Comics Studies: Survey of the Field

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Sebastian Domsch ◽  
Dirk Vanderbeke ◽  
Dan Hassler-Forest
Keyword(s):  
Comics Studies

Candy and Drugs for Dinner

2019 ◽  
pp. 572-588
Author(s):  
Sean Guynes
Keyword(s):  
Comic Book ◽  
Gender Politics ◽  
Media Production ◽  
Comics Studies ◽  
Contemporary Media ◽  
The Aesthetic

This chapter links the seemingly disparate but deeply interconnected discourses and practices of contemporary media production, genre, aesthetics, and comics. It offers these arguments through a case study of the popular fantasy comic book Rat Queens and in the process demonstrates the critical utility to comics studies of reading genre, aesthetics, and industry together. The chapter reads Rat Queens through Sianne Ngai’s conception of the zany, cute, and interesting, showing how each of these categories is part of the aesthetic logic of the series, while also showing how each performs or critiques the series’ (superficial) investment in gender politics and the fantasy genre.

Introduction: Comics Studies and Literary Studies

2011 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Tim Lanzendörfer ◽  
Matthias Köhler
Keyword(s):  
Literary Studies ◽  
Comics Studies

What Kind of Studies Is Comics Studies?

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Benjamin Woo
Keyword(s):  
Film Studies ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Page Layout ◽  
Recent Growth ◽  
Comics Studies ◽  
Communications Theory ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Literature And Film

Dramatic recent growth in comics research suggests that comics studies has matured as a field, perhaps even constituting an emergent discipline. Yet important questions about the nature of this field and how it relates to established academic disciplines remain unresolved. This introductory chapter examines the genealogy of comics studies and explores the relationship between theory and method as a proxy for the field’s “paradigmatic” status. Four theories of page layout are analyzed as examples of theorization in comics studies. Drawing on Robert T. Craig’s “constitutive metamodel” of communications theory, the chapter ultimately rejects both attempts to retread the path of established humanities disciplines such as English literature and film studies and arguments against disciplinarity as such, calling instead for a dialogic conception of academic disciplines that continually reflects on the differences through which they are constituted.

Misunderstanding Comics

2020 ◽  
pp. 207-225
Author(s):  
Johnathan Flowers
Keyword(s):  
Comics Studies

In this chapter, Jonathan Flowers offers an important critique of some of the foundational tenets of comics studies and questions the epistemological grounding on which our pedagogies stand. By exploring how Scott McCloud’s work has shaped our field, Flowers deftly illustrates that this field is constantly moving and evokes a call for new voices and pedagogies. He does this through interlinking power and visibility with politics and race within the field of comics studies.

Wertham’s Little Goblins

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Cremins
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Comic Books ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
The United States ◽  
Childhood Memories ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Comics Studies ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

After Fawcett’s legal settlement with National in 1953, the original Captain Marvel did not return to comic books until 1973. In the meantime, comic book fans and amateur historians began writing about the character in the 1960s. This chapter traces Captain Marvel’s afterlife in these fanzines, publications that helped to establish the foundation for comics studies in the United States. The chapter also includes an overview of recent developments in the field of memory and nostalgia studies. These recent studies of the history of nostalgia in medicine, psychology, and the arts are essential for an understanding of how childhood memories have shaped comics studies as a discipline.

Comics Studies Here and Now

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Frederick Luis Aldama
Keyword(s):  
Comics Studies

Comics Studies as Interdiscipline

2019 ◽  
pp. 655-670
Author(s):  
Dale Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
Reflective Practice ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Book History ◽  
Comic Books ◽  
Book Industry ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Comics Studies ◽  
Commercial Publishing ◽  
Ways Of Thinking

This chapter is a call for comics studies to become a fully interdisciplinary endeavor—an interdiscipline rather than an anti-discipline—and for that move toward interdisciplinarity to occur through reflective practice. The chapter proposes that one way this move might be accomplished is by incorporating methodologies and ways of thinking from the fields of book history and media studies into comics studies. Both book history and media studies demand that scholars be mindful of the commercial publishing contexts of comics, while additionally providing examples of hybrid methodologies that work toward interdisciplinarity in their own right. These questions of interdisciplinarity and methodology are approached through discussions of the 1976 Project, which involves examining a year of traditional output of the American comic book industry. The chapter details how book history and media studies might contribute to comics studies and addresses questions raised by and methodologies needed to examine seven comic books from August 1976.

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