How have comics artists depicted the human-caused destruction of the natural world?
How do these works resonate with the ethical and environmental issues?
How have comics mourned the loss of nature over the last five decades?

José Alaniz’s lecture explores the representation of animals, mass extinctions and climate change in the era popularly known as the Anthropocene in (mostly) US comics, primarily since the first Earth Day in 1970.

José Alaniz, professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and the Department of Cinema and Media Studies (adjunct) at the University of Washington, Seattle, has published two monographs, Komiks: Comic Art in Russia (University Press of Mississippi 2010) and Death, Disability and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond (UPM 2014); as well as two co-edited collections, Comics of the New Europe: Reflections and Intersections (with Martha Kuhlman, Leuven University Press 2020) and Uncanny Bodies: Disability and Superhero Comics (with Scott T. Smith, Penn State University Press 2019). He formerly chaired the Executive Committee of the International Comic Arts Forum (ICAF) and was a founding board member of the Comics Studies Society. In 2020 he published his first comics collection, The Phantom Zone and Other Stories (Amatl Comix). His most recent book is Resurrection: Comics in Post-Soviet Russia (Ohio State University Press 2022).