Date : Thursday 8 September 2016 11:45-13:15
Room : 327
Theme : 5. Diversity and harmony among archival cultures and societies
SESSION 6.10 / P124 Proof, power – and prying. Archives, archivists and archival users as perceived in comics, manga and graphic novels
Archives and comics in Seoul 2016
Weird topic? Admittedly so, but not irrelevant.
Haven’t you ever wondered how the rest of the world looks upon us archivists? Haven’t you sometimes been amused – or irritated – by the way our profession has been portrayed in a film or a novel? And why all the dust?
I’m fascinated by this, but mostly by the way authors of comics, manga and graphic novels perceive and describe us. While a lot of comics have no reference to archival subjects, others are full of them. Sometimes the story comes to a turnaround when an important document is found. Or lost, or destroyed. Graphic novels give ample opportunities to study acts of documenting evidence, writing a diary or a letter, or sifting through piles of documents. Even breaking in or using other illegal methods to obtain or destroy a file are not uncommon. The surroundings may be realistic, like a police station, but also highly fantastic, like in a fable. Several look like the archives we know. Some are quite odd and unexpected.