CAW PhD researcher, Alex Fitch, provides an update on his recent research and publications

With 50% of my PhD research focussed on comic books – I am investigating “What can Sequential Art tell us about interactions with architecture that other media might not?” – I am always curious about ways that I can promote my area of research, open it up to a wider audience, and perhaps attract interest from other researchers, academics and publishers. With this in mind, I have been looking for an opportunity to pitch an idea to The Conversation as a venue for that wider audience. Unfortunately, there are not many potential stories about comics and architecture that might tie into cultural phenomenon, in order to make such a story newsworthy for the website, however the ‘coming out’ of Superman’s Son in the pages of recent DC Comics, struck me as a good opportunity.

In order to speak to both sides of my research, I remembered reading a Superman comic a few years ago, where the revelation that Superman and Lois Lane had a fictional son was tied into the fact that they were raising him in a remote cottage in the woods. This coincided with an area of research I am currently looking at – how the depiction of architecture and the framing of characters behind doors and windows on the comic book page can be used as a visual metaphor for the hiding of sexuality from society. Although this comic I read showed Jonathan Kent at an age when he wouldn’t likely have thought about his sexuality yet, in retrospect it is intriguing in terms of the stories which have followed. I included this idea in my pitch to the website, and although it didn’t become part of the final article, it ties the Superman article tangentially to my PhD.

In terms of Care and Wellbeing, nearly 50% of comics are bought by people aged 13-29 (https://tinyurl.com/comicsinfo) and it’s an industry worth over a billion dollars, with sales increasing yearly (https://tinyurl.com/comicssales) – as such, a large number of teens are reading comics, as are their parents, and so titles which reflect diverse sexualities might provide hope if young LGBTQ+ people are finding the process of coming out challenging. LBTQ+ teenagers often suffer issues with mental health (https://tinyurl.com/lgbtqteenmentalhealth) and unfortunately some parts of America are moving further right in terms of politics (https://tinyurl.com/lgbtusarights), so positive messages regarding superheroes in American comics (which are also read worldwide) can only be a good thing in terms of representation, giving young readers an uplifting message in terms of their hopeful acceptance by society.

You can read the full article in The Conversation (15 October 2021), re-printed in the Independent (22 October 2021).

– Alex Fitch
Alex Fitch is a lecturer and PhD researcher in comics and architecture at the University of Brighton.