Panel Borders: Ian Rakoff and comics at the Victoria and Albert Museum

Continuing our month long look at ‘Masculinity in American comics’, Alex Fitch talks to Ian Rakoff, a volunteer lecturer in sequential art at the Victoria and Albert Museum, who is primarily responsible for the museum’s acquisition of nearly 20,000 comics in their library. In advance of Ian’s lecture on February 3rd* – ‘The Creation of the American identity through 20th Century comic strips’ – Alex and Ian talk about the latter’s lifetime interest in comics from being inspired by Captain Marvel as a child to buying rare 1930s comics as an adult off a stall in Cambridge Circus in the 1960s and issues such as the depiction of race and cultural stereotypes in comics and comic strips in the last century.

Triptych with scenes from the Apocalypse by Master Bertram, Germany circa 1380. Photo by Richard Comline, taken in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

More info at www.vam.ac.uk/activ_events
*FREE, 1.15pm, February 3rd 2010, The Sackler Centre, Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL

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