Arctic Comics Seminar 2016 – Comics and science

Oulu Comics Center invites you and your organization to join the Arctic Comics Seminar, held in 4 November 2016, in the city of Oulu, Finland. Seminar will held in Cultural Centre Valve.

The Arctic Comics Seminar 2016 focuses on the theme of comics and science. We invite researchers, students and enthusiasts of comics to participate. Proposal for scholarly papers from any academic discipline that seek to examine, interrogate, and expand research related to comics, in any medium are welcome. Papers will be allowed a maximum presentation time of 20 minutes.

Seminar is organized in co-operation with the University of Lapland and Finfar – The Finnish Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy Research.

Download more information (PDF)

Coming up, for example:


Reseacher PhD Katja Kontturi defended her doctoral dissertation in the University of Jyväskylä in 2014. Her thesis, Duckburg – The Gate between Two Worlds: Don Rosa’s Disney Comics as Postmodern Fantasy analyses how comics depict fantasy with both text and image. In her dissertation, Kontturi developed an analysis model for comics which is compatible for teaching comic narration and comic reading skill in primary schools. 

Kontturi has published several articles and taught a course of comics history, theory, analysis and interpretation in literary studies between 2013‒2015. She is a member of NNCORE, FINFAR – Finnish Society for Fantasy and Science Fiction Research, and Finnish Comics Society. She is also one of the editors of the peer reviewed Scandinavian Journal of Comic Art.

More information on: http://finfar.org/team-details/katja-kontturi-2/#more-311


Cartoonist and comics theorist and graphic designer MA Harri Filppa graduated in 2007 from the University of Lapland Faculty of Art and Design. In 2011, Kustannus HD published Filppa’s groundbreaking Master’s Thesis, designed as a comic book, Tiedettä ja sarjakuvaa ‒ Ruutujen kaupalla (“Science and Comics”). At the moment, Filppa is working on his doctoral dissertation focusing on the visual language of comics at the University of Lapland.

Filppa is the Drirector of Oulu Comics Center, Editor-in-Chief of Ruutukaava -comics journal published by the Oulu Comics Center, and board member of Sarjakuvantekijät ry, union for Finnish comics professionals.

More information (in Finnish) on: http://www.filppa.com/harri/