Comics and/as Advertising
Comics are created for various reasons and with different goals, including promotion. Advertising comics were a highly significant phenomenon of the 20th century, promoting everything from slimming teas and sweets to batteries, steel beams, yogurts, and toothpaste. They often took the form of fully developed comic stories. This lecture, based on the new book Comics and/as Advertising, presents some of the most interesting examples of this intersection.
About Martin
Martin Foret was a comics journalist, and now he dedicates himself to comics as a theorist and historian, also lecturing about it at universities. He is the co-author of publications V panelech a bublinách. Kapitoly z teórie komiksu, Před komiksem: Formování domácího obrázkového seriálu ve 2. polovině XIX. století, and Dějiny československého komiksu 20. století.
You had the opportunity to see Martina Foreta at two lectures. At the first Panel, he introduced you to Slovak comics over the course of 100 years, and at BRaK x Panel 2025, he talked about the current Slovak comic novel.
Lecture – Panel year 2022
Ten Years of Slovak Comics
Slovak comics are currently gaining new momentum and are in a new, specific phase, which encourages us to look back at what they were in the past – and what kind of history they actually have. The lecture approached the history of Slovak comics from the perspective of the present and highlighted some of its most interesting moments, works that were or are something exceptional.
Lecture – BRaK x Panel 2025
Slovak comic novel with Martin Foret
Over the past ten years, Slovak comics have undergone a fundamental change in form. Instead of existing solely in periodicals, as was common in the last century, they have—aligned with global trends—migrated to bookstore shelves and the format of a book. It could be said that they have matured both formally and in terms of content. The lecture will focus on the phenomenon of the contemporary Slovak comic novel (graphic novel), introduce its most interesting representatives, and attempt to identify the unique features of individual works.