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American Cornball is Christopher Miller’s irresistibly funny illustrated survey of popular humor–the topics that used to make us laugh, from hiccups and henpecked-husbands to outhouses and old maids–and what it tells us about our country yesterday and today. Miller revisits nearly 200 comic staples that have been passed down through our culture for generations, many…
Discover the universal tale of The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse brought to life in audio by its author and illustrator Charlie Mackesy, with a beautiful music score and the real wildlife sounds of rural England. “A surprise bestseller about kindness and vulnerability is bringing people together.” – Washington Post “What do…
This volume attends to the physicality of superheroes: it examines how ideologies of race, gender and disability are signified or destabilized in the physicality of the superhero and presents an exploration of superheroes across multiple media forms including comics, film, television, literature and the graphic novel.
Romantic-era concepts of childhood nostalgia have been understood as the desire to retrieve the ephemeral mindset of the child.
This book explores the idea of the “American monomyth” that pervades American hero stories and examines its philosophical and theological origins and specific manifestations in early American superhero comics. Surveying the anthropologies of six American theologians who argue against many of the monomyth’s assumptions, principally the staunch individualism taken to be the model of humanity,…
Finding expression in comic books, television series and successful blockbuster films, the superhero has become part of everyday life. Exploring the superhero genre, its storytelling practices, its hero-types and its relationship with fans, this anthology fills a gap in research about the comic book superhero of the last 20 years.
The African Warrior: Defying Fate is a unique and captivating African fiction book that offers a fresh take on the classic hero’s journey. The story revolves around a child who gains extraordinary powers from a forbidden tree and uses them to protect his African nation. What sets this book apart from others is its incorporation…
Clive Barker: Dark imaginer explores the diverse literary, film and visionary creations of the polymathic and influential British artist Clive Barker. In this necessary and timely collection, innovative essays by leading scholars in the fields of literature, film and popular culture explore Barker’s contribution to gothic, fantasy and horror studies, interrogating his creative legacy. The…
This collection of essays analyzes the many ways in which comic book and film superheroes have been revised or rewritten in response to changes in real-world politics, social mores, and popular culture. Among many topics covered are the jingoistic origin of Captain America in the wake of the McCarthy hearings, the post-World War II fantasy-feminist…
The 2005 James McTeigue and Wachowski Brothers film V for Vendetta represents a postmodern pastiche, a collection of fragments pasted together from the original Moore and Lloyd graphic novel of the same name, along with numerous allusions to literature, history, cinema, music, art, politics, and medicine. Paralleling the graphic novel, the film simultaneously reflects a…
Marvel Studios’ approach to its Cinematic Universe–beginning with the release of Iron Man (2008)–has become the template for successful management of blockbuster film properties. Yet films featuring Marvel characters can be traced back to the 1940s, when the Captain America serial first appeared on the screen. This collection of new essays is the first to…
This volume collects a wide-ranging sample of fresh analyses of Spider-Man. It traverses boundaries of medium, genre, epistemology and discipline in essays both insightful and passionate that move forward the study of one of the world’s most beloved characters. The editors have crafted the book for fans, creators and academics alike. Foreword by Tom DeFalco,…
From his first comic-book appearance in 1939 through his many incarnations on the big screen, the archetypal superhero known as The Batman has never been far from the American consciousness. The character shaped the way we read comics and graphic novels, view motion pictures, and analyze the motifs of the Hero, the Anti-Hero and the…
Superhero adventure comics have a long history of commenting upon American public opinion and government policy, and the surge in the popularity of comics since the events of September 11, 2001, ensures their continued relevance. This critical text examines the seventy-year history of comic book superheroes on film and in comic books and their reflections…
Superhero films are one of the most enduring genres of cinema, and their popularity is only increasing in the 21st century. These ten critical essays explore the phenomenon through the lenses of numerous academic disciplines, and cover topics such as the role of globalization in the formation of superhero narratives, the shifting nature of masculinity…
This is a complete reference work to the history of Batman big screen works, from the 1940s serials through the campy 1960s TV show and film, and up through the series of Warner Bros. summer blockbusters that climaxed with Christopher Nolan’s 2012 film The Dark Knight Rises. Chapters on each Batman feature include extensive film…
