Michel De Dobbeleer (PhD East European Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, 2012) is a Slavist, Classicist and Italianist, who as a literary scholar has published, a.o., about medieval Russian and other European siege narratives, Bakhtinian chronotopes, the reception and translation of Dutch literature in Eastern Europe, and the (re)presentation of East European literatures in 19th-century world (and other) literary histories.

Regarding comics he has published (and organized international seminars/panels) on comics adaptations of East European classics, (ultra)minor comics from the Balkans, siege and other comics chronotopes, ‘real’ and alternate history in comics, graphic children’s poetry, comics translation, and on spin-offs of popular comics series. Outside academia, he was part (and since 2017 chairman) of the Comics Advisory Board of the Flemish Literature Fund (2014-2018). Since 2020 he is one of the editorial board members of the Belgian comics magazine Stripgids. From January 2021 onwards, he is part of the General Assembly of the Belgian Comic Strip Center in Brussels.

Currently he focuses on The Adventures of Jommeke (De belevenissen van Jommeke), confronting its title hero, his friends and their 20th-century Flemish context with the child-related (sub)topics and concepts at stake in the Ghent-based COMICS project.