Gotham City, Metropolis, Mega-City One, Sin City, New York, London – what connects these made up and real metropolises? Definitely, its location in pop culture and the role they play in the most popular comic books of the 20th and 21st centuries. The next meeting within the Scientific Premiere Stage will be an opportunity to take a closer look at comic book stories through the lenses of urban space and vice versa.
Batman and Gotham City, Superman and the Metropolis, Jack the Ripper from Alan Moore’s From Hell and London, Judge Dredd and the Mega-City One, Spiderman and New York – these are the most transparent examples of the symbiosis between a person and a place where a character lives and the action takes place. The space often defines a protagonist, his/her traits and actions, they also merge with each other.
Gotham and Metropolis – heads and tails
Gotham City is Batman and his allies as well as Joker and the other adversaries of the Black Knight; it makes them the way they are. Gotham is a leviathan, a monster consuming the weak and corrupting the strong – it drives insane everyone no matter their material status. It is a concrete hell where social inequalities are portrayed so vividly that they become grotesque.
If Gotham City is a hell, then Metropolis has to be a heaven. The city is just like its most famous citizen, Superman (in plain clothes Clark Kent – a journalist of the fictional newspaper “Daily Planet”) – proud and climbing to the sky. Here, rain does not rain throughout the majority of the day, and the sun reflects off the windows of magnificent skyscrapers. Contrary to Gotham City, Metropolis is the victory of the American dream, a success of entrepreneurship and democracy. Even though its most powerful citizen is Lex Luthor, a typical oligarch and mastermind with bad intentions.
And these are barely two cities and two heroes
Comic books and art
The relationship between a city and a comic book might be a long and interesting topic for a conversation. Thus, our guest will be Matylda Sęk-Iwanek, PhD, the author of the book Pejzaże miasta w komiksie. Studia nad komiksem (City landscapes in comic books. Studies on the comic books). Our researcher associated with the Institute of Culture Studies at the Faculty of Humanities not only takes an active part in the dissemination of knowledge about comic books but is also involved in science communication, e.g. co-organises the Silesian Academy of Comics. In her book, the scientist emphasises the capacity and versatility of the medium and reminds us that comic books for a long time are beyond the category of picture stories for children. Comic books have all the necessary tools to be considered a serious branch of art. Nevertheless, Matylda Sęk-Iwanek states that a uniform scientific methodology, which could unambiguously describe this phenomenon is yet to be developed. It is high time to change it, and the activity of such science communicators as Matylda Sęk-Iwanek, PhD, is a serious step toward converting people and communities sceptical about comic book culture.
Join us on Thursday, 2 June at 5:30 p.m. during the comic book edition of the Scientific Premiere Stage. Matylda Sęk-Iwanek will be accompanied by Krzysztof Zygalski from the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, a director, screenwriter, film producer, author of documentaries, feature films, and advertising films. As a person who deals with the narration and telling a story, he will look at the comic books from the perspective of the “moving pictures” creator.
The meeting will be hosted by Ewa Niewiadomska, a journalist of the Polish Radio Katowice.
The event will be translated into the Polish sign language.
The Scientific Premiere Stage is co-organised by the Metropolis GZM.
Previous meetings are available on the University’s YouTube Channel.
