1. New Social and Cultural Histories of the First World War Home Front
Social History Society, 40th annual conference , March 2016

2. Comics, Cartoons and Cultural Record
Some new stories
New sorts of evidence
New ways of working
Reflecting new and varied voices
New aspects emerge through differing representations of experiences
STORIES, VOICES, EVIDENCE, METHODS. REPRESENTATIONS

3. Cultural Record Argument:
contemporary comics should be included in the palette of primary sources for the study of the past.
Influences: Carr, Collingwood and Derrida
Draws on New Cultural History democratisation in 2 ways:
Extension of sources
Comics themselves are a ‘democratic’ art form – both as popular culture and in their use by social movements

4. Categories of cultural record for close reading
Subjectivity – subject location
Verisimilitude – metaphorical aptness
Dynamic Record
Mentalité

5. Ryan Walker 1915
Subjectivity

6. Subject location
Chronicles of the N.Z.E.F. CUL: WRB 1–2, reel 3

7. Listening Post, April 1918, vol. 30, p. 19.
Verisimilitude

8. Big and Little Willie – Whitby 19 December 1914 Daily Mirror
Metaphorical aptness

9. Dynamic record 1

10. Dynamic record 2

11. Mentalite
Mentalité

12. Humour
Humour as a diversion from violence and death in troop publications
Slapstick
Disparagement/superiority
Relief theory
Incongruity humour
Collective humour
Educational humour

13. IMAGE 5
Disparagement

14. Project findings
This interdisciplinary, trans-national study recuperates currently unknown or neglected strips and demonstrates how these can be used for the study of both world wars, including Home Fronts, US, UK, Australian and Canadian studies, women’s history, and labour history.
It reveals how sequential illustrated narratives act as a cultural record by:
Offering a barometer for contemporary popular thinking.
 Using humour as a coping mechanism, and a way to criticise authority.
 Promoting certain forms of behaviour and discouraged others.
 Representing a deliberately inclusive educational strategy for reading wartime content and often a collective one.

15. POW’s , Agriculture and Cartoons:
EVERYDAY LIVES IN WAR
POW’s , Agriculture and Cartoons:
Though negligible until 1917, the number of prisoners of war working in agriculture was almost double the size of the Women’s Land Army by the end of the war. This aspect of everyday agricultural life in south Lincolnshire breaks new ground by seeking to account for the role of POWs through the eyes of the enemy as recorded in the paintings and cartoons of a German prisoner working in south Lincolnshire.

18. Comics and the World Wars - further publications
Chapman, (2015) The Aussie, : cartoons, digger remembrance and First World War identity. Journalism Studies
Chapman and Ellin (2015)  ‘Dominion cartoon satire as trench culture narratives: Complaints, endurance and stoicism’ in: The British Empire and The First World War, ed. A. Jackson, Routledge, London
Chapman and Ellin (2014) Dominion cartoon satire as trench culture narratives: Complaints, endurance and stoicism. The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, 103(2)
Chapman (2014)  ‘Representations of female war-time bravery in Australia’s Wanda the War Girl and Jane at War from the UK’ in: Fashion and War in Popular Culture, ed. D.N. Rall, Intellect Books, Bristol
Chapman & Ellin (2012) Multi-panel comic narratives in Australian First World War trench publications as citizen journalism, Australian Journal of Communication, Vol 39 (3), pp.1- 22
Chapman (2011) Comics and the representation of female war-time bravery in Wanda the War Girl (Australia)’Australasian Journal of Popular Culture , vol. 1, no.2, pp

19. Comics and the World Wars: A Cultural Record
An AHRC funded project with a five person team.
This trans-national study recuperates currently unknown or neglected strips and demonstrates how these can be used for the interdisciplinary study of the world wars.
Project page:
AHRC film:
TEDx talk: