Are you ready for one more symposium? This one is open to the public and free with museum admission. It’s at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and covers even more aspects of the comic book’s influence on culture. Among those appearing: Alex Ross, Paul Levitz and Adi Granov. All programs are in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. More info here.

Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy

This all-day event of lectures and panel discussions brings together leading international scholars, critics, and designers to discuss the world of costumes and comics. Themes include the appropriation of the uniform, the adaptation of superhero costumes for the screen, the creation of modern mythologies, and the role of the superhero as metaphor in contemporary society.

LECTURES

10:00 am E Pluribus Unitard: Notes toward a Theory of Superhero Costuming. Peter Coogan, director, The Institute for Comics Studies

10:30 am Writers Panel: Danny Fingeroth, author, Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero; Richard Reynolds, author, Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology; and Paul Levitz, president and publisher, DC Comics

11:45 am The Boys in the Hoods: The Costumed Vigilante as Urban Dandy. Scott Bukatman, associate professor, Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University

2:00 am Costume Designers Panel: Geoff Klock, assistant professor, Borough of Manhattan Community College; Adi Granov and Phil Saunders, illustrators and concept designers, Iron Man; and Gordon Smith, costume designer, X-Men films.

3:00 am Artists Panel: Alex Ross, comics artist; John Cassaday, comics artitst; Stanford Carpenter, assistant professor, Visual and Critical Studies, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

4:00 am The Gods of Greece, Rome, and Egypt Still Exist—Only Today They Wear Spandex and Capes! Michael Uslan, executive producer, The Dark Knight