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Book SynopsisThis book calls for an investigation of the "borderlands of narrativity" the complex and culturally productive area where the symbolic form of narrative meets other symbolic logics, such as data(base), play, spectacle, or ritual. It opens up a conversation about the "beyond" of narrative, about the myriad constellations in which narrativity interlaces with, rubs against, or morphs into the principles of other forms. To conceptualise these borderlands, the book introduces the notion of "narrative liminality", which the 16 articles utilize to engage literature, popular culture, digital technology, historical artifacts, and other kinds of texts from a time span of close to 200 years.Table of ContentsOverview; Borderlands of Narrativity; Numbers, Literature, Aesthetics; The Data of Life and the Life of Data; The Potentialities of Data; Unnecessary Complications?; Narrative Liminality, Ambient Operations, and the Database Western in Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption Videogames; Detecting Liminality; "To Live Your Life Again, Turn to Page 1"; Multimodality as a Limit of Narrative in Mark Z. Danielewski's The Familiar; The Poetics and Politics of Staring; "No Show Dissed Quite Like This One"; Repetition, Rhythm, and Recital; Home Front Autobiographies of the 'War on Terror'; Form and/in Modernity; Embodying Narrative, Staging Icons; Narrating Authorship; Endings and Sustainability; Contributors.

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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 Synopsis

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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 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 Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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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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