Manga: Reference, guides and reviews

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Book SynopsisAndrew J. Kunka is Professor of English at University of South Carolina Sumter, USA. He is co-editor of May Sinclair: Moving Towards the Modern (2006).Trade ReviewBloomsbury has launched a Comics Studies Series that has kicked off with Andrew Kunka's Autobiographical Comics ... It's an excellent resource, combining a brief history of this sub-genre with critical questions, key texts and a glossary. Kunka shows us that you can learn a lot about comics by how cartoonists organize their lives on the page. * Times Literary Supplement *Kunka offers a useful overview of the subject, with an inclusive approach that includes everything from "proto-autobiographical comics" (such as Winsor McCay's inclusion of a cartoonist character in his early strips) to the latest web comics, and scrupulously cites his sources, making it easy to locate relevant literature on any of the topics he discusses … [The book] offer[s] insightful and specific analysis that can be comprehended without requiring total immersion in the latest and trendiest academic jargon. * PopMatters *Autobiographical Comics is a well-informed, highly readable, and perceptive overview that will be extremely useful for students and teachers looking for introductory material and bibliographic references for further study … Kunka balances depth and brevity with skill … The endnotes, glossary, and extensive bibliography highlight the author’s deep knowledge of the field and are indispensable tools for further scholarship. As a studying and teaching tool, Autobiographical Comics is a superb introduction to the field that achieves accessibility without diminishing scholarly rigor … Autobiographical Comics is the best study guide available, and Kunka’s generosity of scholarship and tone provides a robust platform for teaching and researching graphic life narratives. * Biography *As an introduction to a genre, a reference guide, and a critical study, Andrew J. Kunka’s Autobiographical Comics represents a necessary foray into the particulars of autobiographical graphic narratives. His book contributes to the Bloomsbury Comics Studies series, upholding its commitment to expansive and accessible introductions to comics and Comics Studies. Kunka deftly juggles concepts new and familiar to Comics Studies, as his thorough survey of this genre takes up questions of reliability, authenticity, and objectivity … A tremendous resource for anyone crafting a syllabus and hoping to include popular or lesser known works. Kunka’s introduction guides and helps us interrogate the genre of autobiographical comics. His careful survey and his attention to texts and critical questions both popular and lesser known make this book a clear and compelling resource for readers of comics who might wonder about the narrative, stylistic, or thematic questions behind comics that represent, in so many different ways, autobiographical experiences. * Studies in Twentieth & Twenty-First Century Literature *Table of ContentsList of Figures Acknowledgements 1. Introduction: What Are Autobiographical Comics? 2. The History of Autobiographical Comics 3. Critical Questions 4. Social and Cultural Impact Trauma Adolescence The Quotidian and the Confessional Gender and Sexuality Race and Ethnicity Graphic Medicine Censorship and Controversy Self-Publishing and Web Comics 5. Key Texts Justin Green, Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary Robert Crumb and Aline Kominsky-Crumb Harvey Pekar, et al, American Splendor Keiji Nakazawa, Barefoot Gen: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima Art Spiegelman, Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers Phoebe Gloeckner, A Child’s Life and The Diary of a Teenage Girl Joe Matt, Chester Brown, and Seth Lynda Barry, One Hundred Demons Craig Thompson, Blankets Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis Alison Bechdel, Fun Home 6. Appendix Appendix 1: Autobiographical Comics Panel Appendix 2: Interview with Jennifer Hayden Appendix 3: David Chelsea Appendix 4: Ryan Claytor 7. Glossary 8. Resources Primary Texts Critical Bibliography 9. Index

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Book SynopsisSuperheroes! is the ultimate reference book about the men and women in tights who fight for what's right and the comic book phenomenon that conquered the world. From their origins in stories created by barely grown men during an era of global war and printed on cheap paper for consumption by children, superheroes have grown into a popular culture whirlwind that has attracted millions of fans and crossed over into every form of media.Encompassing early coming books, indie outliers, and the mammoth fictional universes managed by DC and Marvel, Superheroes! chronicles the rise of a distinctly American invention, the modern-day evolution of the myths and legends of old. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Captain America, X-Men, the Justice League and the Avengersthey all represent our greatest hopes, and sometimes our darkest fantasies. Pop culture expert Brian Solomon tells a story that goes from the Golden, Silver and Bronze Ages of comic bo

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Book SynopsisWe think we know Betty and Veronica from Archie comics, but we don’t. Far more than just Archie’s girlfriends, this book shows how the girls adapted to be compelling, relevant characters for each new generation over the past eighty years. Betty, Veronica, and the rest of the Riverdale gang appear to be frozen in time in Archie comics. They are perpetual high schoolers, recycling the same basic plotlines over and over in their wholesome, small-town American world. However, there is much more to Betty and Veronica than the broad archetypes and clichéd storytelling suggests. In Betty and Veronica: The Leading Ladies of Riverdale, Tim Hanley explores the complexity behind these two iconic characters. We know Betty and Veronica as Archie's girlfriends, but that's just the beginning—they are their own women with evolving motivations and aims. From fighting over Archie to tackling women’s lib to chasing down serial killers on Riverdale, their friendship has endured and grown through decades of shifting characterizations and social change. Exploring their past offers unique insights into the ways life has progressed for young women over the past eighty years, and shows us the hidden strengths and secret depths of these pop culture icons. Featuring full-color comic book cover art that spans nearly eight decades of publishing—along with behind-the-scenes accounts of creative decisions, historical insights, and examinations of their different incarnations—this book provides a vibrant exploration of Betty and Veronica’s many adventures along their long, intriguing journey in popular culture.

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Book SynopsisA landmark critical compilation introducing new readers to the artist's award-winning comics.

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Book SynopsisOffers the first book-length critical evaluation of Howard Chaykin's work and confronts the blind spots in comics scholarship that consign this seminal artist to the margins. Brannon Costello argues that Chaykin's contributions are often overlooked because his comics eschew any pretensions to serious literature.

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Book SynopsisSerial Selves considers how female, queer, disabled, and minority artists use autobiographical comics to make their experiences not only legible, but visible as well. Fusing methods from literary and visual studies, it explores how these artists on the margins challenge both the narrative conventions of autobiography and the norms of pictorial self-representation.Trade Review"In this engrossing and tremendously insightful book, Køhlert deftly analyzes comics as a visual form with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel, paying close attention to the myriad ways comics authors use the formal elements unique to comics to express meaning and embody their intentions. By discussing these five authors in concert, Køhlert not only sheds new light on their individual works, but he also points to the potential for the medium to serve as a powerful vehicle to represent issues around the body. This is an invaluable text for anyone teaching comics." -- Nick Sousanis * author of Unflattening *"Serial Selves leaps past the existing scholarship on autobiographical comics, bringing a fuller sense of context and more diverse corpus. Persistently, and brilliantly, Køhlert reminds us that the choice between formal rigor and social engagement is a false one, and that comics studies at its best achieves both. Synthesizing a tremendous range of research—from autobiography theory, trauma theory, gender studies, disability studies, and other fields—he approaches neglected or misunderstood works, asks tough questions, and, in every case, uses close formal analysis to unpack issues of subjectivity and identity formation. A watershed work." -- Charles Hatfield * author of Hand of Fire: The Comics Art of Jack Kirby *"Acutely attuned to the formal properties of autobiographical comics, Frederik Byrn Køhlert argues that the drawn 'I' produces new knowledge about trauma, bodies, temporality, power, and resistance. Serial Selves persuasively demonstrates the complexity of autobiographical comics and their undeniable importance as a cultural and autobiographical form." -- Leigh Gilmore * author of Tainted Witness: Why We Doubt What Women Say About Their Lives *"This book offers a rich and varied set of positions through which this new revolution can be understood and celebrated, and should be of value and interest to readers approaching it from disparate positions." * The European Journal of Life Writing *"A lovely, insightful, and markedly entertaining read as well as a promising place for scholars interested in marginalized identities and autobiographical comics to begin. The blend of context, formal critique, intersectional scholarship, and intentionally limited scope is an admirable accomplishment." * Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society *"The possibilities of comics as an avenue for visibility and accurate representation are repeated themes throughout Køhlert’s deep and thoughtful analysis of each author-artists’ work in Serial Selves. The result is a book written with the enthusiasm of pop culture lovers and underground comics fans, but useful in fields and interests beyond those boundaries." * Communication Booknotes Quarterly *"Analyzes the ways in which minority artists create illustrations, and the context and messaging behind the images created in a broader sense....Graduate students, scholars and professionals interested in comics and the media might find this book to be a helpful tool." * Communication Booknotes Quarterly *"Serial Selves contributes to a now established scholarly field of life writing within comics studies....Through detailed formal analysis, Kohlert's work carefully examines the highly visual nature of living in a marginalised body. The book brings attention to the various ways in which authors engage directly with their visual selves and challenge conventional representational schemes." * Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics *"Køhlert has a very clear and accessible writing style, advantageous in discussing the theory associated with the various case studies, rendering the complex readily explicable. He covers the work of the major comics thinkers in a seamless fashion, so that when it comes to the discussion of the authors in their case studies, the reader is fully prepared in terms of the overarching theoretical framework. Køhlert impresses further in each of the case studies, as he is also able to address the theory relating to disability, feminist and queer issues amongst others. He moves easily from theory to the analysis of the detail of the comics he studies in a clear and lucid way." * European Comic Art *Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgments Introduction: Serial Selves 1 Female Grotesques: The Unruly Comics of Julie Doucet 2 Working it Through: Trauma and Visuality in the Comics of Phoebe Gloeckner 3 Young, Queer, and Female: Ariel Schrag’s High School Comic Chronicles 4 Staring at Comics: Disability and the Body in Al Davison’s The Spiral Cage 5 Stereotyping the Self: Toufic El Rassi’s Arab in America Conclusion: Making an Issue of Representation Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe first edition of this readers’ advisory represented a pioneering effort to provide help and encouragement to librarians diving into this exciting format. Goldsmith has updated her guide to encompass a bounty of new titles, authors, and styles, ensuring its continued usefulness as a tool for both RA and collection development.

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Book SynopsisThe first look at the philosophy behind the Captain America comics and movies, publishing in advance of the movie release of Captain America: The Winter Solider in April 2014. In The Virtues of Captain America, philosopher and long-time comics fan Mark D.Trade Review“And, as was the case with his previous works, this book is particularly interesting, stimulating, convincing, well-written, and well-documented—using an incredible number of examples, illustrations and quotations from Captain America’s adventures.” (The Journal of Popular Culture, 17 August 2015) “If ever there was a need for a philosophical book on a super-hero then Captain America certainly deserves one and I think you’ll find this will fill you in on his motivations and his popularity and how it has been embraced in the recent films.” (SFCrowsnest, 1 May 2014)Table of ContentsIntroduction vii Acknowledgments xiii Notes on Source Material xiv About the Author xvi 1 Superhuman Ethics Class 1 Utilitarianism 2 Deontology 6 A Civil War … of Ethics! 10 Virtue Ethics 13 Virtuous Deontology … No, Deontological Virtue … Maybe “Deontovirtue”? 18 2 Captain America as a Moral Exemplar 25 Can a Fictional Character Be a Moral Exemplar? 26 Aren’t Fictional Characters Liable to Be Perfect? 29 Fifty Years, Dozens of Writers … One Captain America? 34 3 Five Basic Virtues 45 Courage 46 Humility 50 Righteous Indignation 54 Sacrifice and Responsibility 58 Perseverance 63 4 Honor and Integrity 76 The Honor of Captain America 76 External Honor as Respect 78 Internal Honor as Integrity 85 Principle and Compromise 88 Duty and Sacrifice (Again) 96 5 Judgment 109 Making the Hard Decisions 110 Whose Right Answer? 115 Tragic Dilemmas and How to Avoid Them 118 “Black-and-White” or Red, White, and Blue? When Judgment Evolves 122 Hitting the Threshold 131 6 Principle and Politics 143 Patriotism: The Captain and America 143 Cosmopolitanism 146 The American Dream Versus the American Reality 150 “I’m a Hero, Not a Politician!” 153 Principle over Politics 156 Captain America in (Principled) Action 161 Secret Empire/Nomad 161 The Captain 163 Civil War 166 7 Can Captain America Help Us Achieve Greater Unity and Civility? 178 The “Divided States of America,” Then and Now 178 The Three Core American Ideals 181 Justice 182 Equality 184 Liberty 186 Debating What We Disagree On While Recognizing What We Share 188 Now It’s Our Turn 193 Appendix: Why Are There Seven Volumes of Captain America and Five Volumes of Avengers? 198 References 202 Index 221

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Book SynopsisEl Eternauta, Daytripper, and Beyond examines the graphic narrative tradition in the two South American countries that have produced the medium’s most significant and copious output. Argentine graphic narrative emerged in the 1980s, awakened by Héctor Oesterheld’s groundbreaking 1950s serial El Eternauta. After Oesterheld was “disappeared” under the military dictatorship, El Eternauta became one of the most important cultural texts of turbulent mid-twentieth-century Argentina. Today its story, set in motion by an extraterrestrial invasion of Buenos Aires, is read as a parable foretelling the “invasion” of Argentine society by a murderous tyranny. Because of El Eternauta, graphic narrative became a major platform for the country’s cultural redemocratization. In contrast, Brazil, which returned to democracy in 1985 after decades of dictatorship, produced considerably less analysis of the period of repression Trade ReviewFoster demonstrates how graphic narratives, through a combination of graphic visuals and literary texts, are the medium for the telling of human stories, for they succeed in transforming everyday situations into visual works of art. * Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-first Century Literature *It is always a joy to consume criticism by a comics aficionado and scholar like Foster, who does not lose his edge with time; if anything, his work has become more sophisticated, evidencing a protracted view of Latin America's comics industry. * Hispanic Review *El Eternauta, Daytripper, and Beyond is successful in exposing readers to a body of graphic narrative that is often ignored by U.S. readers. Foster has provided a useful foundation from which scholars can begin to build more detailed and developed histories of graphic naratives in Argentina and Brazil. * Luso-Brazilian Review *[El Eternauta, Daytripper, and Beyond] is written in clear language and it is an enjoyable read which proves to be entirely accessible to specialist and non-specialist readers alike. * Hispanic Research Journal *El Eternauta, Daytipper, and Beyond constitutes an important contribution to the English-language bibliography on comic-book production in Latin America…This book is a valuable ally for scholars who want...further research into Latin American contemporary cultural production, and specifically for those working on Latin American or Global graphic narrative. * Popular Culture Studies Journal *Table of Contents Preface I. Argentina and the Forging of a Tradition of Graphic Narrative: Military Tyranny and Redemocratization 1. Masculinity as Privileged Human Agency in H. G. Oesterheld’s El Eternauta 2. The Bar as Theatrical Heterotopia: José Muñoz and Carlos Sampayo’s El Bar de Joe 3. Resisting Tyranny: The Perramus Figure of Alberto Breccia and Juan Sasturain 4. The Lion in Winter: Carlos Sampayo and Francisco Solano López’s Police Commissioner Evaristo 5. News Bulletins from the Gender Wars: Patricia Breccia’s Sin novedad en el frente II. Brazil: Graphic Narrative as Postmodern and Globalized Consciousness 6. Of Death and the Road: Rafael Grampá’s Mesmo Delivery 7. The Unbearable Weight of Being: Daniel Galera and Rafael Coutinho’s Cachalote 8. Copacabana and Other Hellish Fantasies: Sandro Lobo and Odyr Berdardi’s Copacabana 9. Days of Death: Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá’s Daytripper as Existential Journey 10. Women’s Wondrous Powers versus the Telluric Gods in Angélica Freitas and Odyr Bernardi’s Guadalupe Notes Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisWinner, Charles Hatfield Book Prize, Comic Studies Society, 2020 A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, 2019The history of America’s civil rights movement is marked by narratives that we hear retold again and again. This has relegated many key figures and turning points to the margins, but graphic novels and graphic memoirs present an opportunity to push against the consensus and create a more complete history. Graphic Memories of the Civil Rights Movement showcases five vivid examples of this:Ho Che Anderson''s King (2005), which complicates the standard biography of Martin Luther King Jr.; Congressman John Lewis''s three-volume memoir, March (2013–2016); Darkroom (2012), by Lila Quintero Weaver, in which the author recalls her Argentinian father’s participation in the movement and her childhood as an immigrant in the South; the bestseller The Silence of Our Friends, by Mark Long, Jim Demonakos, and Nate Trade ReviewAn important and thoughtful work which has far-reaching impacts beyond the world of comics studies...Santos looks at five graphic novels and considers the X-Men series in an effort to look at how collective memory is constructed and the ways that comics can be particularly useful in retelling and re-contextualizing history. * Smash Pages *[Graphic Memories of the Civil Rights Movement] refashions how the Civil Rights Movement can (and should) be remembered more accurately and completely through graphic novels…This is essential reading for comics teachers and also serves as a historical method 'refresher' for historians. * CHOICE *Graphic Memories not only brings attention to gaps and problems within the collective memory of the Civil Rights Movement but contributes to the shifting perception of the role of comics in the reevaluation of historical discourse. Santos’s reading of the graphic novels is frank and rigorous and does not shy away from providing criticism. His book, which elicits essential questions beyond the field of comics studies, is a timely contribution to answering pressing matters on racial and minority justice in the U.S. * International Journal of Comic Art *[A] well-researched literary and cultural study...This study should interest literary and historical scholars of civil rights narrative pasts in the United States as well as students of graphic novel forms generally. In particular, Graphic Memories helps explain the evolution of the graphic historical narrative form and the ways such narratives can help advance the popular study of U.S. civil rights generally. * Labour / Le Travail *A delight to read...In Graphic Memories, Santos offers careful, critical analyses. He builds mountains of evidence for each claim...The pages of the book are full of rich details and thought-provoking insights that bleed off the page and have stayed with me after reading it. Santos shows why we should consider comic books as a site of interaction at which history is co-produced and why we should take history writing in graphic novel form and the analysis of it seriously. * Visual Studies *Through an expansion of the visual and textual narratives that underpin consensus memories of the civil rights movement, Graphic Memories demonstrates how comics can be fruitful in reenvisioning the history of civil rights in various ways...Graphic Memories is an intensely readable and accessible text, with clear explication of both comics theory and civil rights history alike...Graphic Memories is an important contribution to both comics scholarship and civil rights history. * Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society *[Santos] is a careful observer with much to say. Particularly notable is his analysis of authorial and artist perspectives, encompassing the views of the comics’ protagonists and of the artist’s visual techniques...[Graphic Memories of the Civil Rights Movement is] a volume with much intense observation. * Journal of American History *Graphic Memories of the Civil Rights Movement is an important text for anyone working to understand the construction and political use of historical narratives, whether comics and graphic narrative were initially on your radar or not. For those of us that do work with comics, Santos has offered a crucial insight of the power of subjectivity and multiple coexisting temporalities that help us expand the/our archive...incredibly important for those of us who see comics as a site of radical potential for anticolonial storytelling. * Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics *Table of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction. Graphic Memories in “Black and White” Chapter 1. The Icon of the Once and Future King Chapter 2. Bleeding Histories on the March Chapter 3. On Photo-Graphic Narrative: “To Look—Really Look” into the Darkroom Chapter 4. The Silence of Our Friends and Memories of Houston’s Civil Rights History Chapter 5. Tropes, Transfer, Trauma: The Lynching Imagery of Stuck Rubber Baby Epilogue. Cyclops Was Right: X-Lives Matter! Appendix. A Conversation with Ho Che Anderson, Author-Artist of King Notes Works Cited Index

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Book Synopsis2017 The Association for the Studies of the Present Book PrizeFinalist Mention, 2017 Lora Romero First Book Award Presented by the American Studies AssociationWinner of the 2012 CLAGS Fellowship Award for Best First Book Project in LGBT StudiesHow fantasy meets reality as popular culture evolves and ignites postwar gender, sexual, and race revolutions.In 1964, noted literary critic Leslie Fiedler described American youth as new mutants, social rebels severing their attachments to American culture to remake themselves in their own image. 1960s comic book creators, anticipating Fiedler, began to morph American superheroes from icons of nationalism and white masculinity into actual mutant outcasts, defined by their genetic difference from ordinary humanity. These powerful misfits and freaks soon came to embody the social and political aspirations of America's most marginalized groups, including women, racial and sexual minorities, and the worTrade ReviewA powerhouse one-of-a-kind book! By charting the radical transformations of the comic book superhero in the post-war period, Fawaz brings to light the extraordinary secret history of American Otherness. Truly fantastic. -- Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar WaoFawaztakes readers into the wondrous world of American comic books, where we encounter an array of outcasts: the mutant, the cyborg, the alien, and the superhuman. This band of visionaries,Fawaz persuasively shows, pushed back against the constraints of postwar liberal citizenship, conjured new, emancipatory forms of social belonging, and called into question the meaning of the human being. A model of interdisciplinary scholarship,The New Mutantsis a must-read, not only for comic book fans, but for anyone interested in understanding how popular culture fueled the gender, sexual, and race revolutions of the late twentieth century. -- Natasha Zaretsky,author of No Direction Home: The American Family and the Fear of National Decline, 1968-1980I have never encountered anyone--not Art Spiegelman, R. Crumb, Douglas Wolk, Stephen Burt, or even Michael Chabon--who has addressed himself to superheroes withRamziFawaz's generosity of spirit and unsatisfiable critical fervor. In this book, one is caught up in the way in which we and the likes of Superman, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and the Silver Surfer share a common terrain of both history and imagination. All sorts of people will bring a long-nurtured, even fetishized familiarity toFawaz's pages, and it won't survive--the most familiar stories are, here, radically, thrillingly new. -- Greil Marcus,author of Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll MusicMuch thats previously been crackling and exciting in the burgeoning field of comics studies has investigated the innovations of comic book form, or engaged with narratives of autobiography and realism that most closely mimic the prestigious kinds of storytelling recognized in literary novels. Now comes the sharp, smart, theoretically savvy exploration of the bombastic content of superhero comics, which Ramzi Fawazs exuberant tour de force reveals that we trivialize to the detriment of our understanding of sexuality and race in postwar America, and of the ways we use fantasy to make and re-make the meanings of both. Among hypertrophic giants and mutations that grant world-conquering powers, Fawaz finds world-making that embraces universal difference as the basis for affiliative politics and puts the cosmic back into cosmopolitanand queerness galore. -- Darieck Scott,author of Extravagant AbjectionRamzi Fawaz's marvelous new book,The New Mutants, digs deep into the long history of superheroes and unearths a radical political tradition that has mostly goneunnoticed until now. . . .an eye-opening read, and Fawaz offers a way of reading superhero comics that is rooted both in scholarship and in the rich history of superhero narratives. Its clear that Fawaz is both a scholar and a fan, a dynamic that results in a book that should be appreciated by academics and true believers alike. * Popmatters *Fawaz takes a hard look at the politics behind superhero comics in this...satisfying debut. [A]n enjoyable and perceptive study. * Publishers Weekly *Fawaz draws on close readings and sharp analysis. * Pacific Standard *The New Mutantis not only one of the smartest critiques Ive ever read, its one of the most brilliant academic engagements with pop culture, period. * Patheos *The New Mutantsprovides considerable substance to the argument that comic books are indicative and powerful literary publications which assist their readers in coping with their marginalization in a society which often pretends to include everyone or to portray the world as a happy, global family. * Journal of American Culture *[A] well-documented study of the political and cultural evolution of American comic books, from the first appearance of Superman in Action Comics in 1938 to the present day. A strong piece of interdisciplinary research..well-argued, clearly written. * Library Journal *Mov[es] fluently between an overarching look at postwar comics to more specific analysis of how mainstream comics offers a place for subversive world building. * American Literature *

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Book Synopsis2017 The Association for the Studies of the Present Book PrizeFinalist Mention, 2017 Lora Romero First Book Award Presented by the American Studies AssociationWinner of the 2012 CLAGS Fellowship Award for Best First Book Project in LGBT StudiesHow fantasy meets reality as popular culture evolves and ignites postwar gender, sexual, and race revolutions.In 1964, noted literary critic Leslie Fiedler described American youth as new mutants, social rebels severing their attachments to American culture to remake themselves in their own image. 1960s comic book creators, anticipating Fiedler, began to morph American superheroes from icons of nationalism and white masculinity into actual mutant outcasts, defined by their genetic difference from ordinary humanity. These powerful misfits and freaks soon came to embody the social and political aspirations of America's most marginalized groups, including women, racial and sexual minorities, and the worTrade ReviewA powerhouse one-of-a-kind book! By charting the radical transformations of the comic book superhero in the post-war period, Fawaz brings to light the extraordinary secret history of American Otherness. Truly fantastic. -- Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar WaoFawaztakes readers into the wondrous world of American comic books, where we encounter an array of outcasts: the mutant, the cyborg, the alien, and the superhuman. This band of visionaries,Fawaz persuasively shows, pushed back against the constraints of postwar liberal citizenship, conjured new, emancipatory forms of social belonging, and called into question the meaning of the human being. A model of interdisciplinary scholarship,The New Mutantsis a must-read, not only for comic book fans, but for anyone interested in understanding how popular culture fueled the gender, sexual, and race revolutions of the late twentieth century. -- Natasha Zaretsky,author of No Direction Home: The American Family and the Fear of National Decline, 1968-1980I have never encountered anyone--not Art Spiegelman, R. Crumb, Douglas Wolk, Stephen Burt, or even Michael Chabon--who has addressed himself to superheroes withRamziFawaz's generosity of spirit and unsatisfiable critical fervor. In this book, one is caught up in the way in which we and the likes of Superman, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and the Silver Surfer share a common terrain of both history and imagination. All sorts of people will bring a long-nurtured, even fetishized familiarity toFawaz's pages, and it won't survive--the most familiar stories are, here, radically, thrillingly new. -- Greil Marcus,author of Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll MusicMuch thats previously been crackling and exciting in the burgeoning field of comics studies has investigated the innovations of comic book form, or engaged with narratives of autobiography and realism that most closely mimic the prestigious kinds of storytelling recognized in literary novels. Now comes the sharp, smart, theoretically savvy exploration of the bombastic content of superhero comics, which Ramzi Fawazs exuberant tour de force reveals that we trivialize to the detriment of our understanding of sexuality and race in postwar America, and of the ways we use fantasy to make and re-make the meanings of both. Among hypertrophic giants and mutations that grant world-conquering powers, Fawaz finds world-making that embraces universal difference as the basis for affiliative politics and puts the cosmic back into cosmopolitanand queerness galore. -- Darieck Scott,author of Extravagant AbjectionRamzi Fawaz's marvelous new book,The New Mutants, digs deep into the long history of superheroes and unearths a radical political tradition that has mostly goneunnoticed until now. . . .an eye-opening read, and Fawaz offers a way of reading superhero comics that is rooted both in scholarship and in the rich history of superhero narratives. Its clear that Fawaz is both a scholar and a fan, a dynamic that results in a book that should be appreciated by academics and true believers alike. * Popmatters *Fawaz takes a hard look at the politics behind superhero comics in this...satisfying debut. [A]n enjoyable and perceptive study. * Publishers Weekly *Fawaz draws on close readings and sharp analysis. * Pacific Standard *The New Mutantis not only one of the smartest critiques Ive ever read, its one of the most brilliant academic engagements with pop culture, period. * Patheos *The New Mutantsprovides considerable substance to the argument that comic books are indicative and powerful literary publications which assist their readers in coping with their marginalization in a society which often pretends to include everyone or to portray the world as a happy, global family. * Journal of American Culture *[A] well-documented study of the political and cultural evolution of American comic books, from the first appearance of Superman in Action Comics in 1938 to the present day. A strong piece of interdisciplinary research..well-argued, clearly written. * Library Journal *Mov[es] fluently between an overarching look at postwar comics to more specific analysis of how mainstream comics offers a place for subversive world building. * American Literature *

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Book SynopsisA Comics Studies Reader offers the best of the new comics scholarship in nearly thirty essays on a wide variety of such comics forms as gag cartoons, editorial cartoons, comic strips, comic books, manga, and graphic novels.The anthology covers the pioneering work of Rodolphe Töpffer, the Disney comics of Carl Barks, and the graphic novels of Art Spiegelman and Chris Ware, as well as Peanuts, romance comics, and superheroes. It explores the stylistic achievements of manga, the international anti-comics campaign, and power and class in Mexican comic books and English illustrated stories.A Comics Studies Reader introduces readers to the major debates and points of reference that continue to shape the field. It will interest anyone who wants to delve deeper into the world of comics and is ideal for classroom use.

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Book Synopsis¡Viva la historieta! critically examines the participation of Mexican comic books in the continuing debate over the character and consequences of globalization in Mexico. The focus of the book is on graphic narratives produced by and for Mexicans in the period following the 1994 implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), an economic accord that institutionalized the free-market vision of relationships among the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Eight chapters cover a broad range of contemporary Mexican comics, including works of propaganda, romance and adventure, graphic novels, a corporate ""brand"" series, didactic single-issue books, and a superhero parody series. Each chapter offers an examination of the ways in which specific comics or comic book series represent Mexico's national identity, the U.S.'s influence, and globalization's effects on technology and economics since the passage of NAFTA. Through careful attention to how recent Mexican comics portray a changing nation, author Bruce Campbell reveals a contentious range of perspectives on the problems and promises of globalization. At the same time, Campbell argues that the contrasting views of globalization that circulate widely in Mexican historietas reflect a still unsettled relationship between Mexico and its superpower neighbor.

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Book SynopsisEclectic British author Alan Moore (b. 1953) is one of the most acclaimed and controversial comics writers to emerge since the late 1970s. He has produced a large number of well-regarded comic books and graphic novels while also making occasional forays into music, poetry, performance, and prose.In Alan Moore: Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel, Annalisa Di Liddo argues that Moore employs the comics form to dissect the literary canon, the tradition of comics, contemporary society, and our understanding of history. The book considers Moore's narrative strategies and pinpoints the main thematic threads in his works: the subversion of genre and pulp fiction, the interrogation of superhero tropes, the manipulation of space and time, the uses of magic and mythology, the instability of gender and ethnic identity, and the accumulation of imagery to create satire that comments on politics and art history. Examining Moore's use of comics to scrutinize contemporary culture, Di Liddo analyzes his best-known works--Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, Watchmen, From Hell, Promethea, and Lost Girls. The study also highlights Moore's lesser-known output, such as Halo Jones, Skizz, and Big Numbers, and his prose novel Voice of the Fire. Alan Moore: Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel reveals Moore to be one of the most significant and distinctly postmodern comics creators of the last quarter-century.

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Book SynopsisTom Batiuk was a junior high school art teacher in Elyria, Ohio, when he created a comic panel aimed at teens for the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram. That panel was the precursor to what became Batiuk's award-winning comic strip Funky Winkerbean. Since its debut on March 27, 1972, Funky Winkerbean has chronicled the lives of a group of students from the fictitious Westview High School. This volume, which presents the strip's first three years, introduces the strip's title character, Funky, and his friends Crazy Harry Klinghorn, Bull Bushka, Livinia Swenson, Les Moore, Holly Budd, and Roland Mathews. Principal Burch, counselor Fred Fairgood, and band director Harry L. Dinkle also make their first appearances.Funky fans will relive Les's misadventures in gym class and his unintentional attendance at the homecoming dance as he remains stuck on a climbing rope high above the gymnasium floor. They will remember Crazy Harry's ability to play pizzas like records and his air guitar virtuosity, and majorette Holly who never removed her uniform. They will recall the school's winless football team, and Harry Dinkle's attempts to win the Battle of the Bands despite the contest always coinciding with a natural disaster.Volume 1 contains a charming autobiographical introduction by Tom Batiuk that shares his early attempts at cartooning, discusses his teaching career, and explains the genesis of Funky. Subsequent volumes will each contain three years of Funky comic strips and will be published annually. Batiuk has been recognized for his humorous and entertaining portrayals of the students and staff at Westview and acclaimed for his sensitive treatment of social and educational issues.

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Book SynopsisDespite their commercial appeal and cross-media reach, superheroes are only recently starting to attract sustained scholarly attention. This groundbreaking collection brings together essays and book excerpts by major writers on comics and popular culture. While superhero comics are a distinct and sometimes disdained branch of comics creation, they are integral to the development of the North American comic book and the history of the medium. For the past half-century they have also been the one overwhelmingly dominant market genre. The sheer volume of superhero comics that have been published over the years is staggering. Major superhero universes constitute one of the most expansive storytelling canvases ever fashioned. Moreover, characters inhabiting these fictional universes are immensely influential, having achieved iconic recognition around the globe. Their images and adventures have shaped many other media, such as film, videogames, and even prose fiction. The primary aim of this reader is twofold: first, to collect in a single volume a sampling of the most sophisticated commentary on superheroes, and second, to bring into sharper focus the ways in which superheroes connect with larger social, cultural, literary, aesthetic, and historical themes that are of interest to a great many readers both in the academy and beyond.

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Book SynopsisAn examination of the popular horror comics of the 1950s and their re-emergence thirty years later. The popular horror comics of the 1950s not only frightened their readers, they also alarmed Cold War politicians who enacted the prohibitive Comics Code, sacrificing horror on the altar of good taste. Wandtke examines and explainsthe story of the resurgence of horror comics and introduces readers to the new shape of horror comics within the American culture in the 1980s. Terrence Wandtke is a professor at Judson University and the author of The Dark Night Returns (RIT, 2015).Trade ReviewA useful work for those interested in horror comics, especially in conjunction with his [Wandtke] 2015 volume on crime comics, and certainly if the reader is coming to the topic afresh. The book is also particularly useful for its focus on more contemporary iterations of horror comics. * STUDIES IN COMICS *

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisFrom New York Times bestselling author Larry Gonick and Davidson College biology professor David Wessner comes this comprehensive and humorous cartoon guide to topics in biologyDid you faint when your middle school science teacher asked you to dissect a frog?Trade Review“An enjoyable, immersive experience. ... Deliver[s] the goods. ... Hard to resist.” — Comics Grinder “If only school science books were like The Cartoon Guide to Biology, at least a little, maybe science and students would come together and engage more often.” — ComicBookBin “An invaluable resource.” — Brooklyn Digest “A hilarious and informative cartoon guide to all things biology. ... An excellent resource.” — Midwest Book Review “A hilarious romp through chemistry and biology. ... The quirky cartoons and anthropomorphism not only produce a laugh but do make these complex concepts a little easier to grasp. ... A fun way to learn the science of life.” — New York Journal of Books

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Book SynopsisArt Spiegelman is a contributing editor and artist for the New Yorker. His drawings and prints have been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Maus, which was also nominated for the National Book Critics Award. He lives in New York.

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisThe first full-fledged history not just of the Man of Steel but of the creators, designers, owners, and performers who made him the icon he is today, from the New York Times bestselling author of Satchel and Bobby Kennedy“A story as American as Superman himself.”—The Washington Post  Legions of fans from Boston to Buenos Aires can recite the story of the child born Kal-El, scion of the doomed planet Krypton, who was rocketed to Earth as an infant, raised by humble Kansas farmers, and rechristened Clark Kent. Known to law-abiders and evildoers alike as Superman, he was destined to become the invincible champion of all that is good and just—and a star in every medium from comic books and comic strips to radio, TV, and film.   But behind the high-flying legend lies a true-to-life saga every bit as compelling, one that begins not in the far reaches of outer space but in the mi

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