Urban Comics

"An outstanding book about the relevance of comics in contemporary urban struggles." --Jrn Ahrens, University of Giessen, Germany

Dominic Davies is a Lecturer in English at City, University of London. In 2018 he finished a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Oxford, where he also completed his DPhil and established the TORCH Network, Comics and Graphic Novels: The Politics of Form. He is the author of Imperial Infrastructure and Spatial Resistance in Colonial Literature, 1880-1930 (2017), along with a number of articles and book chapters exploring the relationship between urban infrastructure, the built environment and artistic and literary cultures. He is the co-editor of Fighting Words: Fifteen Books that Shaped the Postcolonial World (2017) and Planned Violence: Post/Colonial Urban Infrastructure, Literature & Culture (2018). He is also the editor of a collection of essays and comics entitled Documenting Trauma in Comics: Traumatic Pasts, Embodied Histories & Graphic Reportage (2019).

Preface Introduction. Urban Comics: Infrastructure and the Global City in Contemporary Graphic Narratives Introduction: The Camp and the City Form and Infrastructure Infrastructural Form Comics Collectives as Networked Urban Social Movements The Image of the Global City New York, New York: A Brief History of Comics and the City Five Southern City Case Studies Chapter 1. Drawing Public Space: Revolutionary Visual Cultures and the Right to the City in Cairo Introduction: Revolutionary Visual Cultures and Gendered Public Spaces Egyptian Comix, Online and Offline Urban Cairo in Text and Image Vision and Visibility in Magdy El Shafees Metro (2008) Volume and Verticality in Deena Mohameds Qahera, the Webcomic, Not the City (2013-2015) Building Comics, Building Cities Chapter 2. Image-Making in the Global City: Eco-Speculative Fictions and Urban Social Movements in Cape Town Introduction: South African Cartoons, Comix and Co-mixed Visual Cultures Privatisation, Segregation and Image-Making in the Global City Afrofuturism, Solarpunk and Water Politics Flooding the Cape Town Utopia Turning to Townships: Urban Social Movements in Cape Town Chapter 3. Graphic Katrina: Disaster Capitalism and Tourism Gentrification in New Orleans Introduction: Theres No Such Thing As A Natural Disaster Voyeurism and Voluntourism in the Drowned City Vertical Perspectives in Josh Neufelds A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge (2009) Comics and Zines in New Orleans: Gentrifying Forms, DIY Cities Autographics, Art and Activism in Erin Wilsons Snowbird (2013) Chapter 4. Comics, Collectives, Collaborations: Engineering Pedestrian and Public Spaces in Delhi Introduction: The City-as-Circuitboard Engineering Comics: Orijit Sen and the Pao Collective World Class Delhi: Politics in the City Inside-Out Pedestrianism and Penmanship in Sarnath Banerjees Graphic Narratives Histories of the Neoliberal Present in Vishwajyoti Ghoshs Delhi Calm (2010) Gendering the Right to the City: Womens Maps, Womens Lines Chapter 5. Comics as Infrastructure: Public Space and Post-war Reconstruction in Beirut Introduction: Post-war Reconstruction in the Neoliberal Era Weaponised Infrastructure in Wartime Beirut Rebuilding the City in Zeina Abiracheds Graphic Memoirs Lamia Ziads Bye Bye Babylon: The City as Witness Urban Warfare and Civilian Life in Text and Image New Geographies of Beirut: Samandal as Urban Social Movement Conclusion. Bordered Forms, Bordered Worlds