Available Now! JAF Special Issue on Folklore, Comics, and Graphic Storytelling

The JAF editorial team is pleased to announce the release of the 2025 Fall issue of JAF: A Global Quarterly (v. 138, no. 550), a special issue on “Folklore, Comics, and Graphic Storytelling.” Curated by guest editors Erin Kathleen Bahl and Andy Kolovos, this issue is groundbreaking in its combination of scholarly essays, creative non-fiction, pedagogical strategies, and public-facing pieces. 

The contributors, who include scholars, educators, students, activists, and archivist, offer an inspiring mix of text and images that underscore the value and potential of graphic storytelling in folklore and allied fields for academic and non-academic audiences.

The issue has been mailed to subscribers and is available online. 

Special Issue: Folklore, Comics, and Graphic Storytelling

Special Issue Editors: Erin Kathleen Bahl and Andy Kolovos 

Folklore, Comics, and Graphic Storytelling: Introduction, by Erin Kathleen Bahl and Andy Kolovos

Part 1: Folklore in Comics

Finding the Lost Light: The Performance of Myth in Transformers Comic Books, by Daniel Peretti

They Who Build Monstresses: Tracing Folkloric and Literary Monster Motifs in E.M. Carroll’s When I Arrived at the Castle, by Ayanni C.H. Cooper

What to Wear When Saving Ukraine: Folkloric References and National Symbolism in Ukrainian Superhero Comics, by Jennifer A. Dickinson

PART II: Comics as Tools for Research and Representation

No, You Can’t Just Draw Cats: Drawing and Thinking about Gender Diverse Human Bodies in Comics-Based Research, by Sally Pirie

“How Did We Meet?’: Experiments with Ethnographic Comics in Nepal, by Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway and Promina Shrestha

PART III: Cartooning as Vernacular Practice

Perplexities of Settler Colonial Folklore: Stripping for the Holidays, by Bernard C. Perley

Balancing Creativity and Coping: How Comic Art Reveals Challenges for the Survivor-Folklorist, by Nic Hartmann

Fairy Tales, #FolktaleWeek, and Vernacular Narrative Sequential Art Online, by Erin Kathleen Bahl

PART IV: Perspectives: Comics and Folklore in the Community and Classroom

Continuing The Most Costly Journey: Two Case Studies, by Andy Kolovos

rending and mending heARTs: Joy, Aesthetic Expression, Creative Pedagogy, and Collaborative Representation, by Sandra Mizumoto Posey and Cricket Malament

Changing the Narrative: Stories of Student Homelessness and Housing Instability, by Kacy McKinney

Obituary

Bernard L. Herman (1951-2024), by Katy Clune

Book Reviews

Haunting and Hilarious Fairy Tales (Bradt and Zipes), by Shaun Baker

Afro-Atlantic Catholics: America’s First Black Christians (Dewulf), by Jorge M. Banuelos, Jr.

Getting Something to Eat in Jackson: Race, Class, and Food in the American South (Ewoodzie Jr.), by Dominique HazzardDancing with Life: Recontextualizing Mexican Masks (Shlossberg, et al.), by Hans Roskamp