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.

Drawing (in) the Feminine: Bande Dessinée and Women

Studies in Comics and Cartoons

Margaret C. Flinn (ed.)
Ohio State University Press
February 2024
Publisher’s website

“Drawing (in) the Feminine celebrates and examines the richness of contemporary women’s production in French and Francophone comics art and considers the history of representations made by both dominant and marginalized creators. Bridging historical and contemporary comics output, these essays illuminate the interfaces among genre, gender, and cultural history. Contributors from both sides of the Atlantic, and across a variety of methodologies and disciplinary orientations, challenge prevailing claims about the absence of women creators, characters, and readers in bande dessinée, arguing that women have always been part of its history. While still far from achieving parity with their male counterparts, female creators are occupying an increasingly significant portion of the French-language comics publishing industry, and creators of all genders are putting forth stories that reflect on the diversity and richness of women’s and gender-nonconforming people’s experiences. In the essays collected here, contributors push back against the ways in which the marginalization of women within bande dessinée history has overshadowed their significant contributions, extending avenues for further exploring the true diversity of a flourishing contemporary production.”

Indigenous Comics and Graphic Novels: Studies in Genre

James J. Donahue
University Press of Mississippi
March 2024
Publisher’s website

“In recent years, studios like Marvel and DC have seen enormous success transforming comics into major motion pictures. At the same time, bookstores such as Barnes & Noble in the US and Indigo in Canada have made more room for comic books and graphic novels on their shelves. Yet despite the sustained popular appeal and the heightened availability of these media, Indigenous artists continue to find their work given little attention by mainstream publishers, booksellers, production houses, and academics. Nevertheless, Indigenous artists are increasingly turning to graphic narratives, with publishers like Native Realities LLC and Highwater Press carving out ever more space for Indigenous creators.
In Indigenous Comics and Graphic Novels: Studies in Genre, James J. Donahue aims to interrogate and unravel the disparities of representation in the fields of comics studies and comics publishing. Donahue documents and analyzes the works of several Indigenous artists, including Theo Tso, Todd Houseman, and Arigon Starr. Through topically arranged chapters, the author explores a wide array of content produced by Indigenous creators, from superhero and science fiction comics to graphic novels and experimental narratives. While noting the importance of examining how Indigenous works are analyzed, Donahue emphasizes that the creation of artistic and critical spaces for Indigenous comics and graphic novels should be an essential concern for the comics studies field.”

Comics and Modernism: History, Form, and Culture

Tom Inge Series on Comics Artists

Jonathan Najarian (ed.)
University Press of Mississippi
January 2024
Publisher’s website

“Since the early 1990s, cartoonist Art Spiegelman has made the case that comics are the natural inheritor of the aesthetic tradition associated with the modernist movement of the early twentieth century. In recent years, scholars have begun to place greater import on the shared historical circumstances of early comics and literary and artistic modernism. Comics and Modernism: History, Form, and Culture is an interdisciplinary consideration of myriad social, cultural, and aesthetic connections.
Filling a gap in current scholarship, an impressively diverse group of scholars approaches the topic from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and methodologies. Drawing on work in literary studies, art history, film studies, philosophy, and material culture studies, contributors attend to the dynamic relationship between avant-garde art, literature, and comics. Essays by both established and emerging voices examine topics as divergent as early twentieth-century film, museum exhibitions, newspaper journalism, magazine illustration, and transnational literary circulation.
In presenting varied critical approaches, this book highlights important interpretive questions for the field. Contributors sometimes arrive at thoughtful consensus and at other times settle on productive disagreements. Ultimately, this collection aims to extend traditional lines of inquiry in both comics studies and modernist studies and to reveal overlaps between ostensibly disparate artistic practices and movements.”

Lost Literacies: Experiments in the Nineteenth-Century US Comic Strip

Studies in Comics and Cartoons

Alex Beringer
Ohio State University Press
January 2024
Publisher’s website

“Lost Literacies is the first full-length study of US comic strips from the period prior to the rise of Sunday newspaper comics. Where current histories assume that nineteenth-century US comics consisted solely of single-panel political cartoons or simple “proto-comics,” Lost Literacies introduces readers to an ambitious group of artists and editors who were intent on experimenting with the storytelling possibilities of the sequential strip, resulting in playful comics whose existence upends prevailing narratives about the evolution of comic strips.
Over the course of the nineteenth century, figures such as artist Frank Bellew and editor T. W. Strong introduced sequential comic strips into humor magazines and precursors to graphic novels known as “graphic albums.” These early works reached audiences in the tens of thousands. Their influences ranged from Walt Whitman’s poetry to Mark Twain’s travel writings to the bawdy stage comedies of the Bowery Theatre. Most importantly, they featured new approaches to graphic storytelling that went far beyond the speech bubbles and panel grids familiar to us today. As readers of Lost Literacies will see, these little-known early US comic strips rival even the most innovative modern comics for their diversity and ambition.”

BOOM! SPLAT! Comics and Violence

Jim Coby, Joanna Davis-McElligatt (ed.)
University Press of Mississippi
March 2024
Publisher’s website

“In 1954, the culture, distribution, and content of comics forever changed. Long a mainstay of America’s reading diet, comic books began to fall under the scrutiny of parent groups, church leaders, and politicians. The bright colors and cheaply printed pulp pages of comic books that had once provided an escape were suddenly presumed to house something lascivious, insidious, and morally corrosive. While anxieties about representations of violence in comics have largely fallen to the wayside since the moral panic of the 1950s, thematic and symbolic visual depictions of violence remain central to the comics form. BOOM! SPLAT! Comics and Violence examines violence in every iteration—physical violence enacted between people and their environments, formal and structural violence embedded in the comics language itself, representations of historical violence, and ways of reading and seeing violence.
BOOM! SPLAT! is composed of fifteen essays from renowned comics scholars and is organized thematically into four sections, including an examination of histories of violence, forms of violence, modes and systems of violence, and political and social violence. Chapters focus on well-known comics and comics creators, such as Steve Ditko, Hulk, X-Men, and the Marvel universe, to newspaper cartoon strips, postwar graphic novels, revolution, civil rights, trauma, #blacklivesmatter, and more. BOOM! SPLAT! serves as a resource to scholars and comics enthusiasts who wish to contemplate and confront the permutations, forms, structures, and discourses of violence that have always animated cartoons.
Through this interrogation, our understanding of violence moves beyond the immediately physical and interpersonal into modes of ephemeral, psychological, and ideological violence. Contributors fill critical gaps by offering sustained explorations of the function of manifold violences in the comics language—those seen, felt, and imagined. The essays in this collection are critically necessary for understanding the current and historical role that violence has played in comics and will help recognize how cartooning imbricates, resists, and expands our thinking about and experiences of violence.”

Captain America and the American Journey, 1940-2022

Richard A. Hall
McFarland
February 2024
Publisher’s website

“Captain America made his debut in 1940, just two years behind the first comic book superheroes and five years before the United States’ emergence as the world’s primary superpower at the end of World War II. His journey has been intertwined with America’s progress throughout the decades. Known as the “Sentinel of Liberty,” he has frequently provided socio-political commentary on current events as well as inspiration and warnings concerning the future.
This work explores the interconnected histories of the United States and Captain America, decade-by-decade, from the character’s origins to Chris Evans’ portrayal of him in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It examines how Captain America’s story provides a guide through America’s tenure as a global superpower, holds a mirror up to American society, and acts as a constant reminder of what America can and should be.”

Superheroes Beyond

Cormac McGarry, Liam Burke, Ian Gordon, Angela Ndalianis (eds.)
University Press of Mississippi
March 2024
Publisher’s website

“In recent years, superheroes on the page and screen have garnered increasing research and wider interest. Nonetheless, many works fall back on familiar examples before arriving at predictable conclusions. Superheroes Beyond moves superhero research beyond expected models. In this innovative collection, contributors unmask international crimefighters, track superheroes outside of the comic book page, and explore heroes whose secret identities are not cisgender men. Superheroes Beyond responds to the growing interest in understanding the unique appeal of superheroes by reveling in the diversity of this heroic type.
Superheroes Beyond explores the complexity and cultural reach of the superhero in three sections. The first, “Beyond Men of Steel,” examines how the archetype has moved beyond simply recapitulating the “man of steel” figure to include broader representations of race, gender, sexuality, and ableness. The second section, “Beyond Comic Books,” discusses how the superhero has become a transmedia phenomenon, moving from comic books to toys to cinema screens and beyond. The final section, “Beyond the United States,” highlights the vibrant but often overlooked history of global superhero figures. Together, the essays in this collection form important starting points for taking stock of the superhero’s far-reaching appeal, contributing the critical conversations required to bring scholarship into the present moment and beyond.”

Christianity and Comics: Stories We Tell about Heaven and Hell

Blair Davis
Rutgers University Press
March 2024
Publisher’s website

“The Bible has inspired Western art and literature for centuries, so it is no surprise that Christian iconography, characters, and stories have also appeared in many comic books. Yet the sheer stylistic range of these comics is stunning. They include books from Christian publishers, as well as underground comix with religious themes and a vast array of DC, Marvel, and Dark Horse titles, from Hellboy to Preacher.
Christianity and Comics presents an 80-year history of the various ways that the comics industry has drawn from biblical source material. It explores how some publishers specifically targeted Christian audiences with titles like Catholic Comics, books featuring heroic versions of Oral Roberts and Billy Graham, and special religious-themed editions of Archie. But it also considers how popular mainstream comics like Daredevil, The Sandman, Ghost Rider, and Batman are infused with Christian themes and imagery.
Comics scholar Blair Davis pays special attention to how the medium’s unique use of panels, word balloons, captions, and serialized storytelling have provided vehicles for telling familiar biblical tales in new ways. Spanning the Golden Age of comics to the present day, this book charts how comics have both reflected and influenced Americans’ changing attitudes towards religion.”

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.

Bildung im Comic: Die pädagogischen Elemente des Bildungsromans in Keiji Nakazawas Barfuß durch Hiroshima

Kieler Berichte, Vol. 26

Erik Rading
Universitätsverlag Kiel
August 2023
Publisher’s website

“In den vergangenen Jahren wurden immer wieder Untersuchungen veröffentlicht, die sich der Frage widmeten, ob bestimmte Comics als Bildungsromane verstanden werden können. Trotz vermeintlich naheliegender Anschlusspunkte, z. B. der (literarischen) Auseinandersetzung mit lebensweltlichen Vorstellungen von Bildung, sucht man dabei eine pädagogische Perspektive weitestgehend vergebens. Dieser Leerstelle versucht sich der vorliegende Beitrag anzunehmen, indem er die Übertragung der pädagogischen Elemente des Bildungsromans auf den Comic untersucht. Dabei folgt er der Annahme, dass sich schon im Bildungsroman wie auch im Comic lebensweltliche, gesellschaftliche und historische Verständnisse pädagogische relevanter Themen und Intentionen, wie z. B. Bildung, Entwicklung oder Erziehung, artikulieren können, ohne dass diese Ansprüchen an explizit wissenschaftlich-pädagogische Theorien genügen müssen. Wie in den genannten Untersuchungen üblich, wird zur Bearbeitung dieses Forschungsanliegens ein Comic – hier die ersten vier Bände von Barfuß durch Hiroshima des japanischen Mangaka Keiji Nakazawa – als exemplarischer Forschungsgegenstand herangezogen und hermeneutisch nach den pädagogisch relevanten Elementen des Bildungsromans analysiert. Im Zuge dessen werden – entsprechend dem methodischen Vorgehen – Überlegungen zu einer spezifischen Hermeneutik des Comics präsentiert, der bisher als Erzählform kaum Berücksichtigung in methodologisch-hermeneutischen Überlegungen fand.”

Secondary Action Heroes of Golden Age Comics

Lou Mougin
McFarland
August 2023
Publisher’s website

“The 1940s saw the birth of many enduring superheroes like Superman, Batman, Captain America and Captain Marvel. Outside of the superhero genre, the golden age of comics also featured a host of lesser-known, evil-fighting action figures, and this book contains a wealth of information about these heroes without capes. Covered here are jungle heroines like Sheena, Rulah and Princess Pantha; science fiction stalwarts including Spacehawk, Hunt Bowman and Futura; adventurers such as Kayo Kirby, Werewolf Hunter and Senorita Rio; and Western heroes ranging from Tom Mix to the Ghost Rider.”

Comics and Migration: Representation and Other Practices

Global Perspectives in Comics Studies

Ralf Kauranen, Olli Löytty, Aura Nikkilä, Anna Vuorinne (Eds.)
Routledge
2023
Publisher’s website

“Comics and human mobility have a long history of connections. This volume explores these entanglements with a focus on both how comics represent migration and what applied uses comics have in relation to migration. The volume examines both individual works of comic art and examples of practical applications of comics from across the world.
Comics are well-suited to create understanding, highlight truthful information, and engender empathy in their audiences, but are also an art form that is preconditioned or even limited by its representational and practical conventions. Through analyses of various practices and representations, this book questions the uncritical belief in the capacity of comics, assesses their potential to represent stories of exile and immigration with compassion, and discusses how xenophobia and nationalism are both reinforced and questioned in comics. The book includes essays by both researchers and practitioners such as activists and journalists whose work has combined a focus on comics and migration. It predominantly scrutinises comics and activities from more peripheral areas such as the Nordic region, the German-language countries, Latin America, and southern Asia to analyse the treatment and visual representation of migration in these regions.”

Muslim Comics and Warscape Witnessing

Studies in Comics and Cartoons

Esra Mirze Santesso
Ohio State University Press
September 2023
Publisher’s website

“Recent decades have seen an unprecedented number of comics by and about Muslim people enter the global market. Now, Muslim Comics and Warscape Witnessing offers the first major study of these works. Esra Mirze Santesso assesses Muslim comics to illustrate the multifaceted nature of seeing and representing daily lives within and outside of the homeland. Focusing on contemporary graphic narratives that are primarily but not exclusively from the Middle East—from blockbusters like Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis to more local efforts such as Leila Abdelrazaq’s Baddawi—Santesso explores why the graphic form has become a popular and useful medium for articulating Muslim subjectivities. Further, she shows how Muslim comics “bear witness” to a range of faith-based positions that complicate discussions of global ummah or community, contest monolithic depictions of Muslims, and question the Islamist valorization of the shaheed, the “martyr” figure regarded as the ideal religious witness. By presenting varied depictions of everyday lives of Muslims navigating violence and militarization, this book reveals the connections between religious rituals and existence in warscapes and invites us to more deeply consider the nature of witnessing itself.”

The Cambridge Companion to the American Graphic Novel

Cambridge Companions to Literature

Jan Baetens, Hugo Frey, Fabrice Leroy (Eds.)
Cambridge University Press
September 2023
Publisher’s website

“The Cambridge Companion to the American Graphic Novel explores the important role of the graphic novel in reflecting American society and in the shaping of the American imagination. Using key examples, this volume reviews the historical development of various subgenres within the graphic novel tradition and examines how graphic novelists have created multiple and different accounts of the American experience, including that of African American, Asian American, Jewish, Latinx, and LGBTQ+ communities. Reading the American graphic novel opens a debate on how major works have changed the idea of America from that once found in the quintessential action or superhero comics to show new, different, intimate accounts of historical change as well as social and individual, personal experience. It guides readers through the theoretical text-image scholarship to explain the meaning of the complex borderlines between graphic novels, comics, newspaper strips, caricature, literature, and art.”

Ilan Manouach in Review: Critical Approaches to his Conceptual Comics

Pedro Moura (Ed.)
Routledge
September 2023
Publisher’s website

“This book takes an interdisciplinary and diverse critical look at the work of comic artist Ilan Manouach, situating it within the avant-garde movement more broadly.
An international team of authors engages with the topic from diverse theoretical approaches, from traditional narratology and aesthetic close readings of some of Manouach’s books, engaging with comics’ own distinctive history, modes of production, circulation and reception, to perspectives from disability studies, post-colonial studies, technological criticism, media ecology, ontography, posthumanist philosophy, and issues of materiality and media specificity.
This innovative and timely volume will interest students and scholars of comic studies, media studies, media ecology, literature, cultural studies, and visual studies.”

Batman’s Villains and Villainesses: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Arkham’s Souls*

Justin F. Martin, Marco Favaro (Eds.)
Lexington Books
September 2023
Publisher’s website

“While much of the scholarship on superhero narratives has focused on the heroes themselves, Batman’s Villains and Villainesses: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Arkham’s Souls takes into view the depiction of the villains and their lives, arguing that they often function as proxies for larger societal and philosophical themes. Approaching Gotham’s villains from a number of disciplinary backgrounds, the essays in this collection highlight how the villains’ multifaceted backgrounds, experiences, motivations, and behaviors allow for in-depth character analysis across varying levels of social life. Through investigating their cultural and scholarly relevance across the humanities and social sciences, the volume encourages both thoughtful reflection on the relationship between individuals and their social contexts and the use of villains (inside and outside of Gotham) as subjects of pedagogical and scholarly inquiry.”

*The ComFor editorial board regrets the lack of diversity in this publication. We endeavour to cover the entire spectrum of comics studies, report in a neutral way and keep the editorial selection process to a minimum. But we are also aware of the problematic structures that shape our academic research environment and that frequently lead to a lower visibility of female comics scholars as well as those with marginalised identities in general. We know that this imbalance is often not intended by the editors / organisers and we do not want to imply this in any way. But nonetheless, we would like to draw attention to it to raise awareness for this problem.