09/08/2026
Priel Cohanim about his presentation at Comic-Con!
As part of the popular San Diego Comic-Con, several academic panels are also held under the umbrella of the "Comics Arts Conference." So, amid all the exciting news that came out of Marvel's panel over the weekend as well as Johnny Depp's surprise appearance, I had the incredible opportunity to speak this year on a panel titled "How Comics Change the World." My presentation focused on the Japanese manga series Frieren: Beyond Journey's End and on archive studies. In my talk, I explored how the series' visual and textual representations of memory, together with both the series' and its protagonist's obsession with beginnings, challenge the way we are accustomed to reading—or telling—a story by posing a central question: "What makes a narrative detail worth telling?"
In between a series of fascinating academic panels, I also had the chance to meet several renowned comics creators, including Scott Snyder, whose Batman: The Court of Owls I teach in my elective course, "Graphic Literature: Image, Text, and the In-Between." Snyder signed my copy of the book with the words, "To Priel -- Keep up the fight for comics!"
