What are super-devoted fans of comic books really like? What draws them together and energizes their zeal? What do the denizens of this pop-culture world have in common?
This book provides good answers as it scrutinizes the fans whose profiles can be traced at their conventions, in pages of fanzines, on websites, in chat-rooms, on electronic bulletin boards, and before the racks in comic-book stores. They are a singular breed, and an absorbing interest in comic books (sometimes life-consuming) unites them.
Studies have shows that the clustering, die-hard disciples of Star Trek...
What are super-devoted fans of comic books really like? What draws them together and energizes their zeal? What do the denizens of this pop-culture...
What do the comic book figures Static, Hardware, and Icon all have in common?
Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and Their Fans gives an answer that goes far beyond "tights and capes," an answer that lies within the mission Milestone Media, Inc., assumed in comic book culture. Milestone was the brainchild of four young black creators who wanted to part from the mainstream and do their stories their own way. This history of Milestone, a "creator-owned" publishing company, tells how success came to these mavericks in the 1990s and how comics culture was expanded and enriched as...
What do the comic book figures Static, Hardware, and Icon all have in common?
Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and Their Fans gives a...
How midcentury periodicals that fostered an indelible middle-class ideal for American women also confronted the happy homemaker stereotype
Read by millions of women each month, such mainstream periodicals as Ladies' Home Journal and McCall's delivered powerful messages about women's roles and behavior. In 1963 Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique accused the genre of helping to create what Friedan termed -the problem that has no name- -- that is, presenting women as stereotypical happy homemakers with limited interests and abilities.
But this ideal of contented,...
How midcentury periodicals that fostered an indelible middle-class ideal for American women also confronted the happy homemaker stereotype
With essays by Jan Baetens, David A. Berona, Frank L. Cioffi, N. C. Christopher Couch, Robert C. Harvey, Gene Kannenberg, Jr., Catherine Khordoc, David Kunzle, Marion D. Perret, and Todd Taylor.
In our culture, which depends increasingly on images for instruction and recreation, it is important to ask how words and images make meaning when they are combined. Comics, one of the most widely read media of the twentieth century, serves as an ideal for focusing an investigation on the word-and-image question.
This collection of essays attempts to give an answer. The first six see words and...
With essays by Jan Baetens, David A. Berona, Frank L. Cioffi, N. C. Christopher Couch, Robert C. Harvey, Gene Kannenberg, Jr., Catherine Khordoc, D...
When Art Spiegelman's Maus-a two-part graphic novel about the Holocaust-won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992, comics scholarship grew increasingly popular and notable. The rise of -serious- comics has generated growing levels of interest as scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals continue to explore the history, aesthetics, and semiotics of the comics medium.
Yet those who write about the comics often assume analysis of the medium didn't begin until the cultural studies movement was underway. Arguing Comics: Literary Masters on a Popular Medium brings together nearly two...
When Art Spiegelman's Maus-a two-part graphic novel about the Holocaust-won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992, comics scholarship grew increasingly p...
This study examines the complex relationship between women and leisure, drawing upon recent feminist theory. The text charts the changes in perception, representation and experiences of leisure for women between 1920 and 1960, and relates the changes to life cycle lines.
This study examines the complex relationship between women and leisure, drawing upon recent feminist theory. The text charts the changes in perception...
British teenagers witnessed immense cultural change in the period following the second world war. There were fewer than 100 juke boxes in Britain in 1945 and over 15,000 by 1958. Over the same period there was a similar unprecedented expansion of casual youth venues in the form of cafes, snack, milk and coffee bars where young people could hear the sounds of hot American jazz and rock 'n' roll. It has been a common assumption among academics and cultural historians alike that British youth between 1945 and 1960 underwent a period of massive 'Americanisation'. Juke Box Britain contests...
British teenagers witnessed immense cultural change in the period following the second world war. There were fewer than 100 juke boxes in Britain in 1...
Today, many people take the idea of holidays for granted and regard the provision of paid time off as a right. This book argues that popular tourism has its roots in collective organisation and charts the development of the working class holiday over two centuries. Starting with the cult of St. Monday, the problem of absenteeism of northern textile workers during Wakes Week, and ending with the cheap foreign package holiday of the late twentieth century, this study recounts how short, unpaid and often unauthorised periods of leave from work became organised and legitimised through...
Today, many people take the idea of holidays for granted and regard the provision of paid time off as a right. This book argues that popular tourism h...
Drawing on an eclectic range of primary and secondary sources Chaplin examines the development of darts in the context of English society in the early twentieth century. He reveals how darts was transformed during the interwar years to become one of the most popular recreations in England, not just amongst working class men and, to a lesser extent, working class women but even (to some extent) among the middle and upper classes. This book assesses the social, economic and cultural forces behind this transformation. This work also considers the growth of the darts manufacturing industry and...
Drawing on an eclectic range of primary and secondary sources Chaplin examines the development of darts in the context of English society in the early...
Healthy living in the Alps examines the relationship between the search for relief from respiratory diseases, such as tuberculosis, in high alpine resorts and the development in the same places of winter sports tourism. The first winter visitors to the Swiss Alps began to arrive in the 1860s and were encouraged to take outdoor exercise as part of their cure regime. They also had healthy visitors and companions who sought recreation while the invalids were resting as part of the sanatoria routine. Demonstrating that this is not just part of the history of Switzerland but of Britain too,...
Healthy living in the Alps examines the relationship between the search for relief from respiratory diseases, such as tuberculosis, in high alpine res...