Monitor is an irregularly published overview of publications from the previous six months that may be of relevance to comics studies scholars. The introductory texts are the respective publishers’. Do you have suggestions or information on new releases that have been overlooked and should be introduced on our website? Please let us know via email: redaktion@comicgesellschaft.de.
→ See previous Monitor posts.

Lynda Barry: A Critical Guide

Bloomsbury Comics Studies

Maaheen Ahmed
Bloomsbury Academic
February 2026
Publisher’s Website

“A complete introduction to the comics and graphic narratives of Lynda Barry, this book maps the historical and biographical contexts, key texts, the critical themes and debates surrounding her publications and the lasting impact of her work on the comics medium. With a distinctive body of work that unfolded during key moments in comics history from the much touted and criticized ‘coming-of-age’ of comics to the rise of underground and alternative comics and the establishment of graphic novels, Barry’s comics reflect the changing status of comics, while unpacking the very constituents of the medium and testing its limits.”

Team Up: How Collaboration Powers Superhero Comics

Marie Sartain
UP of Mississippi
February 2026
Publisher’s Website

“As superhero comics have become increasingly mainstream, so too has the attention given to the creators behind them. Yet, while it is widely known that the majority of superhero comics are produced through collaborative efforts, the ways these partnerships shape creation and reception of such works remain largely unexplored.
Team Up: How Collaboration Powers Superhero Comics addresses this gap as the first book to examine the crucial role collaboration plays in the making and the reception of superhero comics by Marvel and DC. It delves into what collaboration in superhero comics entails, how these partnerships function, and their far-reaching impact on the genre and industry, both past and present.
By exploring various forms of collaboration—from the dynamic interplay between writers, editors, and artists to the passing of projects between successive creative teams and the contributions of fans to the broader media landscape—Team Up reveals that collaboration is not just a part of the superhero comics process; it is the genre’s driving force.”

Sinophone Comics: Histories, Identities, Medialities

Comics Studies

Adina Zemanek (Ed.)
De Gruyter
February 2026
Publisher’s Website

“While comics published in twentieth-century China have enjoyed extensive coverage, this volume showcases recent works from other locations in Asia and beyond: Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Italy and the US. Thus, its Sinophone framing de-centers the hegemony of China in Chinese studies, and that of Japanese manga in comics studies. Non-mangaesque productions take center stage, and a chapter on comics-related cultural exchange with Japan covers reception of Taiwanese comics.
Chapter contributors explore key themes in Sinophone studies: identity-construction and (national or medium-specific) history-writing through positive or negative connections with China as a cultural and political center, contingent on local colonial legacies, nationalist projects and other cultural factors.
At the same time, this volume underscores transnational connections, central to comics throughout this medium’s history, and recent global trends shaping media and cultural production: state support and soft power, the neoliberal emphasis on creativity and self-branding, the rise of digital platforms. Taiwan constitutes a productive site for studying such issues, hence its centrality to this project.”

Strange Fruit and Bitter Roots: Black History in Contemporary Graphic Narrative

Daniel Stein
UP of Mississippi
January 2026
Publisher’s Website

“Since the publication of The Middle Passage: White Ships/Black Cargo by Tom Feelings, more African American creators have used graphic narratives to explore key moments in colonial and US history. These graphic stories address the painful legacies of anti-Black violence and the long history of racial injustice, using the power of comics to both confront the past and offer visions for the future.
From the Middle Passage and slavery to the civil rights movement and today’s fight for Black Lives, these narratives reimagine history and challenge oppressive systems. Through creative artwork and storytelling, they give fresh perspectives on racial violence and racism in US visual culture, developing new visual languages and techniques to express these complex histories.
Strange Fruit and Bitter Roots connects scholarly research on Black history with some of the most impactful African American graphic novels. The book explores works such as King by Ho Che Anderson; The Middle Passage by Tom Feelings; Nat Turner by Kyle Baker; Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Nnedi Okorafor; Bitter Root by David Walker, Chuck Brown, and Sanford Greene; Blue Hand Mojo by John Jennings; Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall and Hugo Martínez; and many others, bringing a deeper understanding of how graphic narratives can challenge historical narratives and shape conversations about race and identity today.”

Comics is…: Debating the Subject of Comics Studies

Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels

Martin Lund
Palgrave Macmillan
January 2026
Publisher’s Website

“Taking the contested and contestable meaning of “comics” as its starting point, Comics is… brings together ten comics scholars from different disciplines and with different approaches to what some of us call comics, to debate and discuss the foundations of Comics Studies in a provocative and thought-provoking way.
The book is built around a three-part structure: each contributor writes a sentence or brief statement, starting from the prompt “Comics is…”; a colleague replies to the statement with a reflection, critique, or application of the statement or the position it advances; and, finally, the author of the statement responds to the reply in a brief essay.
Through its dialogical format, the book is likely to spark new conversations in the field; the statement–response–reply format will illustrate that the ways we think as comics scholars are processual, and any reader will find things they agree and disagree with in its pages – and, more importantly, will find occasion to reevaluate their own thinking.
Furthermore, when taken together, the “Comics is…” statements along with the responses and replies provide a barometer of the state of Comics Studies at present, exemplifying current approaches within the field and some of the thinking behind why some of us do our work in certain ways, while others choose sometimes radically different ones.”

Visual Metaphor and Drawn Narratives: Embodied Cognition and Expression in Comics

Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels

John Miers
Palgrave Macmillan
January 2026
Publisher’s Website

“This book contributes to metaphor and comics scholarship by bringing together established theories of metaphor and of depiction and applying the result to the analysis of narrative drawing. Miers synthesizes two strands in recent comics scholarship: the analysis of comics as drawn texts, informed by art history and aesthetic philosophy, and the use of contemporary metaphor theory as a lens to examine how meaning is produced in comics. It aims to enrich and substantiate claims about the metaphorical characteristics of pictorial representations, and develop our understanding of how metaphor use is guided by stylistic features of drawing that are characteristic of the comics form.”

The Materiality of Digital Comics

Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels

Ian Hague
Palgrave Macmillan
January 2026
Publisher’s Website

“The Materiality of Digital Comics asks how we can speak meaningfully about digital comics, and how we can do so in a way that remains meaningful as time passes and technology changes. In Part I, the book proposes a model for the study of digital comics that is founded on a material understanding of the form. Across three chapters, the book explores what digital comics are, in physical terms, and how we might structure our understanding of digital comics using six key terms: identifier, file type, software, firmware, hardware, and producers/readers. Each of these elements is explored individually before the relationships between them are discussed. The second part of the book develops this framework across three key areas: economics, histories and geographies. Chapter 5 explores the sales of digital comics and highlights a variety of costs and risks in digital comics that do not apply straightforwardly to print comics. Chapter 6 considers questions of histories as they pertain to digital comics, framing the discussion around four stages in the “life cycle” of a digital comic: creation, maintenance, movement and destruction. Chapter 7 addresses geographies through four topics: localities, nationalities, languages and law. Central to this chapter is the argument that digital comics are physically located things. The book concludes with a discussion of how the model presented here, and the concerns it raises, might be used actively for further scholarship, as well as an outline of other key areas that might be explored through a material analysis of digital comics in future.”

Fantastic Adventures in the Comics: Rockets, Genies, and Bug-Eyed Monsters, 1940s-1980s

William Schoell
McFarland
December 2025
Publisher’s Website

“Science fiction and fantasy comics present colorful if disparate visions of the future, from post-apocalyptic nightmare scenarios and prophetic explorations of technical advances to startling stories of space colonization. This book analyzes the genre from the 1940s to the 1980s, examining works such as tales of virile adventurers and their space “babes” to more thought-provoking stories of the clash of alien cultures and frightening, ironic looks at the results of outer space travel.
This volume scrutinizes the output of publishers such as DC Comics (Strange Adventures and Tales of the Unexpected, etc.); EC comics (Weird Science and Weird Fantasies); Marvel Comics (various series with monsters and grotesque alien creatures); Charlton (numerous fantasy magazines); American Comics Group (Forbidden Worlds and Adventures into the Unknown); as well as comics from Dell, Gold Key, Avon, Fiction House, and many others. ”

The Code of the Superhero: Morality and Citizenship in the Comics

Ryan L. Johnson
McFarland
November 2025
Publisher’s Website

“Since their inception, superheroes in comic books and other media have endeavored to guide the nation’s children and adults. But what have superheroes been teaching, and how has that curriculum changed from generation to generation? This examination of American superhero history investigates the transforming landscape of the so-called Superhero Code. It discusses the history of the costumed crusaders across more than eight decades, then dives into a case study of a comic-book hero and a transmedial adaptation. Over the course of 6 eras and 12 characters, the book explores the responses of each new generation of characters to contemporary political and social concerns as well as the superheroes’ timeless moral messages for readers young and old.”

Rezeptionsprozesse zu erzählenden Comics: Eine rekonstruktive Studie in der Sekundarstufe I

Didaktik der deutschen Sprache und Literatur

Stefanie Granzow
Waxmann Verlag
October 2025
Publisher’s website

“Comics vereinen visuelle, sprachliche und narrative Elemente, sodass die deutschdidaktischen Perspektiven auf den Gegenstand vielfältig sind. Welche konkreten Potenziale das multimodale Medium Comic für literarisches und ästhetisches Lernen birgt, wird von dieser Studie in den Blick gefasst. Es wird untersucht, wie Schüler:innen der Sekundarstufe I an Schulen in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern und Hamburg zwei erzählende Comics lesen, besprechen und deuten. Aus videografisch aufgezeichneten Kleingruppendiskussionen werden unterschiedliche Rezeptionsmodi herausgearbeitet: vom detektivischen Detailblick bis zum intensiven Eintauchen in die Erzählung. Die fachdidaktische Reflexion und praxisnahe Impulse für den Literaturunterricht runden die Untersuchung ab. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, wie die Erzählkraft von Comics literarästhetische Lern- und Bildungsprozesse stimulieren kann – und welche Herausforderungen sie bereithalten.”

The Look of the 1960s: Barbarella and Pulp Pop Comics

World Comics and Graphic Nonfiction

Jan Baetens, Hugo Frey
U of Texas P
October 2025
Publisher’s Website

“As a form of visual art, comic books rely on a distinct and eye-catching aesthetic. This is especially true of the iconic comics, graphic novels, and illustrations of the 1960s and 1970s. The Look of the 1960s explores the sources of inspiration that influenced the world of comics, beginning with the well-known French comics series Barbarella.
Noted comics scholars Jan Baetens and Hugo Frey analyze the impacts of the often-provocative images featured in the comics of the 1960s, which pushed back against French censorship in a politically tense time, and detail how women resisted their objectification in the comic book industry. Barbarella left its mark on the world and gained international attention, inspiring a movie adaptation and changing the look and content of other popular comics. The “Pulp Pop” movement remains relevant today, continuing to influence the art and political world. With new information about artists and an astute analysis of sociopolitical influence, The Look of the 1960s offers deep insights, making it a must read for comics fans all over the world.”

Manga: A New History of Japanese Comics

Eike Exner
Yale UP
August 2025
Publisher’s Website

“The immensely popular art form of manga, or Japanese comics, has made its mark across global pop culture, influencing film, visual art, video games, and more. This book is the first to tell the history of comics in Japan as a single, continuous story, focusing on manga as multipanel cartoons that show stories rather than narrate them. Eike Exner traces these cartoons’ gradual evolution from the 1890s until today, culminating in manga’s explosion in global popularity in the 2000s and the current shift from print periodicals to digital media and smartphone apps.
Over the course of this 130-year history, Exner answers questions about the origins of Japanese comics, the establishment of their distinctive visuals, and how they became such a fundamental part of the Japanese publishing industry, incorporating well-known examples such as Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon, as well as historical manga little known outside of Japan. The book pays special attention to manga’s structural development, examining the roles played not only by star creators but also by editors and major publishers such as Kōdansha that embraced comics as a way of selling magazines to different, often gendered, readerships. This engaging narrative presents extensive new research, making it an essential read for enthusiasts and experts alike.”