MONITOR: NEW PUBLICATIONS ON COMIC BOOKS

Rewriting History in Manga

Rewriting History in Manga:
Stories for the Nation

Nissim Otmazgin and Rebecca Suter (eds.)
Palgrave MacMillan
191 pages
ISBN 978-1-137-55478-9 (Hardcover)
~€ 89,99
June 2016

Publisher’s page
This book analyzes the role of manga (Japanese comics) within contemporary Japanese public discourse, and explores its role in propagating new perceptions regarding Japanese history. Through the analysis of a variety of cases studies ranging from nineteenth century magazines to contemporary online comics and fandom, it focuses on the representations and interpretations of history in manga, and clarifies this medium’s interrelation with historical memory and political debate. Stories for the Nation delineates alternative modes of historical memory and expression as they are manifested and contested in manga, and argues for manga’s potential to influence the historical and political views of wide audiences in Japan.

Die Darstellung realer Kriege in Comics

Die Darstellung realer Kriege in Comics

Nina Mahrt
Peter Lang
471 pages
ISBN 978-3-6316-9279-0 (Hardcover)
~€ 84,20
July 2016

Publisher’s page
Bilder spielen eine zentrale Rolle in der medialen Inszenierung und Vermittlung von Kriegen. Die Autorin zeigt, wie Comics, die sich realen Kriegen widmen, bekannte Bilder, Handlungsverläufe und Argumentationen nutzen, umdeuten und vor allem auch visuell umsetzen. Dazu analysiert sie sieben Comics auf wiederkehrende Elemente und je individuelle Themen und Ausprägungen. Dieses Vorgehen macht die Analysen der einzelnen Comics vergleichbar und trägt zugleich der Individualität jedes einzelnen Textes Rechnung. Die textstilistisch pragmatische Herangehensweise berücksichtigt als erstes linguistisches Instrumentarium alle Darstellungsmittel des Comics gleichermaßen

The Rise of Comic Book Movies

The Rise of Comic Book Movies:
From the Pages to the Big Screen

Benny Potter, Dan Rumble, and Jason Keen (eds.)
Barnes and Noble
184 pages
ISBN 978-1-6335-3343-1 (Paperback)
~$ 11,84
July 2016

Publisher’s page
Recent years show a sea change in Hollywood- the biggest movies come from the pages of comic books. These box office successes are driven by fans who love seeing their favorite heroes and villains from comics brought to life on the big screen, from Thor to Superman to Batman and Captain America, Wonder Woman and more. Baddies like Loki, The Joker and Lex Luthor only add to the fun. Welcome to the Golden Age of comic book movies and Comicstorians Benny Potter, Dan Rumbles and Jason Keen are here to help you understand why we these larger-than-life characters have captured the imagination of the world.
When it comes to superheroes of the Silver Screen, nobody knows more than the masterminds behind the wildly popular Comicstorian YouTube channel. This definitive guide to comic book films divulges behind-the-scenes secrets and the hidden history behind these must-see movies including how, after very rocky beginnings, they shot to the top with DC and Marvel as two of the most important franchises in the industry.

Teaching Comics Through Multiple Lenses

Teaching Comics Through Multiple Lenses:
Critical Perspectives

Crag Hill
Routledge
172 pages
ISBN 978-1-1386-4990-3 (Hardcover)
£~ 95,00
August 2016

Publisher’s page
Building off the argument that comics succeed as literature—rich, complex narratives filled with compelling characters interrogating the thought-provoking issues of our time—this book argues that comics are an expressive medium whose moves (structural and aesthetic) may be shared by literature, the visual arts, and film, but beyond this are a unique art form possessing qualities these other mediums do not. Drawing from a range of current comics scholarship demonstrating this point, this book explores the unique intelligence/s of comics and how they expand the ways readers engage with the world in ways different than prose, or film, or other visual arts. Written by teachers and scholars of comics for instructors, this book bridges research and pedagogy, providing instructors with models of critical readings around a variety of comics.

How Superheroes Model Community

How Superheroes Model Community:
Philosophically, Communicatively, Relationally

Nathan Miczo
Rowman & Littlefield
172 pages
ISBN 978-1-4985-1680-8 (Hardcover)
~$ 80,00
August 2016

Publisher’s page
From the perspectives of positive psychology and positive communication, superheroes are often depicted as possessing virtues and serving as inspirational exemplars. However, many of the virtues enumerated as characterizing the superhero (e.g., courage, teamwork, creativity) could just as easily be applied to heroes of other genres. To understand what is unique to the superhero genre, How Superheroes Model Community looks not only to the virtues that animate them, but also to the underlying moral framework that gives meaning to those virtues. The key to understanding their character is that often they save strangers, and they do so in the public sphere. The superhero’s moral framework, therefore, must encompass both the motivation to act to benefit others rather than themselves (especially people to whom they have no relational obligation) and to preserve the public sphere against those who would disrupt it.

Arresting Development

Arresting Development:
Comics at the Boundaries of Literature

Christopher Pizzino
University of Texas Press
245 pages
ISBN 978-1-4773-0977-3 (Hardcover)
~$ 60,00
September 2016

Publisher’s page
Mainstream narratives of the graphic novel’s development describe the form’s “coming of age,” its maturation from pulp infancy to literary adulthood. In Arresting Development, Christopher Pizzino questions these established narratives, arguing that the medium’s history of censorship and marginalization endures in the minds of its present-day readers and, crucially, its authors. Comics and their writers remain burdened by the stigma of literary illegitimacy and the struggles for status that marked their earlier history. Many graphic novelists are intensely aware of both the medium’s troubled past and their own tenuous status in contemporary culture. Arresting Development presents case studies of four key works—Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Charles Burns’s Black Hole, and Gilbert Hernandez’s Love and Rockets—exploring how their authors engage the problem of comics’ cultural standing. Pizzino illuminates the separation of high and low culture, art and pulp, and sophisticated appreciation and vulgar consumption as continual influences that determine the limits of literature, the status of readers, and the value of the very act of reading.

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