Comics and the Invisible is a special issue published by Mediascapes and edited by Matteo Stefanelli (Università Cattolica of Milan) and Francesco Piraino (Giorgio Cini Foundation / Harvard University).

It represents the last step of the Creative Europe project Invisible Lines (https://invisiblelines.eu) realised by Fondazione Giorgio Cini (Italy – coordinator), Central Vapeur (France), Hamelin APS (Italy), and Baobab Books. (Czech Republic).

Comics and the Invisible explores the concept of invisibility in comics and illustrations, trying to reply to the following questions: in what terms can comics be understood as an invisible art or, from a very different perspective, as an art of the invisible?
How can it be a tool for telling stories and visualizing ideas that rarely find a place in the ordinary ecology of visual media? Is this art of the invisible a tool to connect with other dimensions (mental, psychological, spiritual, ontological)?

Table of contents:

– Comics and the Invisible, Introduction to the Special Issue, Francesco Piraino, Matteo Stefanelli
– Immersive marginality Comics and the cultural power of (its) invisibility, Matteo Stefanelli

– The Color of Paper, Seeing Race in the Comics Medium, Chris Gavaler
– Playing with the Invisible Novel, Movies, Comics, Daniele Barbieri
– Tracing the Invisible, Lynda Barry’s Comics, Maaheen Ahmed
– Spirituality and Comics in Hugo Pratt, Alan Moore, and David B.Esotericism as “Unsettled Knowledge”, Francesco Piraino
– Making visible the invisible Representing religious content in manga, Carolina Ivanescu
– Giving Up the Artistic Aspect The invisibility of comics made in extreme conditions of confinement: Charlotte Salomon, Karel Frans Drenthe and Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro, Erwin Dejasse
– How to Make the Invisible Visible? Some Innovative Approaches in 21st-Century Comic Art, Francesca Pietropaolo
– Lived and abandoned spaces Invisibilities in comparison, Rodolfo Dal Canto
– Dancing with the (un)seen Problematizing the viewer’s gaze through Mediterraneo’s visual aesthetics, Silvia Vari

Link to the Special Issue.