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Comics and cartoons are ingrained in American life. One critic has called comic books “crude, unimaginative, banal, vulgar, ultimately corrupting.” They have been regarded with considerable suspicion by parents, educators, psychiatrists, and moral reformers. They have been investigated by governmental committees and subjected to severe censorship. Yet more than 200 million copies are sold annually….
This well focused and perceptive analysis of a phenomenon in our popular culture–the new respectability of the comic book form–argues that the comics medium has a productive tradition of telling true stories with grace and economy. It details vividly the outburst of underground comics in the late 1960s and ’70s, whose cadre of artistically gifted…
This trailblazing survey of an art form preferred by the masses was the pioneer study of the subject. It shows the evolution and subgenres of the comics from The Yellow Kid in 1895 through the first decade of the modern comic book in the 1940s. First published in 1947 and long out of print, this…
Southwest literary humor and Yiddish humor collided in the ever-popular comic strip “Li’l Abner,” From 1936 to 1977, when it ceased publication, this comic strip entertained, annoyed, riled, and amused legions of readers. Li’l Abner, Daisy Mae, Mammy and Pappy Yokum, Moonbeam McSwine, Marryin’ Sam, and Sadie Hawkins became pillars in American popular culture, and…
The first book-length study of the acclaimed artist who brought journalistic reportage to comics Contributors: Georgiana Banita, Lan Dong, Ann D’Orazio, Kevin C. Dunn, Alexander Dunst, Jared Gardner, Edward C. Holland, Isabel Macdonald, Brigid Maher, Ben Owen, Rebecca Scherr, Maureen Shay, Marc Singer, Richard Todd Stafford, and yvind Vågnes The Comics of Joe Sacco addresses…
The early 1980s saw a revolution in mainstream comics–in subject matter, artistic integrity, and creators’ rights–as new methods of publishing and distribution broadened the possibilities. Among those artists utilizing these new methods, Chester Brown (b. 1960) quickly developed a cult following due to the undeniable quality and originality of his Yummy Fur (1983-1994). Chester Brown:…
This book is the follow-up to Thierry Groensteen’s ground-breaking The System of Comics, in which the leading French-language comics theorist set out to investigate how the medium functions, introducing the principle of iconic solidarity, and showing the systems that underlie the articulation between panels at three levels: page layout, linear sequence, and nonsequential links woven…
A new theoretical framework that critiques many of the assumptions of comics studies It has become an axiom in comic studies that “comics is a language, not a genre.” But what exactly does that mean, and how is discourse on the form both aided and hindered by thinking of it in linguistic terms? In Comics…
Essays that query the roles of trust, truth, and family memoirs in autobiographical comics Essays by Jan Baetens, David M. Ball, Lopamudra Basu, Christopher Bush, Isaac Cates, Michael A. Chaney, Alisia Chase, Sharon O’Brien, Davida Pines, Yaël Schlick, Rachel Trousdale, and Benjamin Widiss Autobiography has seen enormous expansions and challenges over the past decades. One…
Michael Allred stands out for his blend of spiritual and philosophical approaches with an art style reminiscent of 1960s era superhero comics, which creates a mixture of both post-modernism and nostalgia. His childhood came during an era where pop art and camp embraced elements of kitsch and pastiche and introduced them into the lexicon of…
Contributions by Jan Baetens, Alain Boillat, Philippe Bourdier, Laura Caraballo, Thomas Faye, Pierre Floquet, Jean-Paul Gabilliet, Christophe Gelly, Nicolas Labarre, Benoît Mitaine, David Roche, Isabelle Schmitt-Pitiot, Dick Tomasovic, and Shannon Wells-Lassagne Both comics studies and adaptation studies have grown separately over the past twenty years. Yet there are few in-depth studies of comic books and…
The Thing. Daredevil. Captain Marvel. The Human Fly. Drawing on DC and Marvel comics from the 1950s to the 1990s and marshaling insights from three burgeoning fields of inquiry in the humanities–disability studies, death and dying studies, and comics studies–José Alaniz seeks to redefine the contemporary understanding of the superhero. Beginning in the Silver Age,…
The marvelous recovery of neglected black artists and their awesome body of comics creativity Syndicated cartoonist and illustrator Tim Jackson offers an unprecedented look at the rich yet largely untold story of African American cartoon artists. This book provides a historical record of the men and women who created seventy-plus comic strips, many editorial cartoons,…
Ed Brubaker (b. 1966) has emerged as one of the most popular, significant figures in art comics since the 1990s. Most famous as the man who killed Captain America in 2007, Brubaker’s work on company-owned properties such as Batman and Captain America and creator-owned series like Criminal and Fatale live up to the usual expectations…
Never before have comics seemed so popular or diversified, proliferating across a broad spectrum of genres, experimenting with a variety of techniques, and gaining recognition as a legitimate, rich form of art. Maaheen Ahmed examines this trend by taking up philosopher Umberto Eco’s notion of the open work of art, whereby the reader–or listener or…
From nineteenth-century American art and literature to comic books of the twentieth century and afterwards, Chad A. Barbour examines in From Daniel Boone to Captain America the transmission of the ideals and myths of the frontier and playing Indian in American culture. In the nineteenth century, American art and literature developed images of the Indian…
