Alternative Comics
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In the 1980s, a sea change occurred in comics. Fueled by Art Spiegel- man and Françoise Mouly's avant-garde anthology Raw and the launch of the Love & Rockets series by Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario Hernandez, the decade saw a deluge of comics that were more autobiographical, emotionally realistic, and experimental than anything seen before. These alternative comics were not the scatological satires of the 1960s underground, nor were they brightly colored newspaper strips or superhero comic books. In Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature, Charles Hatfield establishes the parameters of alternative comics by closely examining long-form comics, in particular the graphic novel. He argues that these are fundamentally a literary form and offers an extensive critical study of them both as a literary genre and as a cultural phenomenon. Combining sharp-eyed readings and illustrations from particular texts with a larger understanding of the comics as an art form, this book discusses the development of specific genres, such as autobiography and history. Alternative Comics analyzes such seminal works as Spiegelman's Maus, Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories, and Justin Green's Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary. Hatfield explores how issues outside of cartooning-the marketplace, production demands, work schedules-can affect the final work. Using Hernandez's Palomar as an example, he shows how serialization may determine the way a cartoonist structures a narrative. In a close look at Maus, Binky Brown, and Harvey Pekar's American Splendor, Hatfield teases out the complications of creating biography and autobiography in a substantially visual medium, and shows how creators approach these issues in radically different ways. Charles Hatfield, Canyon Country, California, is an assistant professor of English at California State University, Northridge. His work has been published in ImageTexT, Inks: Cartoon and Comic Art Studies, Children's Literature Association Quarterly, the Comics Journal, and other periodicals. See the author's Web site at www.csun.edu/~ch76854/.
Arresting Development: Comics at the Boundaries of Literature
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Case studies of four major graphic works in an exploration of the challenges of the medium, including its history of censorship and marginalization
War, Politics and Superheroes: Ethics and Propaganda in Comics and Film
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From the back cover: "Critical study of superheroes on film and in comic books and their reflections of the politics of their time."
The Myth of the Superhero
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Study on DC and Marvel comics exploring the influence of religion and myth on superhero stories
Comics Art
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In this fascinating survey, acclaimed author Paul Gravett considers the vast output of comics culture from the late 19th century to today, tracing international lines of influence and examining major themes in contemporary comics.
The Art of the Funnies: An Aesthetic History
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Critical study of comics in the contexts of art and literature
Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology Are Revolutionizing an Art Form
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From the back cover: "McCloud takes comics to the next level, charting twelve different revolutions in how comics are created, read, and perceived today, and how they're poised to conquer the new millenium." Includes discussions of comic forms, creators' rights, business, public image, sexual and ethnic representation in comics, and more.
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
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Reading Comics and what they mean
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This volume contains two sections: "Theory and History," an explanation of comics as a medium and an overview of its evolution, and "Reviews and Commentary," a diverse examination of creators and works. The second section spans Will Eisner's pioneering efforts as well as the groundbreaking modern comics by the Hernandez brothers, Chris Ware and Alison Bechdel
Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative: Principles and Practices from the Legendary Cartoonist
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From the back cover: "Filled with examples from Eisner's work as well as that of artists like Art Spiegelman and R. Crumb, this essential work covers everything from the fine points of graphic storytelling to the big picture of the medium."