Cirrus@Austlit

'Discussion about the production and distribution of comics by Australian creators is a rare sight in any form, especially within an academic context. This remains the case despite a move by the general population towards celebrating diverse forms of pop culture and the gradual rise of comics studies as a legitimate field of research over the last two decades. The absence of such discussion may lead one to question whether Australian works of the medium actually exist in any substantial number—even within the country, local comics stores are stacked with international imports and any film adaption of a comic book is predictably tied to foreign origins. However, despite this lack of prominence in the public and academic eye, the production of comics is hardly absent in the country; Australian stakeholders have contributed to the medium’s modern history since the 1970s. In Amy Louise Maynard’s doctoral thesis A Scene in Sequence: Australian Comics Production as a Creative Industry 1975–2017, this little-explored network of comics creators, producers, editors, sellers, cultural intermediaries and the scene they create is provided significant academic attention for the first time in a decade. By framing this network as a creative industry, Maynard provides an extensive examination of historical and contemporary Australian comics production.'  (Introduction)