Editorial

This introduction to Studies in Comics ( STIC ) 16.1 signposts the subjects and approaches of the issue’s articles, interview, reviews and comic. It reflects on the current state of comics studies as a discipline, highlighting the field’s diversity as exemplified in this issue’s contributors and contents. It summarizes how the first two articles concern comics as a means of grappling with extreme hardship and military conflict; in one case, the graphic productions of political activist Lelia Biocca during her detention by the 1970s–80s Argentine military dictatorship, and in the other, the effects of comics on students’ understanding of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The editorial then explains how the next two articles examine the formal properties of comics from distinct perspectives: firstly, a study of undergraduate students’ experiences of closure while reading comics, and secondly, a detailed examination of GB Tran’s visual style in Vietnamerica . The final paragraphs of the editorial summarize its remaining contents: an interview with Sino Spanish comics creator Quan Zho, book reviews of two monographs and one edited collection published in 2023 and a comic on the subject of environmental psychology. This piece concludes with an expression of appreciation for the global comics studies community in a time of change and uncertainty.