This anthology hosts a collection of essays examining the role of comics as portals for historical and academic content, while keeping the approach on an international market versus the American one. Few resources currently exist showing the cross-disciplinary aspects of comics. Some of the chapters examine the use of Wonder Woman during World War II, the development and culture of French comics, and theories of Locke and Hobbs in regards to the state of nature and the bonds of community. More so, the continual use of comics for the retelling of classic tales and current events demonstrates that the genre has long passed the phase of for children’s eyes only. Additionally, this anthology also weaves graphic novels into the dialogue with comics.
In America, comics and comic books have often been associated with adolescent male fantasy--muscle-bound superheroes and scantily clad women. Nonetheless, comics have also been read and enjoyed by girls. While there have been many strong representations of women throughout their history, the comics of today have evolved and matured, becoming a potent medium in which to explore the female experience, particularly that of girlhood and adolescence. In Girls and Their Comics: Finding a Female Voice in Comic Book Narrative, Jacqueline Danziger-Russell contends that comics have a unique place in the representation of female characters. She discusses the overall history of the comic book, paying special attention to girls' comics, showing how such works relate to a female point of view. While examining the concept of visual literacy, Danziger-Russell asserts that comics are an excellent space in which the marginalized voices of girls may be expressed. This volume also includes a chapter on manga (Japanese comics), which explains the genesis of girls' comics in Japan and their popularity with girls in the United States. Including interviews with librarians, comic creators, and girls who read comics and manga, Girls and Their Comics is an important examination of the growing interest in comic books among young females and will appeal to a wide audience, including literary theorists, teachers, librarians, popular culture and women's studies scholars, and comic book historians.
This first full-length scholarly study of comic books as a narrative form attempts to explain why comic books, traditionally considered to be juvenile trash literature, have in the 1980s been used by serious artists to tell realistic stories for adults
These 15 essays investigate comic books and graphic novels, beginning with the early development of these media. The essays also place the work in a cultural context, addressing theory and terminology, adaptations of comic books, the superhero genre, and comic books and graphic novels that deal with history and nonfiction. By addressing the topic from a wide range of perspectives, the book offers readers a nuanced and comprehensive picture of current scholarship in the subject area.
Turn back the clock with History Comics! In this volume, learn about two brave women who stood up against segregation, setting in motion the Montgomery Bus Boycott! A Black woman who refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus sparked a bus boycott and became part of one of the most iconic moments in American history. Yet, few know that Rosa Parks had actively worked toward social justice her whole life. And even fewer know that the seeds of the statewide bus boycott were first planted by a teenager named Claudette Colvin, who was arrested on similar charges months earlier. Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin inspired a nation, showing how positive change can start with a single defiant act. Their actions have become the stuff of legend, but there is so much more to their lives, their stories, and the movement they began.
The sweeping story of cartoons, comic strips, and graphic novels and their hold on the American imagination. Comics have conquered America. From our multiplexes, where Marvel and DC movies reign supreme, to our television screens, where comics-based shows like The Walking Dead have become among the most popular in cable history, to convention halls, best-seller lists, Pulitzer Prize–winning titles, and MacArthur Fellowship recipients, comics shape American culture, in ways high and low, superficial, and deeply profound. In American Comics, Columbia professor Jeremy Dauber takes readers through their incredible but little-known history, starting with the Civil War and cartoonist Thomas Nast, creator of the lasting and iconic images of Uncle Sam and Santa Claus; the golden age of newspaper comic strips and the first great superhero boom; the moral panic of the Eisenhower era, the Marvel Comics revolution, and the underground comix movement of the 1960s and ’70s; and finally into the twenty-first century, taking in the grim and gritty Dark Knights and Watchmen alongside the brilliant rise of the graphic novel by acclaimed practitioners like Art Spiegelman and Alison Bechdel. Dauber’s story shows not only how comics have changed over the decades but how American politics and culture have changed them. Throughout, he describes the origins of beloved comics, champions neglected masterpieces, and argues that we can understand how America sees itself through whose stories comics tell. Striking and revelatory, American Comics is a rich chronicle of the last 150 years of American history through the lens of its comic strips, political cartoons, superheroes, graphic novels, and more. FEATURING… • American Splendor • Archie • The Avengers • Kyle Baker • Batman • C. C. Beck • Black Panther • Captain America • Roz Chast • Walt Disney • Will Eisner • Neil Gaiman • Bill Gaines • Bill Griffith • Harley Quinn • Jack Kirby • Denis Kitchen • Krazy Kat • Harvey Kurtzman • Stan Lee • Little Orphan Annie • Maus • Frank Miller • Alan Moore • Mutt and Jeff • Gary Panter • Peanuts • Dav Pilkey • Gail Simone • Spider-Man • Superman • Dick Tracy • Wonder Wart-Hog • Wonder Woman • The Yellow Kid • Zap Comix … AND MANY MORE OF YOUR FAVORITES!
“A fascinating read for anyone with an interest in the graphic novel, its origins, and its continuing evolution as a literary art form.” —Midwest Book Review When Art Spiegelman’s Maus won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992, it marked a new era for comics. Comics are now taken seriously by the same academic and cultural institutions that long dismissed the form. And the visibility of comics continues to increase, with alternative cartoonists now published by major presses and more comics-based films arriving on the screen each year. Projections argues that the seemingly sudden visibility of comics is no accident. Beginning with the parallel development of narrative comics at the turn of the 20th century, comics have long been a form that invites—indeed requires—readers to help shape the stories being told. Today, with the rise of interactive media, the creative techniques and the reading practices comics have been experimenting with for a century are now in universal demand. Recounting the history of comics from the nineteenth-century rise of sequential comics to the newspaper strip, through comic books and underground comix, to the graphic novel and webcomics, Gardner shows why they offer the best models for rethinking storytelling in the twenty-first century. In the process, he reminds us of some beloved characters from our past and present, including Happy Hooligan, Krazy Kat, Crypt Keeper, and Mr. Natural. “Provocative . . . examine[s] the progress of the form from a variety of surprising angles.” —Jonathan Barnes, Times Literary Supplement “A landmark study.” —Charles Hatfield, California State University, Northridge, author of Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature “A succinct and savvy cultural history of American comics.” —Hillary Chute, University of Chicago
NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD WINNER • Visually and emotionally rich, MetaMaus is as groundbreaking as the masterpiece whose creation it reveals. In the pages of MetaMaus, Art Spiegelman re-enters the Pulitzer prize–winning Maus, the modern classic that has altered how we see literature, comics, and the Holocaust ever since it was first published twenty-five years ago. He probes the questions that Maus most often evokes—Why the Holocaust? Why mice? Why comics?—and gives us a new and essential work about the creative process. Compelling and intimate, MetaMaus is poised to become a classic in its own right.
Classics and Comics is the first book to explore the engagement of classics with the epitome of modern popular literature, the comic book. This volume collects fifteen articles, all specially commissioned for this volume, that look at how classical content is deployed in comics and reconfigured for a modern audience.
