With each new technological advance, pornography has proliferated and degraded in quality. Today, porn is everywhere, but where is it art? 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom surveys the history of pornography and argues that the success and vibrancy of a society relates to its permissiveness in sexual matters. This history of erotic art showcases the evolution of pornography over diverse cultures from prehistoric to modern times. Beginning with the Venus of Willendorf, created between 24,000-22,000 bce, it also contains a timeline covering major erotic works in several cultures. 25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom ably captures the ancient and insuppressible creative drive of the sexual spirit, making this book a treatise on erotic art.
Alan Moore, the idiosyncratic, controversial and often shocking writer of such works as Watchmen, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and V for Vendetta, remains a benchmark for readers of comics and graphic novels. This collection investigates the political, social, cultural, and sexual ideologies that emerge from his seminal work, Lost Girls, and demonstrates how these ideologies relate to his larger body of work. Framed by Moore's insistence upon deconstructing the myth of the superhero, each essay attends to the form and content of Moore's comics under the rubric of his pervasive metaphor of the "politics of sexuality/the sexing of politics."
Peter Pan was born over a century ago. There is something doubly contradictory in this phrase that, although true, is also the reason why this book has been released. We are talking about the boy who will never grow up and the fact that he is celebrating his hundredth birthday should provoke some surprise. At the same time, he is such a powerful icon that it is also true that he seems to have been there, floating in our culture, reappearing in its images, since time immemorial – much farther back than the early twentieth century. This book shows that, although he considered dying to be an awfully big adventure, Peter Pan is, on his one hundredth birthday, more alive than ever. And our prediction is that he will accompany our culture as long as it survives. Like all great myths, Peter will continue bursting through the window of our texts, leading us to other worlds so that when we least expect it, we will hear his cry emanate from a dark ocean. This book, in a sincere tribute, intends to be both a compilation and a precedent – by inspiring a deeper look into its image, we hope to influence the life of this character so dear and yet so mysterious and seductive. Peter Pan ha cumplido un siglo de vida. Hay algo doblemente contradictorio en esta frase que, por lo demás, es cierta y es el motivo por el cual este libro ha visto la luz. Estamos hablando del niño que nunca crece y el hecho de que celebre su cumpleaños número cien puede provocarnos cierta extrañeza. Por otro lado, se trata de un icono tan poderoso que también es verdad que parece haber estado ahí, flotando en nuestra cultura, resurgiendo en sus imágenes, desde tiempos inmemoriales mucho más lejanos que los albores del siglo XX. Este libro muestra que, a pesar de que considere que morir podría resultar una aventura extraordinaria, Peter Pan está a sus cien años más vivo que nunca. Y el panorama pinta, en efecto, para una vida que acompañe a nuestra cultura mientras ésta sobreviva. Igual que sucede con todos los grandes mitos, Peter seguirá irrumpiendo a través de la ventana de nuestros textos, guiándonos a otros mundos de tal manera que, cuando menos lo esperemos, escucharemos su grito emanar de un océano oscuro. Este libro, en un sincero homenaje, pretende ser compilación y precedente y, mediante la provocación, mediante la motivación de la profundización en su figura, incidir en la trayectoria de la vida de este personaje tan entrañable y a la vez tan misterioso y seductor.
Focusing especially on American comic books and graphic novels from the 1930s to the present, this massive four-volume work provides a colorful yet authoritative source on the entire history of the comics medium. Comics and graphic novels have recently become big business, serving as the inspiration for blockbuster Hollywood movies such as the Iron Man series of films and the hit television drama The Walking Dead. But comics have been popular throughout the 20th century despite the significant effects of the restrictions of the Comics Code in place from the 1950s through 1970s, which prohibited the depiction of zombies and use of the word "horror," among many other rules. Comics through Time: A History of Icons, Idols, and Ideas provides students and general readers a one-stop resource for researching topics, genres, works, and artists of comic books, comic strips, and graphic novels. The comprehensive and broad coverage of this set is organized chronologically by volume. Volume 1 covers 1960 and earlier; Volume 2 covers 1960–1980; Volume 3 covers 1980–1995; and Volume 4 covers 1995 to the present. The chronological divisions give readers a sense of the evolution of comics within the larger contexts of American culture and history. The alphabetically arranged entries in each volume address topics such as comics publishing, characters, imprints, genres, themes, titles, artists, writers, and more. While special attention is paid to American comics, the entries also include coverage of British, Japanese, and European comics that have influenced illustrated storytelling of the United States or are of special interest to American readers.
A complete guide to the comics work of the writer Alan Moore, this book helps readers explore one of the genre's most important, compelling and subversive writers. In an accessible and easy-to-navigate format, the book covers: · Moore's comics career – from his early work in 2000AD to his breakthrough graphic novels and his later battles with the industry · Moore's major works – including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Saga of the Swamp Thing and Promethea · Key themes and contexts – from Moore's subversion of the superhero genre and metafictional techniques to his creative collaborations and battles with the industry for creator control · Critical approaches to Moore's work The book includes a bibliography of critical work on Moore and discussion questions for classroom use.
British comics writer Alan Moore (b. 1953) has a reputation for equal parts brilliance and eccentricity. Living hermit-like in the same Midlands town for his entire life, he supposedly refuses contact with the outside world while creating his strange, dense comics, fiction, and performance art. While Moore did declare himself a wizard on his fortieth birthday and claims to have communed with extradimensional beings, reticence and seclusion have never been among his eccentricities. On the contrary, for long stretches of his career Moore seemed to be willing to chat with all comers: fanzines, industry magazines, other artists, newspapers, magazines, and personal websites. Well over one hundred interviews in the past thirty years serve as testimony to Moore's willingness to be engaged in productive conversation. Alan Moore: Conversations includes ten substantial interviews, beginning with Moore's first published conversation, conducted by V for Vendetta cocreator David Lloyd in 1981. The remainder cover nearly all of his major works, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing, Marvelman, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Promethea, From Hell, Lost Girls, and the unfinished Big Numbers. While Moore's personal life and fraught business relations are discussed occasionally, the interviews chosen are principally devoted to Moore's creative practices and techniques, along with his shifting social, political, and philosophical beliefs. As such, Alan Moore: Conversations should add to any reader's enjoyment and understanding of Moore's work.
Blake said of his works, 'Tho' I call them Mine I know they are not Mine'. So who owns Blake? Blake has always been more than words on a page. This volume takes Blake 2.0 as an interactive concept, examining digital dissemination of his works and reinvention by artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers across a variety of twentieth-century media.
Attempts to define what comics are and explain how they work have not always been successful because they are premised upon the idea that comic strips, comic books and graphic novels are inherently and almost exclusively visual. This book challenges that premise, and asserts that comics is not just a visual medium. The book outlines the multisensory aspects of comics: the visual, audible, tactile, olfactory and gustatory elements of the medium. It rejects a synaesthetic approach (by which all the senses are engaged through visual stimuli) and instead argues for a truly multisensory model by which the direct stimulation of the reader’s physical senses can be understood. A wide range of examples demonstrates how multisensory communication systems work in both commercial and more experimental contexts. The book concludes with a case study that looks at the works of Alan Moore and indicates areas of interest that multisensory analysis can draw out, but which are overlooked by more conventional approaches.
Contributions by Eric Bain-Selbo, Jeremy Barris, Maria Botero, Manuel “Mandel” Cabrera Jr., David J. Leichter, Ian MacRae, Jeff McLaughlin, Alfonso Muñoz-Corcuera, Corry Shores, and Jarkko Tuusvuori In a follow-up to Comics as Philosophy, international contributors address two questions: Which philosophical insights, concepts, and tools can shed light on the graphic novel? And how can the graphic novel cast light on the concerns of philosophy? Each contributor ponders a well-known graphic novel to illuminate ways in which philosophy can untangle particular combinations of image and written word for deeper understanding. Jeff McLaughlin collects a range of essays to examine notable graphic novels within the framework posited by these two questions. One essay discusses how a philosopher discovered that the panels in Jeff Lemire’s Essex County do not just replicate a philosophical argument, but they actually give evidence to an argument that could not have existed otherwise. Another essay reveals how Chris Ware’s manipulation of the medium demonstrates an important sense of time and experience. Still another describes why Maus tends to be more profound than later works that address the Holocaust because of, not in spite of, the fact that the characters are cartoon animals rather than human. Other works contemplated include Will Eisner’s A Contract with God, Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s V for Vendetta, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, and Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza. Mainly, each essay, contributor, graphic novelist, and artist is doing the same thing: trying to tell us how the world is—at least from their point of view.
