Kategoria BISAC: Literary Criticism >> Comics & Graphic Novels

Comics and cartoons are ingrained in American life.

One critic has called comic books -crude, unimaginative, banal, vulgar, ultimately corrupting.- They have been regarded with considerable suspicion by parents, educators, psychiatrists, and moral reformers. They have been investigated by governmental committees and subjected to severe censorship.

Yet more than 200 million copies are sold annually. Upon even casual examination BLONDIE, ARCHIE, MARY WORTH, THE WIZARD OF ID, and SHOE--among the many comic strips--will be found to support some commonly accepted notion or standard of...

For over twenty-five years, Disney artist Carl Barks (1901-2000) created some of the most brilliant and funny stories in comic books. Gifted and prolific, he was the author of over five hundred tales in the most popular comic books of all time. Although he was never allowed to sign his name and worked in anonymity, Barks's unique artistic style and storytelling were immediately evident to all his readers. Barks created the town of Duckburg and a cast of characters that included Donald Duck's fabulously wealthy Uncle Scrooge, the lucky loafer Gladstone Gander, the daffy inventor Gyro...

Among the many accomplishments in art and literature by Genevan Rodolphe Topffer (1799-1846), his virtual invention of the comic strip, or graphic novel, stands out as the most surprising, curious, and to us, after a century inundated by comic strips, by far the most significant.

This volume is the first English-language version of the Topffer comics oeuvre and includes (unlike previous French and German editions) all of his eight full-length stories, plus previously unpublished fragments of stories started and abandoned and manuscript segments omitted in the printed versions. Comics...

Stan Lee (b. 1922), co-creator of The Amazing Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, and The Uncanny X-Men, is one of the most successful writers and publishers of comics. During the 1960s and 1970s, he wrote superhero adventures for Marvel Comics. His storylines imbued the genre with angst and contemporary politics and focused as much on the personal lives of his characters as on heroics. His work, in collaboration with cartoonists such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, remains deeply influential. His role as a spokesperson and impresario for Marvel...

When the graphic novel Maus: A Survivor's Tale won a Special Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for its vivid depiction of the Holocaust and its effects, critics and mainstream audiences recognized that a comic book was capable of exploring complex aesthetic, moral, and cultural themes. Maus's creator Art Spiegelman (b. 1948) became the most famous alternative cartoonist in America.

With Essays by Baru, Bart Beaty, Cecile Vernier Danehy, Hugo Frey, Pascal Lefevre, Fabrice Leroy, Amanda Macdonald, Mark McKinney, Ann Miller, and Clare Tufts

In Belgium, France, Switzerland, and other French-speaking countries, many well-known comics artists have focused their attention on historical and political events. In works ranging from comic books and graphic novels to newspaper strips, cartoonists have addressed such controversial topics as French and Belgian collaboration and resistance during World War II, European colonialism and U.S. imperialism, anti-Semitism in France,...

Since 1968, Garry Trudeau (b. 1948) has brought his brand of political satire to bear on public figures, movie stars, heads of state, and even on himself. Trudeau has also advocated for artists' rights and challenged industry norms while keeping a decidedly low profile. In Garry Trudeau: -Doonesbury- and the Aesthetics of Satire, Kerry D. Soper traces the contribution of this groundbreaking artist.

Trudeau is arguably the premier American political and social satirist of the last forty years. Amazingly, he achieved this on the comics page, rather than the editorial page. By...

Through the combination of text and images, comic books offer a unique opportunity to explore deep questions about aesthetics, ethics, and epistemology in nontraditional ways. The essays in this collection focus on a wide variety of genres, from mainstream superhero comics, to graphic novels of social realism, to European adventure classics.

Included among the contributions are essays on existentialism in Daniel Clowes's graphic novel Ghost World, ecocriticism in Paul Chadwick's long-running Concrete series, and political philosophies in Herge's perennially popular The...

Harvey Pekar's American Splendor is the longest-running and arguably the most influential autobiographical comic book series produced in America. Since 1976, Pekar (b. 1939) has reported on his life through his comics. Pekar's comic books deal with his life as a Veterans Administration clerk and freelance music critic; his friends and co-workers and their stories; and his home city of Cleveland. Pekar's struggles with physical and mental problems, a low-paying job, Hollywood, marriage, his daughter's adoption, and success are all laid out in his comics. Pekar prides himself on...