Comics and Graphic Novels: Critical Studies

Just as comics and their related mediums have become more openly inclusive to an audience beyond heterosexual white men, there has also been an intense backlash, most famously in 2015's Gamergate controversy, when the tension between feminist bloggers, misogynistic gamers, and internet journalists came to a head. The place for gender in superhero narratives now represents a sort of battleground, with important changes in the industry at stake. These seismic shifts--both in the creation of superhero media and in their critical and reader reception--need reassessment not only of the role of women in comics but also of how American society conceives of masculinity. Gender and the Superhero Narrative launches ten essays that build a platform for important voices in comics research, engaging with controversy and community to provide deeper insight and thus hopefully inspire change.

The Encyclopedia of Black Comics, focuses on people of African descent who have published significant works in the United States or have worked across various aspects of the comics industry. The book focuses on creators in the field of comics: inkers, illustrators, artists, writers, editors, Black comic historians, Black comic convention creators, website creators, archivists and academics--as well as individuals who may not fit into any category but have made notable achievements within and/or across Black comic culture.

Winner of the 2018 Eisner Award Winner for Best Scholarly/Academic Work. The foremost expert on Latinx comics, Frederick Luis Aldama guides us through the full archive of all the Latinx superheroes in comics since the 1940s. Aldama takes us where the superheroes live--the barrios, the hospitals, the school rooms, the farm fields--and he not only shows us a view to the Latinx content, sometimes deeply embedded, but also provokes critical inquiry into the way storytelling formats distill and reconstruct real Latinos/as.

A path breaking book edited by Latina/o Studies genius Frederick Luis Aldama, featuring interviews with an assortment of talents presently redefining comics, graphic narrative, and sequential art. Includes the word and art of Lalo Alcatraz, José Cabrera, Jaime Crespo, Frank Espinosa, Eric Garcia, Jason González, John González, Raúl Gonzalez the Third, Jaime Hernandez, Javier Hernandez, Alberto Ledesma, Liz Mayorga, Rhode Montijo, Alex Olivas, Daniel Parada, Jimmy Portillo, Jules Rivera, Fernando Rodriguez, Grasiela Rodriguez, Hector Rodriguez, Octavio Rodriguez, Rafael Rosado, Carlos Saldaña, Wilfred Santiago, Serenity Sersecion, and Lila Quintero Weaver.

The first detailed analogize of Black women's participation in comic art, Black Women in Sequence examines the representation, production, and transnational circulation of women of African descent in the sequential art world. For more information visit the author's website: http://www.deborahelizabethwhaley.com/#!black-women-in-sequence/c65q

Over the last 75 years, superheroes have been portrayed most often as male, heterosexual, white, and able-bodied. Today, a time when many of these characters are billion-dollar global commodities, there are more female superheroes, more queer superheroes, more superheroes of color, and more disabled superheroes--but not many more. Superwomen investigates how and why female superhero characters have become more numerous but are still not-at-all close to parity with their male counterparts; how and why they have become a flashpoint for struggles over gender, sexuality, race, and disability; what has changed over time and why in terms of how these characters have been written, drawn, marketed, purchased, read, and reacted to; and how and why representations of superheroes matter, particularly to historically underrepresented and stereotyped groups.

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 adaptations together. Essays shed light on the many ways adaptation studies inform research on comic books and content adapted from them. Contributors concentrate on fidelity to the source materials, comparative analysis, forms of media, adaptation and myth, adaptation and intertextuality, as well as adaptation and ideology. After an introduction that assesses adaptation studies as a framework, the book examines comics adaptations of literary texts as more than just illustrations of their sources. Essayists then focus on adaptations of comics, often from a transmedia perspective. Case studies analyze both famous and lesser-known American, Belgian, French, Italian, and Spanish comics.

Nominee for the 2021 Eisner Awards Best Academic/Scholarly Work in the twenty-first century, the field of comics studies has exploded. Scholarship on graphic novels, comic books, comic strips, webcomics, manga, and all forms of comic art has grown at a dizzying pace, with new publications, institutions, and courses springing up everywhere. The field crosses disciplinary and cultural borders and brings together myriad traditions. Comics Studies: A Guidebook offers a rich but concise introduction to this multifaceted field, authored by leading experts in multiple disciplines. It opens diverse entryways to comics studies, including history, form, audiences, genre, and cultural, industrial, and economic contexts. An invaluable one-stop resource for veteran and new comics scholars alike, this guidebook represents the state of the art in contemporary comics scholarship.

Recent decades have seen comics studies blossom, but within the ecosystems of this growth, dominant assumptions have taken root - assumptions around the particular methods used to approach the comics form, the ways we should read comics, how its ""system"" works, and the disciplinary relationships that surround this evolving area of study. But other perspectives have also begun to flourish. These approaches question the reliance on structural linguistics and the tools of English and cultural studies in the examination and understanding of comics. In this edited collection, scholars from a variety of disciplines examine comics by addressing materiality and form as well as the wider economic and political contexts of comics' creation and reception. Through this lens, influenced by poststructuralist theories, contributors explore and elaborate on other possibilities for working with comics as a critical resource, consolidating the emergence of these alternative modes of engagement in a single text. This opens comics studies to a wider array of resources, perspectives, and modes of engagement. Included in this volume are essays on a range of comics and illustrations as well as considerations of such popular comics as Deadpool, Daredevil, and V for Vendetta, and analyses of comics production, medical illustrations, and original comics. Some contributions even unfold in the form of comics panels.

Munson's anthology tells the story of the over-thirty-year history of the artists, art critics, collectors, curators, journalists, and academics who championed the serious study of comics, the trends and controversies that produced institutional interest in comics, and the wax and wane and then return of comic art in museums. Audiences have enjoyed displays of comic art in museums as early as 1930. In the mid-1960s, after a period when most representational and commercial art was shunned, comic art began a gradual return to art museums as curators responded to the appropriation of comics characters and iconography by such famous pop artists as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. From the first-known exhibit to show comics in art historical context in 1942 to the evolution of manga exhibitions in Japan, this volume regards exhibitions both in the United States and internationally.

Collects some of the most important essays from INKS: Cartoon and Comic Art Studies, the first peer-reviewed scholarly journal devoted exclusively to comics studies. An invaluable resource for anyone interested in the history and study of the comics form, visual culture, or the history of journalism.

Comprised of thirteen essays and one interview by eminent and rising scholars of comics that presents a thorough exploration of comics by and about Latinos working in the United States.

The first book to explore not only the diverse range of black characters in comics, but also the multitude of ways that black artists, writers, and publishers have changed the industry.

Explores the culture, production, and history of contemporary graphic narratives that depict Asian Americans and Asians. Will be of interest to a variety of disciplines, including Asian American studies, cultural and literary studies, comics and visual studies.

Winner of the 2014 Will Eisner Award for Best Scholarly/Academic Work. Black Comics: Politics of Race and Representation is an analytic history of the diverse contributions of Black artists to the medium of comics. Covering comic books, superhero comics, graphic novels and cartoon strips from the early 20th century to the present, the book explores the ways in which Black comic artists have grappled with such themes as the Black experience, gender identity, politics and social media.

Some of the most acclaimed books of the twenty-first century are autobiographical comics by women. This theoretically sophisticated gender and genre study focuses on five of these cartoonists, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Phoebe Gloeckner, Lynda Barry, Marjane Satrapi, Alison Bechdel and how they are moving the art of autobiography and graphic storytelling in new directions, particularly through the depiction of sex, gender, and lived experience. Chute explores their verbal and visual techniques, which have transformed autobiographical narrative and contemporary comics. Through the interplay of words and images and the counterpoint of presence and absence, they express difficult, even traumatic stories while engaging with the workings of memory. Intertwining aesthetics and politics, these women both rewrite and redesign the parameters of acceptable discourse.

The first comprehensive look at comic books by and about race and ethnicity. The thirteen essays tease out for the general reader the nuances of how such multicultural comics skillfully combine visual and verbal elements to tell richly compelling stories that gravitate around issues of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality within and outside the U.S. comic book industry. Includes an extensive guide to multicultural comic book resources, such as archives, websites, and scholarly books.

Critic Douglas Wolk introduces a critical theory that explains the comics art form, and its innovative work shaping the ideas and images of the rest of contemporary culture and shows us why this is and how it came to be and where each genre and artist fits into the “pantheon of art.” Recommend for people who want to know not just what comics are worth reading, but also the ways to think and talk and argue about them.

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European Comic Art is the first English-language scholarly publication devoted to the study of European-language graphic novels, comic strips, comic books and caricature.

Image & Narrative is a peer-reviewed e-journal on visual narratology and word and image studies in the broadest sense of the term. It does not focus on a narrowly defined corpus or theoretical framework, but questions the mutual shaping of literary and visual cultures. Besides tackling theoretical issues, it is a platform for reviews of real-life examples. Each issue features three parts: 1) a thematic cluster, guest-edited by specialized scholars in the field; 2) a selection of various articles; 3) reviews of recent publications. Image [&] Narrative is a bilingual journal, which publishes contributions in either English or French, and which fosters cross-cultural and interdisciplinary dialogue between linguistic and scientific traditions.

International and multidisciplinary in scope, IJOCA aims to publish scholarly and readable research on any aspect of comic art, defined as animation, comic books, newspaper and magazine strips, caricature, single panel, gag and political cartoons, humorous art, and humor or cartoon magazines.

The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics is a peer-reviewed journal covering all aspects of the graphic novel, comic strip, and comic book, with an emphasis on comics in their cultural, institutional, and creative contexts. It is international in scope, covering not only English language comics but also worldwide comics culture. The journal reflects interdisciplinary research in comics and aims to establish a dialogue between academics, historians, theoreticians, and practitioners of comics.

Studies in Comics aim is to describe the nature of comics, to identify the medium as a distinct art form, and to address the medium’s formal properties. The emerging field of comics studies is a model for interdisciplinary research and in this spirit, this journal welcomes all approaches. This journal is international in scope and provides an inclusive space in which researchers from all backgrounds can present new thinking on comics to a global audience.

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Looks at the comics field systematically examining its history and evolution from a global perspective. This includes a discussion of how comic books are built out of shared aesthetic systems such as literature, painting, drawing, photography, and film. The Handbook brings together readable, jargon-free essays written by established and emerging scholars from diverse geographic, institutional, gender, and national backgrounds. In particular, it explores how the term "global comics" has been defined, as well as the major movements and trends that will drive the field in the years to come. Each essay will help readers understand comic books as a storytelling form grown within specific communities, and will also show how these forms exist within what can be considered a world system of comics.

This innovative collection brings together essays, book excerpts, and original content from a wide variety of scholars and writers, weaving a rich tapestry of thought regarding villains in all their manifestations, including film, literature, television, games, and, of course, comics and sequential art. While the book focuses on the latter, it moves beyond comics to show how the vital concept of the supervillain is part of our larger consciousness. The editors collect pieces that explore how the villain is a complex part of narratives regardless of the original source. The Joker, Lex Luthor, Harley Quinn, Darth Vader, and Magneto must be compelling, stimulating, and proactive, whereas the superhero (or protagonist) is most often reactive. Indeed, whether in comics, films, novels, religious tomes, or videogames, the eternal struggle between villain and hero keeps us coming back to these stories over and over again.