italian Cultural Institute in D.C., continuing the ICAF tradition of satellite events with various institutional sponsors.
ICAF 2004 was once again held entirely at SPX. In 2005 the Executive Committee decided that ICAF should seek its own venue and sponsors, and so the 2005 conference marked another dramatic transition, this time to the Madison Building of the Library of Congress in D.C., under the sponsorship of the Library's Prints and Photographs Division and the Swann Foundation. ICAF 2005 also marked the first-ever presentation of the John A. Lent Scholarship in Comics Studies and the Lent Scholarship Lecture.
ICAF's collaboration with the Prints and Photographs Division lasted from 2005 and 2007. An annual tradition during those years was the display of original cartoon art in the Prints and Photographs Reading Room, with short-term exhibitions exclusively for ICAF curated by Sara Duke and Martha Kennedy. Also between 2005 and 2007, ICAF undertook collaborative programming with George Washington University at their Gelman Library, including many artists' presentations and a panel, Iconophobia: Comics, Politics, and the Power of the Image, designed to encourage reflection on the political and social issues raised by the Danish "Muhammad" cartoon controversy (2007). During this period (2006), ICAF changed its name to the definitive International Comic Arts Forum, in order to reaffirm and strengthen its academic focus.
The end of 2007 found ICAF at another crossroads. Eager to control costs and to find an academic home where local students and faculty might become involved, the Executive Committee elected to accept an offer from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Thus the ICAF 2008 conference marked another dramatic transition, from the Washington, D.C. area (always ICAF"s home since 1995) to Chicago. At this time, ICAF adopted formal bylaws to strengthen its organization and insure its continuance into the far future, with the hopes of recruiting new scholars and engaging in continual reinvention in the years ahead.
Following well-received conferences at SAIC in 2008 and 2009, ICAF has evolved into a more peripatetic organization. In 2011 it took place at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT. In 2013 we finally arrived on the West Coast, at the University of Oregon’s White Stag Building in Portland. For the latter conference, ICAF turned to a concurrent panels model, greatly expanding the number of presenters. In 2014, ICAF took place at Ohio State University in Columbus, home of the magnificent Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. Especially notable at this conference: the voting into existence of the Comics Studies Society, the first professional organization for comics scholars, and the adoption of its bylaws. 2016 at last brought ICAF to the South, to the University of South Carolina, Columbia. This year marked the first in collaboration with the CSS. With its 2017 iteration at the University of Washington, Seattle, ICAF returns to the West Coast, though once more to a new venue. This conference signals the second and final collaboration with the CSS, which will launch its own conference in 2018.
The Executive Committee looks forward to a bright future for North American comics studies in which ICAF will continue to play a crucial part!
ICAF Executive Committee Members, 1995 to present
Distinguished by its international focus, ICAF has helped introduce to scholars in North America outstanding comic art and comics scholarship from around the world, in the process greatly enlarging the scope of anglophone comics study. Many comic artists from abroad who are now known and respected in North America have made their first U.S. appearances at ICAF. In addition, distinguished scholars such as Donald Ault, Bart Beaty, Allen Douglas and Fedwa Malti-Douglas, Paul Gravett, Thierry Groensteen, M. Thomas Inge, David Kunzle, Jean-Pierre Mercier, Pascal Lefèvre, John Lent, and Joseph Witek have participated in ICAF, some repeatedly. Also, many scholars who are now considered up-and-coming leaders in the field have crafted and first presented their research at ICAF, and so have forged lasting relationships with the conference.
Moreover, ICAF enjoys an unsurpassed reputation for scholarly rigor. As America's only recurrent conference on comics to consistently jury its papers through a process of blind review, ICAF has upheld the highest standards and served as a launchpad for some of the best and most innovative work in comics studies. Much research premiered at ICAF has gone on to be published in monograph or refereed article form. ICAF is proud to support the principle of peer review and the development of solid, academically grounded comics scholarship, and at the same time to maintain a collegial and welcoming environment for scholars at all levels and from all disciplines.
In short, ICAF has played and continues to play a vital role in this, the critical period of comics studies' emergence as a recognized and increasingly productive scholarly field.
A Narrative History of ICAF
The International Comic Arts Forum (originally the International Comics & Animation Festival) began at Georgetown University in 1995 as a local event with international guests. Originally conceived as a festival featuring mostly artists and comics professionals, the event was proposed by Tristan Fonlladosa, an attaché for the Cultural Service of the French Embassy, who approached the Department of French at Georgetown, where he made contact with Prof. Guy Spielmann. Guy and Tristan worked together from the outset and did the crucial work of organizing the conference, Tristan marshaling logistical support from the French Embassy and other diplomatic posts, Guy helping to recruit guests with academic backgrounds and thus boosting the scholarly presence at the event.
Originally a one-off event, ICAF was revived the following year (1996) on a larger scale, in time to coincide with a traveling art exhibition sponsored by the CNBDI, France’s national comics museum. At that point the conference's focus was clearly western European, specifically francophone, bandes dessinées. The CNBDI exhibit, “European Comics: Another Image,” traveled to various North American cities in 1996-97, coinciding with that year’s much-touted centennial of American newspaper comic strips. Its showing in Washington’s Union Station generated publicity and support for that year’s ICAF, which was supported by diplomatic and French-speaking communities in the area.
That year, 1996, was the first year that a general ICAF Call for Papers was widely circulated beyond D.C. The work of brainstorming and organizing the 1996 conference was, again, collaboratively shared by Guy Spielmann and Tristan Fonlladosa. However, Tristan’s departure from D.C. (he was on a three-year rotation) was already scheduled, and so,at the conclusion of ICAF 1996, Guy approached a number of presenters and attendees to see if they would be interested in serving on an organizing committee to keep the conference going in future years. In this way, the ICAF Executive Committee was created. The purpose of the Committee was to help Guy sustain the conference after Tristan’s anticipated departure, a move that, as was understood, would both enlarge the focus of the conference and change its organizational structure.
Tristan Fonlladosa indeed moved on after 1996. ICAF 1997 marked the first year of Executive Committee involvement with running ICAF. However, the bulk of the organizing and logistical work in 1997 was still done by Guy Spielmann. In later years, the Committee would assume entire responsibility for running the conference.
ICAF 1997 continued the practice, now traditional, of programming ICAF events from Thursday through Saturday. Just as ICAF 1996 had taken place at a number of venues (including Georgetown and the Alliance Francaise in D.C.), so ICAF 1997 was divided between two main venues: Georgetown and the then still-nascent Small Press Expo, or SPX (then held in Silver Springs, Maryland). Saturday’s ICAF programming took place at SPX, where ICAF’s role was primarily to provide artist-based programming, in the form of conversations with or presentations by both European and American cartoonists. Thus ICAF developed a practice of favoring specialized academic presentations on Thursdays and Fridays, followed by more festival-like programming on Saturdays for a larger public.
ICAF 1998 was a dramatic transition year, as it marked ICAF’s first year entirely at SPX (now in Bethesda, Maryland). This was a very robust year for international representation at ICAF, and the beginning of a long-lasting collaboration with SPX (continued in 1999 and 2000, then again in 2002 and 2004).
In 1999-2000 ICAF’s role was to generate most of SPX’s daytime programming, an arrangement that greatly benefited both organizations. In fact ICAF brought to SPX, and thus to the attention of many U.S. comics readers, many outstanding artists who have since become better-known in America, such as Anke Feuchtenberger, Dupuy & Berberian, Max, and Rutu Modan.
Sadly, ICAF and SPX 2001 had to be canceled due to the events of 9/11. The ICAF/SPX partnership resumed in 2002; then, in an effort to better organize the conference and control its costs, ICAF 2003 returned to Georgetown as its primary location, while shortening its Saturday programming to allow attendees to visit SPX. Other venues for 2003 included the Art Institute in Arlington and the Italian Cultural Institute in D.C., continuing the ICAF tradition of satellite events with various institutional sponsors.
ICAF 2004 was once again held entirely at SPX. In 2005 the Executive Committee decided that ICAF should seek its own venue and sponsors, and so the 2005 conference marked another dramatic transition, this time to the Madison Building of the Library of Congress in D.C., under the sponsorship of the Library's Prints and Photographs Division and the Swann Foundation. ICAF 2005 also marked the first-ever presentation of the John A. Lent Scholarship in Comics Studies and the Lent Scholarship Lecture.
ICAF's collaboration with the Prints and Photographs Division lasted from 2005 and 2007. An annual tradition during those years was the display of original cartoon art in the Prints and Photographs Reading Room, with short-term exhibitions exclusively for ICAF curated by Sara Duke and Martha Kennedy. Also between 2005 and 2007, ICAF undertook collaborative programming with George Washington University at their Gelman Library, including many artists' presentations and a panel, Iconophobia: Comics, Politics, and the Power of the Image, designed to encourage reflection on the political and social issues raised by the Danish "Muhammad" cartoon controversy (2007). During this period (2006), ICAF changed its name to the definitive International Comic Arts Forum, in order to reaffirm and strengthen its academic focus.
The end of 2007 found ICAF at another crossroads. Eager to control costs and to find an academic home where local students and faculty might become involved, the Executive Committee elected to accept an offer from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Thus the ICAF 2008 conference marked another dramatic transition, from the Washington, D.C. area (always ICAF"s home since 1995) to Chicago. At this time, ICAF adopted formal bylaws to strengthen its organization and insure its continuance into the far future, with the hopes of recruiting new scholars and engaging in continual reinvention in the years ahead.
Following well-received conferences at SAIC in 2008 and 2009, ICAF has evolved into a more peripatetic organization. In 2011 it took place at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT. In 2013 we finally arrived on the West Coast, at the University of Oregon’s White Stag Building in Portland. For the latter conference, ICAF turned to a concurrent panels model, greatly expanding the number of presenters. In 2014, ICAF took place at Ohio State University in Columbus, home of the magnificent Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. Especially notable at this conference: the voting into existence of the Comics Studies Society, the first professional organization for comics scholars, and the adoption of its bylaws. 2016 at last brought ICAF to the South, to the University of South Carolina, Columbia. This year marked the first in collaboration with the CSS. With its 2017 iteration at the University of Washington, Seattle, ICAF returns to the West Coast, though once more to a new venue. This conference signals the second and final collaboration with the CSS, which will launch its own conference in 2018.
The Executive Committee looks forward to a bright future for North American comics studies in which ICAF will continue to play a crucial part!
ICAF Executive Committee Members, 1995 to present
- Tristan Fonlladosa, co-founder (1995-1996)
- Guy Spielmann, co-founder (1995-2008, Chair 1995-1998)
- José Alaniz (2009-2017, Chair 2011-2017)
- Frank Bramlett (2016-2021)
- Casey Brienza (2010-2017)
- Jennifer Caroccio Maldonado (since 2023)
- Stanford Carpenter (2005-2013)
- Brannon Costello (2013-2019)
- Cecile Danehy (1997-2011, Chair 2008-2011)
- Emily Decker-Bess (2019-2022)
- Craig Fischer (2005-2007)
- Margaret Galvan (since 2023)
- Andrea Gilroy (2016-2019)
- Charles Hatfield (1997-2009, Chair 2004-2005)
- Mark Heimermann (2010-2016)
- Gene Kannenberg (1997-2000, Chair 1999-2000)
- Bill Kartalopoulos (2010-2016)
- Joshua Kopin (since 2016)
- Andrew J. Kunka (since 2019)
- Toph Marshall (2010-2016, 2022-2023)
- Arturo Meijide Lapido (since 2015)
- Ana Merino (2000-2011, Chair 2010-2011)
- Jeff Miller (1997-2013, Chair 2001-2003, 2009-2010)
- Mark Nevins (1997-2011)
- Elizabeth Nijdam (since 2015)
- Osvaldo Oyola (2016-2021)
- Marc Singer (2000-2007, Chair 2006-2007)
- Kay Sohini (since 2019)
- Brittany Tullis (since 2013, Chair since 2023)
- Maite Urcaregui (since 2022)
- Qiana Whitted (since 2010; Chair 2017-2023)