
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.
Introduction to the journal issue by Susanne Schwertfeger for the CLOSURE-Team. 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 The article shows that comics confront demographic developments with graphic experiments that go beyond outdated views of what it is like to age – and beyond stereotypes about what it means to be “outdated” in the first place