Cedeira Serantes, L., & Dalmer, N. (2023). Aging in/with Comics. Processes of Selection and Reflection. Closure. Kieler e-Journal für Comicforschung, 9, pp.76-85. Available at: https://www.closure.uni-kiel.de/closure9/serantes/dalmer.

Susanne Schwertfeger writes a wonderful introduction to the journal issue and says the following about our article: The authors of “Aging in/with Comics”, Lucia Cedeira Serantes and Nicole K. Dalmer, present their American Library Association supported project to create a reading list that compiles, structures, and reflects on depictions of aging in comics. In their article, they introduce their criteria for this collection and demonstrate how comics can stimulate processes of reflection on the aging process and thereby counteract one-sided negative associations of decay and loss. The work of the authors (accessible at comicsandaging.blog) provides an empirical basis, and in their article, they stress that their collection is also to be understood as an argument: comics have unique resources to not only depict global aging processes, but also enable a nuanced portrayal of “old age”. The article shows that comics confront demographic developments with graphic experiments that go beyond outdated views of what it is like to age – and beyond stereotypes about what it means to be “outdated” in the first place.

A second publication based on the work we have done for this project is:

Dalmer, N., & Cedeira Serantes, L. (2022). Imag(in)ing ageing futures in comics and graphic novels. In Virpi Ylänne (ed.) Ageing and the Media (pp. 133-154). Policy Press.

Our reading list of 32 comics and graphic novels that feature an older person is now available! Be sure to check back as this is a living list – we’ll continue adding titles as we encounter them.

On October 3rd 2019, we presented at the The Gilbrea Centre for Studies in Aging about some aspects our our ongoing American Library Association-funded reading guide that collects comics and graphic novels depicting older adult characters and later life experiences. The core of the presentation discussed how characters “do” older age as narrated and visualized throughout the included comics and how characters learn to age against different societal expectations. They examine how these comics both resist stereotypical assumptions and ageist narratives while simultaneously yielding to the seduction of successful aging.