Publikationsmonitor

Publikationshinweis: „Themed Section: Fandom and Comics“ in Participations

In der brandneuen Ausgabe der Zeitschrift Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies ist eine Sektion enthalten, die wir besonders hervorheben möchten: Unter Herausgeberschaft der ComFor-Mitglieder_ Vanessa Ossa und Véronique Sina sowie Sophie G. Einwächter und Sven Stollfuß widmen sich in der Ausgabe Participations 17.2 (November 2020) insgesamt acht Artikel dem Thema „Fandom and Comics“. Die Beiträge gehen teilweise auf Vorträge und Diskussionen des Workshops „Comics/Fandom“ zurück, der 2019 an der Universität Köln stattfand und bei dem auch Matt Hills als Keynote Speaker dabei war. Ausgerichtet wurde der Workshop von den AGs für Comicforschung und für Partizipations- und Fanforschung der Gesellschaft für Medienwissenschaft.

Aus der Einleitung der Herausgeber_innen der Sektion:

„The articles in this Themed Section […] cover everything from the comic book industry-centric creation of the ‘good fan’ (Brinker), to new forms of collaboration between fans and the industry (Lamerichs), the playful reframing of comic book material by fans and academics (Andersen and Jensen), and industry-independent or even resistive fandoms (Hart; Hülsmann; and Thelen). The obvious, though still often neglected, interconnection of comics studies and fan studies as addressed in the following articles both provides us with an opportunity and presents us with the challenge of combining approaches from sociology, audience studies, industry and production studies, literary studies, and historical research. The methodologies used thus range from classical textual analysis and close readings to discourse analysis, qualitative interviews and participant observations.“

Übersicht der Beiträge, Themed Section „Fandom and Comics“:

→ Zur Gesamtübersicht der Ausgabe Participations 17.2 (November 2020).

Monitor 62: Neue Publikationen

Im Monitor werden in unregelmäßigen Abständen aktuelle Publikationen aus den letzten 6 Monaten vorgestellt, die für die Comicforschung relevant sein könnten. Die kurzen Ankündigungstexte dazu stammen von den jeweiligen Verlagsseiten. Haben Sie Anregungen oder Hinweise auf Neuerscheinungen, die übersehen worden sind und hier erwähnt werden sollten? Das Team freut sich über eine Mail an redaktion@comicgesellschaft.de.
Zu früheren Monitoren.


Leiji Matsumoto: Essays on the Manga and Anime Legend

Helen McCarthy, Darren-Jon Ashmore (Hgs.)
McFarland
206 Seiten
Oktober 2020
Verlagsseite

„Leiji Matsumoto is one of Japan’s most influential myth creators. Yet the huge scope of his work, spanning past, present and future in a constantly connecting multiverse, is largely unknown outside Japan. Matsumoto was the major creative force on Star Blazers, America’s gateway drug for TV anime, and created Captain Harlock, a TV phenomenon in Europe. As well as space operas, he made manga on musicians from Bowie to Tchaikovsky, wrote the manga version of American cowboy show Laramie, and created dozens of girls’ comics. He is a respected manga scholar, an expert on Japanese swords, a frustrated engineer and pilot who still wants to be a spaceman in his eighties.
This collection of new essays—the first book on Matsumoto in English—covers his seven decades of comic creation, drawing on contemporary scholarship, artistic practice and fan studies to map Matsumoto’s vast universe. The contributors—artists, creators, translators and scholars—mirror the range of his work and experience. From the bildungsroman to the importance of textual analysis for costume and performance, from early days in poverty to honors around the world, this volume offers previously unexplored biographical and bibliographic detail from a life story as thrilling as anything he created.“

Mise en Scène, Acting, and Space in Comics

Geraint D’Arcy
Palgrave
146 Seiten
August 2020
Verlagsseite

„This book explores some of the less frequently questioned ideas which underpin comics creation and criticism. “Mise en scène” is a term which refers to the way in which visual elements work together to create meaning in comics. It is a term that comics have borrowed from cinema, which borrowed it in turn from theatre. But comics are not film and they are not cinema, so how can this term be of any use? If we consider comics to have mise en scène, should not we also ask if the characters in comics act like the characters on film and stage? In its exploration of these ideas, this book also asks what film and theatre can learn from comics.“

Critical Directions in Comics Studies

Thomas Giddens (Hg.)
University Press of Mississippi
146 Seiten
August 2020
Verlagsseite

„Recent decades have seen comics studies blossom, but within the ecosystems of this growth, dominant assumptions have taken root—assumptions around the particular methods used to approach the comics form, the ways we should read comics, how its “system” works, and the disciplinary relationships that surround this evolving area of study. But other perspectives have also begun to flourish. These approaches question the reliance on structural linguistics and the tools of English and cultural studies in the examination and understanding of comics.
In this edited collection, scholars from a variety of disciplines examine comics by addressing materiality and form as well as the wider economic and political contexts of comics’ creation and reception. Through this lens, influenced by poststructuralist theories, contributors explore and elaborate other possibilities for working with comics as a critical resource, consolidating the emergence of these alternative modes of engagement in a single text. This opens comics studies to a wider array of resources, perspectives, and modes of engagement.
Included in this volume are essays on a range of comics and illustrations as well as considerations of such popular comics as Deadpool, Daredevil, and V for Vendetta, and analyses of comics production, medical illustrations, and original comics. Some contributions even unfold in the form of comics panels.
Contributions by Paul Fisher Davies, Lisa DeTora, Yasemin J. Erden, Adam Gearey, Thomas Giddens, Peter Goodrich, Maggie Gray, Matthew J. A. Green, Vladislav Maksimov, Timothy D. Peters, Christopher Pizzino, Nicola Streeten, and Lydia Wysocki.“

Comic Art in Museums*

Kim A. Munson (Hg.)
University Press of Mississippi
400 Seiten
Juli 2020
Verlagsseite

„Through essays and interviews, Kim A. Munson’s anthology tells the story of the over-thirty-year history of the artists, art critics, collectors, curators, journalists, and academics who championed the serious study of comics, the trends and controversies that produced institutional interest in comics, and the wax and wane and then return of comic art in museums.
Audiences have enjoyed displays of comic art in museums as early as 1930. In the mid-1960s, after a period when most representational and commercial art was shunned, comic art began a gradual return to art museums as curators responded to the appropriation of comics characters and iconography by such famous pop artists as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. From the first-known exhibit to show comics in art historical context in 1942 to the evolution of manga exhibitions in Japan, this volume regards exhibitions both in the United States and internationally.
With over eighty images and thoughtful essays by Denis Kitchen, Brian Walker, Andrei Molotiu, Paul Gravett, Art Spiegelman, Trina Robbins, and Charles Hatfield, among others, this anthology shows how exhibitions expanded the public dialogue about comic art and our expectation of “good art”—displaying how dedicated artists, collectors, fans, and curators advanced comics from a frequently censored low-art medium to a respected art form celebrated worldwide.
Contributions by Kenneth Baker, Jaqueline Berndt, Albert Boime, John Carlin, Benoit Crucifix, David Deitcher, Michael Dooley, Damian Duffy, M. C. Gaines, Paul Gravett, Diana Green, Karen Green, Doug Harvey, Charles Hatfield, M. Thomas Inge, Leslie Jones, Jonah Kinigstein, Denis Kitchen, John A. Lent, Dwayne McDuffie, Andrei Molotiu, Alvaro de Moya, Kim A. Munson, Cullen Murphy, Gary Panter, Trina Robbins, Rob Salkowitz, Antoine Sausverd, Art Spiegelman, Scott Timberg, Carol Tyler, Brian Walker, Alexi Worth, Joe Wos, and Craig Yoe.“

Comics Studies: A Guidebook*

Charles Hatfield, Bart Beaty (Hgs.)
Rutgers University Press
336 Seiten
August 2020
Verlagsseite

„In the twenty-first century, the field of comics studies has exploded. Scholarship on graphic novels, comic books, comic strips, webcomics, manga, and all forms of comic art has grown at a dizzying pace, with new publications, institutions, and courses springing up everywhere. The field crosses disciplinary and cultural borders and brings together myriad traditions. Comics Studies: A Guidebook offers a rich but concise introduction to this multifaceted field, authored by leading experts in multiple disciplines. It opens diverse entryways to comics studies, including history, form, audiences, genre, and cultural, industrial, and economic contexts. An invaluable one-stop resource for veteran and new comics scholars alike, this guidebook represents the state of the art in contemporary comics scholarship.“


*Die ComFor-Redaktion bedauert den Mangel an Diversität in dieser Publikation. Wir sind bestrebt, möglichst neutral über das Feld der Comicforschung in all seiner Breite zu informieren und redaktionelle Selektionsprozesse auf ein Minimum zu beschränken. Gleichzeitig sind wir uns jedoch auch der problematischen Strukturen des Wissenschaftsbetriebs bewusst, die häufig dazu führen, dass insbesondere Comicforscherinnen sowie jene mit marginalisierten Identitäten weniger sichtbar sind. Wir wissen, dass dieses Ungleichgewicht oft nicht der Intention der Herausgeber_innen / Veranstalter_innen entspricht und möchten dies auch nicht unterstellen, wollen aber dennoch darauf aufmerksam machen, um ein Bewusstsein für dieses Problem zu schaffen.

Monitor 61: Neue Publikationen

Im Monitor werden in unregelmäßigen Abständen aktuelle Publikationen aus den letzten 6 Monaten vorgestellt, die für die Comicforschung relevant sein könnten. Die kurzen Ankündigungstexte dazu stammen von den jeweiligen Verlagsseiten. Haben Sie Anregungen oder Hinweise auf Neuerscheinungen, die übersehen worden sind und hier erwähnt werden sollten? Das Team freut sich über eine Mail an redaktion@comicgesellschaft.de.
Zu früheren Monitoren.


The Routledge Companion to Gender and Sexuality in Comic Book Studies

Routledge Companions to Gender

Frederick Luis Aldama (Hg.)
Routledge
594 Seiten
August 2020
Verlagsseite

The Routledge Companion to Gender and Sexuality in Comic Book Studies is a comprehensive, global, and interdisciplinary examination of the essential relationship between Gender, Sexuality, Comics, and Graphic Novels.
A diverse range of international and interdisciplinary scholars take a closer look at how gender and sexuality have been essential in the evolution of comics, and how gender and sexuality in comics demand that we re-frame and re-view comics history. Chapters cover a wide array of intersectional topics including Queer Underground and Alternative comics, Feminist Autobiography, re-drawing disability, Latina testimony, and re-evaluating the critical whiteness and masculinity of superheroes in this first truly global reference text to gender and sexuality in comics.
Comics have always been an important place for the radical exploration of feminist and non-binary sexualities and identities, and the growth of non-normative comic book traditions as a field of inquiry makes this an essential text for upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates, and researchers studying Comics Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, Literary Studies, and Cultural Studies.“

Krieg und Migration im Comic: Interdisziplinäre Analysen

Edition Kulturwissenschaft

icon Düsseldorf (Hgs.)
transcript
310 Seiten
August 2020
Verlagsseite

Mit Beiträgen mehrerer ComFor Mitglieder!

„Freund oder Feind? Eigenes oder Fremdes? Graphische Erzählungen brechen vorstrukturierte binäre Wahrnehmungsmuster auf. Krieg und Migration zählen schon seit den Anfängen des Comics zum Kernbestand des Genres und sind im Zuge der politischen Instabilitäten der 2010er Jahre erneut in den Fokus vieler Werke gerückt. Das Spektrum reicht hierbei von dokumentarischen Comics bis zur fiktionalen Ausgestaltung von Einzelschicksalen. Aus unterschiedlichen Fachperspektiven analysieren die Beiträger_innen daher die Erzählstrategien von Comics über Krieg und Migration sowie deren Analogien und Differenzen zu verwandten Medien wie Literatur, bildende Kunst, Fotografie und Film.“

 

Webcomics

Bloomsbury Comics Studies

Sean Kleefeld
Bloomsbury
272 Seiten
Juni 2020
Verlagsseite

„The first critical guide to cover the history, form and key critical issues of the medium, Webcomics helps readers explore the diverse and increasingly popular worlds of online comics.
In an accessible and easy-to-navigate format, the book covers such topics as:

  • The history of webcomics and how developments in technology from the 1980s onwards presented new opportunities for comics creators and audiences
  • Cultural contexts – from the new financial and business models allowed by digital media to social justice causes in contemporary webcomics
  • Key texts – from early examples of the form such as Girl Genius and Penny Arcade to popular current titles such as Questionable Content and Dumbing of Age
  • Important theoretical and critical approaches to studying webcomics

Webcomics includes a glossary of crucial critical terms, annotated guides to further reading, and online resources and discussion questions to help students and readers develop their understanding of the genre and pursue independent study.“

 

Graphic Novels as Pedagogy in Social Studies

Palgrave Studies in Global Citizenship Education and Democracy

Angelo J. Letizia
Palgrave
238 Seiten
April 2020
Verlagsseite

„This book examines the study of citizenship by means of reading and creating graphic novels and comics in the social studies classroom. The author argues that utilizing graphic novels in the classroom not only helps to teach important concepts, skills, and dispositions of the social studies, but can also empower students with the means to grapple with the complexities of our current times. From the primary school classroom through high school and beyond, graphic novels provide a rich platform to explore a diverse array of issues such as history, critical geography, gender, race and ethnicity, disability, leadership, feminism, sexual identity, philosophy, and social justice issues, as well as provide a multidisciplinary lens for discourse on citizenship. Cultivating multimodal literacy skills through graphic novels allows students and instructors to conceive of and practice citizenship in new, unforeseen ways in an era where truth is in question. To drive this point forward, the author includes examples of both his own and his students’ work, along with exercises to be used in social studies classrooms.“

 

Understanding Genre in Comics

Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels

Nicolas Labarre
Palgrave
157 Seiten
April 2020
Verlagsseite

„This book offers a theoretical framework and numerous case studies – from early comic books to contemporary graphic novels – to understand the uses of genres in comics. It begins with the assumption that genre is both frequently used and undertheorized in the medium. Drawing from existing genre theories, particularly in film studies, the book pays close attention to the cultural, commercial, and technological specificities of comics in order to ground its account of the dynamics of genre in the medium. While chronicling historical developments, including the way public discourses shaped the horror genre in comics in the 1950s and the genre-defining function of crossovers, the book also examines contemporary practices, such as the use of hashtags and their relations to genres in self-published online comics.“

Zeitschriftenmonitor 08: Neue Ausgaben

Der Zeitschriftenmonitor ist eine Unterkategorie des Monitors. Hier werden in unregelmäßigen Abständen kürzlich erschienene Ausgaben und Artikel internationaler Zeitschriften zur Comicforschung sowie Sonderhefte mit einschlägigem Themenschwerpunkt vorgestellt. Die Ankündigungstexte und/oder Inhaltsverzeichnisse stammen von den jeweiligen Websites.
Haben Sie Anregungen oder Hinweise auf Neuerscheinungen, die übersehen worden sind und hier erwähnt werden sollten? Das Team freut sich über eine Mail an redaktion@comicgesellschaft.de.
Zu früheren Monitoren


 

Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society 4.1

online (im Abonnement)
Website

  • Neal Curtis: The Specters of Captain America: Time and the Haunting of American Politics
  • J. V. Miranda, Joseph Turner: Watchmen and Speculating on the Future of the Humanities
  • Layli Maria Miron: No Reclaimed Homeland: Thi Bui’s Postcolonial Historiography in The Best We Could Do
  • Adrienne Resha: The Blue Age of Comic Books
  • Rebecca Wanzo: Identity Temporalities and American Born Chinese
  • Dale Jacobs, Heidi Jacobs: Comics and Public History: The True Story of the 1934 Chatham Coloured All-Stars

Imagetext 11.3

Themenschwerpunkt: ImageTech: Comics and Materiality

online (open access)
Website

  • Madeline B. Gangnes, Megan Fowler, Jaquelin Elliott: ImageTech: Comics and Materiality
  • Madeline B. Gangnes: Introduction
  • Aaron Kashtan: Comics Are for Everyone: Rethinking Histories of Comics Fandom
  • Mita Mahato: Material Comics
  • Anastasia Salters: #NostalgiaGate? Comics as Battleground in Transmedia Networked Publics
  • Claudia Maria Acosta: Print_and_PDF Culture: The Transmediation of Public Intimacy, Allied Readership and Feminist Collage by Millennial Zinesters
  • Allison Bannister: A Fairytale Box of Thermochromic Fragments: Comics Materiality, Theory and Praxis
  • Carolina Martins: Extending Realities, Expanding Readings? Spatial Reconfigurations and Activated Presence in XR Comics‘ Experiences
  • Elaine Sponholtz: Object Lessons: Comics Creators Roundtable on Materiality and Comics
  • Tomasz Żaglewski: The Unwrapped Editions: Searching for the “Ultimate” Format of Graphic Novels and its Limitations

 

Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics

online (im Abonnement)
Website

  • Aneurin Wright: Shame, sexuality, mental health and comics
  • Sam Hester: Indie comics in Alberta: two stories from the field
  • Matt Reingold: Israeli graphic novels & the second Palestinian Intifada: ‘Jamilti’, Exit Wounds & Mike’s Place
  • Samantha Golding, Diarmuid Verrier: Teaching people to read comics: the impact of a visual literacy intervention on comprehension of educational comics
  • Loren Barbour: ‘Nemeses! Dragons! Symbolism!’: queering the fantasy hero narrative in Nimona
  • Debra Dudek: Silent sequences and ontological entanglement in Shaun Tan’s The Arrival and Pat Grant’s Blue
  • Anne Rüggemeier: Transformative list-making: challenging heteronormativity and ableism in Ellen Forney’s somatographies
  • Gonzalo M. Pavés: The discreet charm of the butterfly pierced by a pin. Federico Fellini, Milo Manara, and the comic book
  • Olga Michael: PTSD and female sexuality in the aftermath of childhood and adolescent sexual abuse in Una’s Becoming Unbecoming
  • Meg-John Barker: Plural selves, queer, and comics
  • Ivo Jirásek: Holistic leisure education through the Czech Rapid Arrows comics
  • Bruce Mutard: Vita Longa, Ars Breva
  • Sydney Phillips Heifler: Romance comics, dangerous girls, and the importance of fathers
  • Benjamin Fraser: Tactile comics, disability studies and the mind’s eye: on “A Boat Tour” (2017) in Venice with Max
  • Cara Gormally: The baby-making black hole
  • Tatiana Prorokova-Konrad: Child soldiers in transatlantic graphic narratives of war
  • Fionnuala Doran: Alone amidst X-men: Rogue, sexuality, and mental illness
  • J. Andrew Deman: Busting Loose: Ms. Marvel and post-rape trauma in X-Men comics
  • Pfunzo Sidogi: (South) Africa’s online animation revolution: the case of Jonas Lekganyane’s The adventures of Noko Mashaba
  • Jillian Fleck: A stranger heritage: Canadian identity in the comics of Michael DeForge
  • Vlad Beronja: Twilight zones of history: Aleksandar Zograf’s Regards from Serbia and the Serbian alternative comics of the 1990s
  • Giorgio Busi Rizzi: Immigrant song: nostalgic tensions in Shaun Tan’s The Arrival
  • Maria Pagès: The spreading of technical knowledge in post-Civil War Spain: the example of Josep Escobar
  • Tomasz Żaglewski: From white eagles to turbopoles. The specifics of superhero narratives in Polish comic books
  • Tomasz Żaglewski: The Impossibles revived: Hanna-Barbera’s superhero universe in TV and comics
  • Camilla Baasch Andersen: Musings on the comic book contract project and legal design thinking
  • Paul Mountfort: Tintin, gender and desire
  • Keith Friedlander: Beyond alternative: Michael DeForge and the new grotesque
  • Delilah Bermudez Brataas: Gods and monsters: authorial creation in Gaiman’s Sandman and McCreery and Del Col’s Kill Shakespeare
  • Leonie Brialey: Varieties of sincerity and irony in the work of Michael Leunig and Mary Leunig
  • Paul Uhlmann: Lines of doubt, fear and tenderness in the work of José Luis Cuevas and Tommi Parrish

Monitor 60: Neue Publikationen

Im Monitor werden in unregelmäßigen Abständen aktuelle Publikationen aus den letzten 6 Monaten vorgestellt, die für die Comicforschung relevant sein könnten. Die kurzen Ankündigungstexte dazu stammen von den jeweiligen Verlagsseiten. Haben Sie Anregungen oder Hinweise auf Neuerscheinungen, die übersehen worden sind und hier erwähnt werden sollten? Das Team freut sich über eine Mail an redaktion@comicgesellschaft.de.
Zu früheren Monitoren.


Language Play in Contemporary Swedish Comic Strips

Language Play and Creativity, Bd. 3

Kristy Beers Fägersten
De Gruyter
214 Seiten
Juni 2020
Verlagsseite

„This book focuses on the unexplored context of contemporary Swedish comic strips as sites of innovative linguistic practices, where humor is derived from language play and creativity, often drawing from English and other European languages as well as social and regional dialects of Swedish. The overall purpose of the book is to highlight linguistic playfulness in Swedish comic strips, as an example of practices as yet unobserved and unaccounted for in theories of linguistic humor as applied to comics scholarship.
The book familiarizes the reader with the Swedish language and linguistic culture as well as contemporary Swedish comic strips, with chapters focusing on specific strategies of language play and linguistic humor, such as mocking Swedish dialects and Swedish-accented foreign language usage, invoking English language popular culture, swearing in multiple languages, and turn-final code-switching to English to signal the punchline.
The book will appeal to readers interested in humor, comics, or how linguistic innovation, language play, and language contact each can further the modern development of language, exemplified by the case of Swedish.“

Graphic Indigeneity: Comics in the Americas and Australasia *

Frederick Luis Aldama (Hg.)
University Press of Mississippi
400 Seiten
Juni 2020
Verlagsseite

„Cultural works by and about Indigenous identities, histories, and experiences circulate far and wide. However, not all films, animation, television shows, and comic books lead to a nuanced understanding of Indigenous realities.
Acclaimed comics scholar Frederick Luis Aldama shines light on how mainstream comics have clumsily distilled and reconstructed Indigenous identities and experiences. He and contributors emphasize how Indigenous comic artists are themselves clearing new visual-verbal narrative spaces for articulating more complex histories, cultures, experiences, and narratives of self.
To that end, Aldama brings together scholarship that explores both the representation and misrepresentation of Indigenous subjects and experiences as well as research that analyzes and highlights the extraordinary work of Indigenous comic artists. Among others, the book examines Daniel Parada’s Zotz, Puerto Rican comics Turey el Taíno and La Borinqueña, and Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection.
This volume’s wide-armed embrace of comics by and about Indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australasia is a first step to understanding how the histories of colonial and imperial domination connect the violent wounds that still haunt across continents. Aldama and contributors resound this message: Indigeneity in comics is an important, powerful force within our visual-verbal narrative arts writ large.“

 

Rebuilding Story Worlds: The Obscure Cities by Schuiten and Peeters

East Asian Popular Culture

Jan Baetens
Rutgers University Press
198 Seiten
Juni 2020
Verlagsseite

„A collaboration between Belgian artist François Schuiten and French writer Benoît Peeters, The Obscure Cities is one of the few comics series to achieve massive popularity while remaining highly experimental in form and content. Set in a parallel world, full of architecturally distinctive city-states, The Obscure Cities also represents one of the most impressive pieces of world-building in any form of literature.
Rebuilding Story Worlds offers the first full-length study of this seminal series, exploring both the artistic traditions from which it emerges and the innovative ways it plays with genre, gender, and urban space. Comics scholar Jan Baetens examines how Schuiten’s work as an architectural designer informs the series’ concerns with the preservation of historic buildings. He also includes an original interview with Peeters, which reveals how poststructuralist critical theory influenced their construction of a rhizomatic fictional world, one which has made space for fan contributions through the Alta Plana website.
Synthesizing cutting-edge approaches from both literary and visual studies, Rebuilding Story Worlds will give readers a new appreciation for both the aesthetic ingenuity of The Obscure Cities and its nuanced conception of politics.“

The Ages of the Black Panther: Essays on the King of Wakanda in Comic Books *

Joseph J. Darowski (Hg.)
McFarland
234 Seiten
Juli 2020
Verlagsseite

„Black Panther was the first black superhero in mainstream comic books, and his most iconic adventures are analyzed here. This collection of new essays explores Black Panther’s place in the Marvel universe, focusing on the comic books. With topics ranging from the impact apartheid and the Black Panther Party had on the comic to theories of gender and animist imagery, these essays analyze individual storylines and situate them within the socio-cultural framework of the time periods in which they were created, drawing connections that deepen understanding of both popular culture and the movements of society. Supporting characters such as Everett K. Ross and T’Challa’s sister Shuri are also considered. From his creation in 1966 by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee up through the character’s recent adventures by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze, more than fifty years of the Black Panther’s history are addressed.“

 

Archie’s Rivals in Teen Comics, 1940s-1970s: An Illustrated History

Michelle Nolan
McFarland
266 Seiten
Juni 2020
Verlagsseite

„This is the first book to comprehensively examine the multitude of non-Archie teen humor comic books, including girls and boys such as Patsy Walker, Hedy Wolfe, Buzz Baxter and Wendy Parker from Marvel; Judy Foster, Buzzy, Binky and Scribbly from DC; Candy from Quality Comics; and Hap Hazard from Ace Comics. It covers, often for the first time, the history of the characters, who drew them, why (or why not) they succeeded as rivals for the Archie Series, highlights of both unusual and typical stories and much more. The author provides major plotlines and a history of the development of each series. Much has been written about the Archie characters, but until now very little has been told about most of their many comic book competitors.“

 

Manga Cultures and the Female Gaze

East Asian Popular Culture

Kathryn Hemmann
Palgrave
182 Seiten
April 2020
Verlagsseite

„The female gaze is used by writers and readers to examine narratives from a perspective that sees women as subjects instead of objects, and the application of a female gaze to male-dominated discourses can open new avenues of interpretation. This book explores how female manga artists have encouraged the female gaze within their work and how female readers have challenged the male gaze pervasive in many forms of popular media. Each of the chapters offers a close reading of influential manga and fancomics to illustrate the female gaze as a mode of resistant reading and creative empowerment. By employing a female gaze, professional and amateur creators are able to shape and interpret texts in a manner that emphasizes the role of female characters while challenging and reconfiguring gendered themes and issues.“

 


*Die ComFor-Redaktion bedauert den Mangel an Diversität in dieser Publikation. Wir sind bestrebt, möglichst neutral über das Feld der Comicforschung in all seiner Breite zu informieren und redaktionelle Selektionsprozesse auf ein Minimum zu beschränken. Gleichzeitig sind wir uns jedoch auch der problematischen Strukturen des Wissenschaftsbetriebs bewusst, die häufig dazu führen, dass insbesondere Comicforscherinnen sowie jene mit marginalisierten Identitäten weniger sichtbar sind. Wir wissen, dass dieses Ungleichgewicht oft nicht der Intention der Herausgeber_innen / Veranstalter_innen entspricht und möchten dies auch nicht unterstellen, wollen aber dennoch darauf aufmerksam machen, um ein Bewusstsein für dieses Problem zu schaffen.

Publikationshinweis: Closure 6.5: Obszönität und Tabubruch in den Comics der Familie Crumb

Das Kieler e-Journal für Comicforschung Closure hat – unter tatkräftiger Mitarbeit seitens mehrerer ComFor-Mitglieder_innen – die letzten Wochen und Monate genutzt und nach der letztjährigen Ausgabe zu Nicolas Mahler eine weitere Sondernummer veröffentlicht: herausgegeben von unserer zweiten Vorsitzenden und Mitbegründerin der AG Comicforschung der GfM Véronique Sina und Kalina Kupczynska versammelt die Ausgabe 6.5. Beiträge zur Obszönität und zum Tabubruch in den Comics der Familie Crumb; darunter auch weitere Texte von Comfor-Mitgliedern.

Ankündigungstext:

»[…] in Worten läßt Crumb ständig die Hosen runter, in den zahllosen Zeichnungen aber zieht er sie wieder hoch und schreitet mit festem Schritt sein Terrain ab« schrieb Robert Gernhardt 1982 in Der Spiegel, anlässlich der Veröffentlichung von Robert Crumbs Sketchbook 1966–1967 im deutschen Verlag Zweitausendeins. Zu dieser Zeit war Aline Kominsky-Crumb in Deutschland weitgehend unbekannt, und dies obwohl Crumb ›sein Terrain‹ bereits seit 1972 immer wieder in Form kollaborativer Arbeiten mit ihr teilte. In diesem Zusammenhang spricht Hillary Chute völlig zurecht von einem kulturtypischen »double standard«. Denn während die Künstlerin wiederholt für ihre als ›pornografisch‹ und ›primitiv‹ bezeichneten Werke kritisiert, verkannt und aus der ›kanonischen‹ Comicgeschichtsschreibung sowie -forschung ausgeschlossen wird, wird Robert Crumb, dessen Werke nicht minder kontrovers oder tabubrechend sind, als genialer Comickünstler gefeiert. Dabei vereint ein Aspekt das Comic-Schaffen von Robert Crumb und Aline Kominsky-Crumb mit verblüffender Konsequenz: Beide zeichnen autobiografisch.

Beiträge:

  • Ole Frahm: »How could anyone say that our work is repetitious.« »I yam what I yam an’ thass al I yam…« – Differenz und Wiederholung der autobiografischen Comicfigur in den gemeinsamen Arbeiten von Aline Kominsky-Crumb und Robert Crumb
  • Kalina Kupczynska : »Ärger mit den Frauen«. VerCrumbte Bekenntnisse an der Kreuzung der Diskurse
  • Katharina Serles: The Book of Robert. Crumb und die ›illustrierte‹ Schöpfung
  • Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Sarah Lightman: Aline Kominsky Crumb in conversation with Sarah Lightman
  • Lukas Etter: »It[’]s a Relief !«Verbal Aspects of Aline Kominsky’s Style
  • Véronique Sina: »The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly« Obszönität und Tabubruch in den Comics von Aline Kominsky-Crumb
  • Joanna Nowotny: Gesammelte Subjektivität. Paradoxien und Analogien von Form, Inhalt und Rahmung in Sophie Crumbs The Evolution of a Crazy Artist

Weitere Informationen zu den Beiträgen sowie die PDF der Ausgabe finden sich auf der Webseite der Closure.

 

Publikationshinweis: ComFor Tagungsband „Spaces Between“

Wir freuen uns, die Publikation des Tagungsbands der 13. ComFor Jahrestagung, die im September 2018 in Köln stattfand, zu verkünden. Unter Herausgeberscchaft der ComFor-Mitglieder Nina Eckhoff-Heindl und Véronique Sina versammelt der Band unter dem Titel Spaces Between: Gender, Diversity, and Identity in Comics einschlägige Beiträge zahlreicher Mitglieder und nicht-Mitglieder.

 

Nina Eckhoff-Heindl and Véronique Sina (eds.)

Spaces Between: Gender, Diversity, and Identity in Comics

Springer, 2020

ISBN 978-3-658-30115-6

 

Verlagsbeschreibung:

„The contributions gathered in this volume exhibit a great variety of interdisciplinary perspectives on and theoretical approaches to the notion of spaces between’. Theydraw our attention to the nexus between the medium of comics and the categories of difference as well as identity such as gender, dis/ability, age, and ethnicity, in order to open and intensify an interdisciplinary conversation between comics studies and intersectional identity studies.“ → zur Verlagsseite

Inhalt:

  • Cocca, Carolyn: „Reproducing Inequality and Representing Diversity: The Politics of Gender in Superhero Comics“
  • Blank, Juliane: „Gendered Violence and Structures of Power. Reclaiming the Victim Narrative in the Netflix Show Marvel’s Jessica Jones
  • Brown, Jeffrey A.: „Spider-Analogues: The Unmarking and Unmasking of White Male Superheroism“
  • Crawford, Philip: „My Noose Around that Pretty’s Neck: Meditations on Matt Baker’s Good Girls
  • Miller, Ann: „The Nude and the Naked: From Fine Art to Comics“
  • Rauchenbacher, Marina, und Katharina Serles: „Fragmented and Framed. Precarious ‘Body Signs’ in Comics by Regina Hofer, Ulli Lust, Barbara Yelin and Peer Meter“
  • Veith, Natalie: „Othering Voices and the Voice of the Other: The Depiction of Joseph Merrick in From Hell
  • Neldner, Jonas: „Dis/ability and Hybridity: The Bodies of Charles Burns“
  • Becker, Romain: „The Binary Comics of a Non-binary Artist: How Vaughn Bodé’s Identity Structured His Art“
  • Eckhoff-Heindl, Nina: „Branford the Best Bee in the World. The Socio-Culturally Imprinted Self of Anthropomorphic Bodies“
  • Sina, Véronique: „‚If only I’d had a nose job‘. Representations of the Gendered Jewish Body in the Works of Aline Kominsky-Crumb“
  • Berndt, Jaqueline: „Manga Aging: Grannies and Gutters
  • Oksman, Tahneer: „An Art of Loss“

→ Zum Bericht der 13. ComFor Jahrestagung
→ Zur Übersicht aller ComFor Jahrestagungen
→ Zur Übersicht aller ComFor Tagungsbände

Monitor 59: Neue Publikationen

Im Monitor werden in unregelmäßigen Abständen aktuelle Publikationen aus den letzten 6 Monaten vorgestellt, die für die Comicforschung relevant sein könnten. Die kurzen Ankündigungstexte dazu stammen von den jeweiligen Verlagsseiten. Haben Sie Anregungen oder Hinweise auf Neuerscheinungen, die übersehen worden sind und hier erwähnt werden sollten? Das Team freut sich über eine Mail an redaktion@comicgesellschaft.de.
Zu früheren Monitoren.


Monstrous Women in Comics

Horror and Monstrosity Studies Series

Samantha Langsdale, Elizabeth Rae Coody (Hgs.)
University Press of Mississippi
296 Seiten
April 2020
Verlagsseite

„Monsters seem to be everywhere these days, in popular shows on television, in award-winning novels, and again and again in Hollywood blockbusters. They are figures that lurk in the margins and so, by contrast, help to illuminate the center—the embodiment of abnormality that summons the definition of normalcy by virtue of everything they are not.
Samantha Langsdale and Elizabeth Rae Coody’s edited volume explores the coding of woman as monstrous and how the monster as dangerously evocative of women/femininity/the female is exacerbated by the intersection of gender with sexuality, race, nationality, and disability. To analyze monstrous women is not only to examine comics, but also to witness how those constructions correspond to women’s real material experiences.
Each section takes a critical look at the cultural context surrounding varied monstrous voices: embodiment, maternity, childhood, power, and performance. Featured are essays on such comics as Faith, Monstress, Bitch Planet, and Batgirl and such characters as Harley Quinn and Wonder Woman.
This volume probes into the patriarchal contexts wherein men are assumed to be representative of the normative, universal subject, such that women frequently become monsters.
Contributions by Novia Shih-Shan Chen, Elizabeth Rae Coody, Keri Crist-Wagner, Sara Durazo-DeMoss, Charlotte Johanne Fabricius, Ayanni C. Hanna, Christina M. Knopf, Tomoko Kuribayashi, Samantha Langsdale, Jeannie Ludlow, Marcela Murillo, Sho Ogawa, Pauline J. Reynolds, Stefanie Snider, J. Richard Stevens, Justin Wigard, Daniel F. Yezbick, and Jing Zhang.“

 

Documenting Trauma in Comics: Traumatic Pasts, Embodied Histories, and Graphic Reportage

Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels

Dominic Davies, Candida Rifkind (Hgs.)
Palgrave
345 Seiten
Mai 2020
Verlagsseite

„Why are so many contemporary comics and graphic narratives written as memoirs or documentaries of traumatic events? Is there a specific relationship between the comics form and the documentation and reportage of trauma? How do the interpretive demands made on comics readers shape their relationships with traumatic events? And how does comics’ documentation of traumatic pasts operate across national borders and in different cultural, political, and politicised contexts?
The sixteen chapters and three comics included in Documenting Trauma in Comics set out to answer exactly these questions. Drawing on a range of historically and geographically expansive examples, the contributors bring their different perspectives to bear on the tangled and often fraught intersections between trauma studies, comics studies, and theories of documentary practices and processes. The result is a collection that shows how comics is not simply related to trauma, but a generative force that has become central to its remembrance, documentation, and study.“

 

The Graphic Lives of Fathers: Memory, Representation, and Fatherhood in North American Autobiographical Comics

Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels

Mihaela Precup
Palgrave
244 Seiten
Februar 2020
Verlagsseite

„This book explores the representation of fatherhood in contemporary North American autobiographical comics that depict paternal conduct from the post-war period up to the present. It offers equal space to autobiographical comics penned by daughters who represent their fathers’ complicated and often disappointing behavior, and to works by male cartoonists who depict and usually celebrate their own experiences as fathers. This book asks questions about how the desire to forgive or be forgiven can compromise the authors’ ethics or dictate style, considers the ownership of life stories whose subjects cannot or do not agree to be represented, and investigates the pervasive and complicated effects of dominant masculinities. By close reading these cartoonists’ complex strategies of (self-)representation, this volume also places photography and archival work alongside the problematic legacy of self-deprecation carried on from underground comics, and shows how the vocabulary of graphic narration can work with other media and at the intersection of various genres and modes to produce a valuable scrutiny of contemporary norms of fatherhood.“

 

Apocalyptic Ecology in the Graphic Novel: Life and the Environment After Societal Collapse

Clint Jones
McFarland
189 Seiten
April 2020
Verlagsseite

„As awareness of climate change grows, so do the number of cultural depictions of environmental disaster. Graphic novels have reliably produced dramatizations of such disasters. Many use themes of dystopian hopefulness, or the enjoyment readers experience from seeing society prevail in times of apocalypse.
This book argues that these generally inspirational narratives contribute to a societal apathy for real-life environmental degradation.
By examining the narratives and art of the environmental apocalypse in contemporary graphic novels, the author stands against dystopian hope, arguing that the ways in which we experience depictions of apocalypse shape how we respond to real crises.“

 

Ms. Marvel’s America: No Normal

Jessica Baldanzi, Hussein Rashid (Hgs.)
University Press of Mississippi
280 Seiten
Februar 2020
Verlagsseite

„Mainstream superheroes are becoming more and more diverse, with new identities for Spider-Man, Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man. Though the Marvel-verse is becoming much more racially, ethnically, and gender diverse, many of these comics remain shy about religion.
The new Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan, is a notable exception, not only because she is written and conceived by two women, Sana Amanat and G. Willow Wilson, but also because both of these women bring their own experiences as Muslim Americans to the character.
This distinct collection brings together scholars from a range of disciplines including literature, cultural studies, religious studies, pedagogy, and communications to engage with a single character, exploring Khan’s significance for a broad readership. While acknowledged as the first Muslim superhero to headline her own series, her character appears well developed and multifaceted in many other ways. She is the first character to take over an established superhero persona, Ms. Marvel, without a reboot of the series or death of the original character. The teenager is also a second-generation immigrant, born to parents who arrived in New Jersey from Pakistan.
With essays from and about diverse voices on an array of topics from fashion to immigration history to fandom, this volume includes an exclusive interview with Ms. Marvel author and cocreator G. Willow Wilson by gender studies scholar Shabana Mir.
Contributions by José Alaniz, Jessica Baldanzi, Eric Berlatsky, Peter E. Carlson, Sika A. Dagbovie-Mullins, Antero Garcia, Aaron Kashtan, Winona Landis, A. David Lewis, Martin Lund, Shabana Mir, Kristin M. Peterson, Nicholaus Pumphrey, Hussein Rashid, and J. Richard Stevens.“

 

Children’s and Young Adult Comics

Bloomsbury Comics Studies

Gwen Athene Tarbox
Bloomsbury
200 Seiten
April 2020
Verlagsseite

„A complete critical guide to the history, form and contexts of the genre, Children’s and Young Adult Comics helps readers explore how comics have engaged with one of their most crucial audiences.
In an accessible and easy-to-navigate format, the book covers such topics as

  • The history of comics for children and young adults, from early cartoon strips to the rise of comics as mainstream children’s literature
  • Cultural contexts – from the Comics Code Authority to graphic novel adaptations of popular children’s texts such as Neil Gaiman’s Coraline
  • Key texts – from familiar favourites like Peanuts and Archie Comics to YA graphic novels such as Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese and hybrid works including the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series
  • Important theoretical and critical approaches to studying children’s and young adult comics

Children’s and Young Adult Comics includes a glossary of crucial critical terms and a lengthy resources section to help students and readers develop their understanding of these genres and pursue independent study.“

Zeitschriftenmonitor 07: Neue Ausgaben

Der Zeitschriftenmonitor ist eine Unterkategorie des Monitors. Hier werden in unregelmäßigen Abständen kürzlich erschienene Ausgaben und Artikel internationaler Zeitschriften zur Comicforschung sowie Sonderhefte mit einschlägigem Themenschwerpunkt vorgestellt. Die Ankündigungstexte und/oder Inhaltsverzeichnisse stammen von den jeweiligen Websites.
Haben Sie Anregungen oder Hinweise auf Neuerscheinungen, die übersehen worden sind und hier erwähnt werden sollten? Das Team freut sich über eine Mail an redaktion@comicgesellschaft.de.
Zu früheren Monitoren


Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics

online (im Abonnement)
Website

  • Benjamin Fraser: Tactile comics, disability studies and the mind’s eye: on “A Boat Tour” (2017) in Venice with Max
  • Cara Gormally: The baby-making black hole
  • Tatiana Prorokova-Konrad: Child soldiers in transatlantic graphic narratives of war
  • Fionnuala Doran: Alone amidst X-men: Rogue, sexuality, and mental illness
  • J. Andrew Deman: Busting Loose: Ms. Marvel and post-rape trauma in X-Men comics
  • Pfunzo Sidogi: (South) Africa’s online animation revolution: the case of Jonas Lekganyane’s The adventures of Noko Mashaba
  • Jillian Fleck: A stranger heritage: Canadian identity in the comics of Michael DeForge
  • Vlad Beronja: Twilight zones of history: Aleksandar Zograf’s Regards from Serbia and the Serbian alternative comics of the 1990s
  • Giorgio Busi Rizzi: Immigrant song: nostalgic tensions in Shaun Tan’s The Arrival
  • Maria Pagès: The spreading of technical knowledge in post-Civil War Spain: the example of Josep Escobar
  • Tomasz Żaglewski: From white eagles to turbopoles. The specifics of superhero narratives in Polish comic books
  • Tomasz Żaglewski: The Impossibles revived: Hanna-Barbera’s superhero universe in TV and comics
  • Patrick Grant & Elizabeth MacFarlane: Designing a literary workshop for the graphic novel: a critical tradition and a new literary form
  • Camilla Baasch Andersen: Musings on the comic book contract project and legal design thinking
  • Paul Mountfort: ‘Tintin, gender and desire’
  • Keith Friedlander: Beyond alternative: Michael DeForge and the new grotesque
  • Delilah Bermudez Brataas: Gods and monsters: authorial creation in Gaiman’s Sandman and McCreery and Del Col’s Kill Shakespeare
  • Leonie Brialey: Varieties of sincerity and irony in the work of Michael Leunig and Mary Leunig
  • Paul Uhlmann: Lines of doubt, fear and tenderness in the work of José Luis Cuevas and Tommi Parrish

 

Studies in Comics 10.2

Themenschwerpunkt: Comics and Nation

online (im Abonnement)
Website

  • Tiffany Neo, Alex Mitchell: Expanding comics theory to account for interactivity: A preliminary
  • Debarghya Sanyal: The sound of silence: Blank spaces, fading narratives and fragile frames in comics
  • Leslie McMurtry: Dark night of the soul: Applicability of theory in comics and radio through the scripted podcast drama
  • John C. Traver: Hero or villain? Moral ambiguity and narrative structure under the Comics Code in 1950s Superman stories
  • Benjamin Fraser: On polysemiotic interactions, visual paratexts and image-specific translation in comics: The case of Rodolfo Santullo and Matías Bergara’s Dengue
  • Mathieu Donner: Rethinking illness through performance: The gaze and the aesthetics of health in Charles Burns’ Black Hole

European Comic Art 13.1

online (open access)
Website

  • Laurence Grove: Twenty Years of IBDS
  • Matthew Screech: Gauguin and Van Gogh Meet the Ninth Art: Postmodernism and Myths about Great Artists
  • Mike Classon Frangos: Liv Strömquist’s Fruit of Knowledge and the Gender of Comics
  • Simone Castaldi: ‚The Inexhaustible Surface of Things‘: Stefano Tamburini’s Comic Book Work
  • Dani Filc: Tintin and Corto Maltese: The European Adventurer Meets the Colonial Other

 

Monitor 58: Neue Publikationen

Im Monitor werden in unregelmäßigen Abständen aktuelle Publikationen aus den letzten 6 Monaten vorgestellt, die für die Comicforschung relevant sein könnten. Die kurzen Ankündigungstexte dazu stammen von den jeweiligen Verlagsseiten. Haben Sie Anregungen oder Hinweise auf Neuerscheinungen, die übersehen worden sind und hier erwähnt werden sollten? Das Team freut sich über eine Mail an redaktion@comicgesellschaft.de.
Zu früheren Monitoren.


UK Feminist Cartoons and Comics: A Critical Survey

Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels

Nicola Streeten
Palgrave
274 Seiten
Januar 2020
Verlagsseite

„This book demonstrates that since the 1970s, British feminist cartoons and comics have played an important part in the Women’s Movement in Britain. A key component of this has been humour. This aspect of feminist history in Britain has not previously been documented. The book questions why and how British feminists have used humour in comics form to present serious political messages. It also interrogates what the implications have been for the development of feminist cartoons and for the popularisation of feminism in Britain. The work responds to recent North American feminist comics scholarship that concentrates on North American autobiographical comics of trauma by women. This book highlights the relevance of humour and provides a comparative British perspective.
The time frame is 1970 to 2019, chosen as representative of a significant historical period for the development of feminist cartoon and comics activity and of feminist theory and practice. Research methods include archival data collection, complemented by interviews with selected cartoonists. Visual and textual analysis of specific examples draws on literature from humour theory, comics studies and feminist theory. Examples are also considered as responses to the economic, social and political contexts in which they were produced.“

 

The Phantom Comics and the New Left: A Socialist Superhero

Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels

Robert Aman
Palgrave
137 Seiten
Februar 2020
Verlagsseite

„This book is about the Phantom in Sweden, or, more correctly, about Sweden in the Phantom. Robert Aman uncovers how a peripheral American superhero – created in 1936 by Lee Falk – that has been accused of both racism and sexism has become a national concern in a country that several researchers have labelled the most antiracist and gender equal in the world. When a group of Swedish creators began their official production of licensed scripts based on The Phantomcomic in 1972, the character was redefined through the prism of New Left ideology. The plots of these comics, besides aiming to entertain, also sought to affirm for readers the righteousness and validity of an ideological doctrine that, at the time, was dominant among the Swedish public and influential in the country’s foreign policy. Ultimately, Aman demonstrates how the Swedish Phantom embodies values and a political point of view that reflect how Sweden sees itself and its role in the world.“

 

With Great Power Comes Great Pedagogy: Teaching, Learning, and Comics

Susan E. Kirtley, Antero Garcia, Peter E. Carlson (Hgs.)
University Press of Mississippi
270 Seiten
Februar 2020
Verlagsseite

„More and more educators are using comics in the classroom. As such, this edited volume sets out the stakes, definitions, and exemplars of recent comics pedagogy, from K-12 contexts to higher education instruction to ongoing communities of scholars working outside of the academy.
Building upon interdisciplinary approaches to teaching comics and teaching with comics, this book brings together diverse voices to share key theories and research on comics pedagogy. By gathering scholars, creators, and educators across various fields and in K-12 as well as university settings, editors Susan E. Kirtley, Antero Garcia, and Peter E. Carlson significantly expand scholarship.
This valuable resource offers both critical pieces and engaging interviews with key comics professionals who reflect on their own teaching experience and on considerations of the benefits of creating comics in education. Included are interviews with acclaimed comics writers Lynda Barry, Brian Michael Bendis, Kelly Sue DeConnick, and David Walker, as well as essays spanning from studying the use of superhero comics in the classroom to the ways comics can enrich and empower young readers.
The inclusion of creators, scholars, and teachers leads to perspectives that make this volume unlike any other currently available. These voices echo the diverse needs of the many stakeholders invested in using comics in education today.“

 

How the Other Half Laughs: The Comic Sensibility in American Culture, 1895-1920

Jean Lee Cole
University Press of Mississippi
214 Seiten
Februar 2020
Verlagsseite

„Taking up the role of laughter in society, How the Other Half Laughs: The Comic Sensibility in American Culture, 1895–1920 examines an era in which the US population was becoming increasingly multiethnic and multiracial. Comic artists and writers, hoping to create works that would appeal to a diverse audience, had to formulate a method for making the “other half” laugh. In magazine fiction, vaudeville, and the comic strip, the oppressive conditions of the poor and the marginalized were portrayed unflinchingly, yet with a distinctly comic sensibility that grew out of caricature and ethnic humor.
Author Jean Lee Cole analyzes Progressive Era popular culture, providing a critical angle to approach visual and literary humor about ethnicity—how avenues of comedy serve as expressions of solidarity, commiseration, and empowerment. Cole’s argument centers on the comic sensibility, which she defines as a performative act that fosters feelings of solidarity and community among the marginalized.
Cole stresses the connections between the worlds of art, journalism, and literature and the people who produced them—including George Herriman, R. F. Outcault, Rudolph Dirks, Jimmy Swinnerton, George Luks, and William Glackens—and traces the form’s emergence in the pages of Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s Journal-American and how it influenced popular fiction, illustration, and art. How the Other Half Laughs restores the newspaper comic strip to its rightful place as a transformative element of American culture at the turn into the twentieth century.“