Introduction: what is the American graphic novel? Jan Baetens, Hugo Frey and Fabrice Leroy; Part I. History and Genre: 1. The 'First' graphic novel in America: revisiting he done her wrong and it rhymes with Lust Livio Belloï; 2. The Mad-Men generation: Kurtzman and Feiffer Fabrice Leroy; 3. From Justin Green and art Spiegelman to Alison Bechdel: writing the self in the graphic novel Jan Baetens; 4. Graphic journalism Laurike in 't Veld; 5. 'Great' American graphic novels: Canon formation and literary value Daniel Stein and Astrid Böger; 6. Crime: From EC comics to Ed Brubaker Andrew J. Kunka; 7. Superheroes in graphic novels Marc Singer; 8. Science fiction and fantasy: new works of imagination Ian Hague; 9. 'Scared Witless': war in the American graphic novel Hugo Frey; Part II. Graphic Novels and the Quest for an American Diversity: 10. Expressions of Jewishness alongside grief in American graphic novels Tahneer Oksman; 11. Black looking and looking black: African American cartoon aesthetics Joanna Davis-McElligatt; 12. African American new history-writing in graphic novels Michael A. Chaney; 13. Coming to America, 'Land of the Free': Asian American representations in graphic narrative Monica Chiu; 14. Spatiotemporal projections: Los Bros Hernandez, Fantagraphics and the rise of Latinx creating and reading communities Frederick Luis Aldama; 15. Queer graphic novels: a paradigm of paradox Alison Halsall; 16. American women's lives in graphic novels: becoming and unbecoming women Martha Kuhlman.