Breaking the Frames: Populism and Prestige in Comics Studies, Marc Singer (original) (raw)

The Politics of Comics: Popular Modernism, Abstraction, and Experimentation

Literature Compass, 2015

Comics and graphic novels are now widely accepted to be legitimate aesthetic and literary texts, suitable for study in all manner of university classrooms and scholarly projects. Comics studies scholarship was often preoccupied with arguing for the aesthetic legitimacy and literary complexity of comics and graphic novels, and now that this debate is more or less over, comics studies scholarship has begun to consider not just why and how we should read comics but what comics might mean. The question of meaning is an inherently political question, as it asks us to think of comics in relation to our social world. This essay traces two ways that comics can be read politically: as part of popular modernism, and as a medium for experimentation with genre, narrative, and visual conventions.

More Than Mere Fantasy: Political Themes in Contemporary Comic Books

The Journal of Popular Culture, 1983

The following article results from discussion and shared experiences between one who grew up reading comic books in the 1940s and abandoned them for years, and one who was born in 1960 and began at anearly age to read contemporary comics. The "Golden Age"of comics is roughly the 1940s and early 1950s (some might include the end of the 1930s). The new period formed in the early 1960s, after a marked decline in the latterpart of theprevious decade. Our comments apply only to standard comic books, not to newspaper strips or to underground comics.

COMICS: AN ARTIFACT OF POPULAR CULTURE

Sodh Prabha, 2023

Comics have always been an integral part of popular culture. They function as popular culture's artifacts. Through its multimodal medium and sequential art, it communicates, engages people, and tells interesting stories. They have become part of our daily life as they are widely published and available in various forms such as newspapers, magazines, graphic novels, and online platforms, etc. Many comics have also been adapted into movies, web series, video games, etc., which confirms their relevance, significance, and popularity. Comics have played a significant role in challenging societal norms, promoting social justice, providing representation for marginalized communities, and offering a unique perspective on the world. shapes popular culture, contributing to our understanding of society and its complexities. This paper inquires how this artifact as a resource of popular fiction reflects, comments on, and interacts with society and its social, political, and cultural issues. How comics transform themselves and adapt to the demands of society, how they mirror the experiences of people, their beliefs, and their lives, and how they influence the minds of their readers and take part in shaping a culture. The paper is divided into four parts: First, the introduction, which explains comics as an artifact of popular culture. Secondly, the evolution of comics in popular culture Thirdly, the impact of comics on popular culture Fourthly, comics as a reflection of society, with the help of selected examples to validate the point Batman's Gotham City comics are used to show how comics change to meet the needs of time. Watchmen comics are used to show that comics represent the reality of our time and put our backyards into panels. And Guy Fawkes' mask from V for Vendetta is used to show comics as a form of cultural transmission that plays a role in moulding society and, lastly, the future of comics in popular culture.

Unsettled Narratives: Graphic Novel and Comics Studies in the Twenty-First Century – A Preface

Dialogues between Media

Comic art and graphic narrative constitute a varied and multifaceted chapter in the cultural history of the contemporary age. When comics gained a foothold on the mass-media scene, they appeared as an object that was new, and indefinable. As is often the case when facing a novelty, there was a reactionary response. In fact, the slippery nature of the emerging medium resulted in widespread rejection by the establishment and a variety of negative connotations. Labelled for much of the twentieth century as a genre intended for children, or as second-rate cultural products, or even as morally harmful, in recent times, comics have begun to be re-evaluated by academics, particularly in the West. Even though today there remains a tendency to emphasize the literary value of individual works rather than their nature as sequential art, many negative connotations of the past have given way to an increasing need to understand how the comics medium works and what makes graphic narration so peculiar.

A Short History of Western Comics, Part #4: New Frontiers: Comic Books and Superheroes

Lecture Series: The History of Western Comics, 2023

Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan, May 2, 2023. - Part 4 of a lecture series on the history of Western Comics. - In this lecture, we will discuss the history of the American Comic book from the 1930s to the present. This includes the advent of the first Comic books in the 1930s, the invention of the superhero genre, but also the tem-porary downfall Comics took in the Fifties, when critics like psychologist Fredric Wertham accused the medium of giving children and adolescents wrong ideas about life and inciting them to sex and violence – a process that was answered with underground Comix from 1960s counterculture, which capitalized just on these “forbidden” things. We will then see how the superhero genre recovered in the 1960s, namely with the work of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, how the Comics trade changed from newsstands to Comic book stores, and how new superhero artists paved the way for the triumph of the graphic novel. The second part of the lecture will then cover two chapters from Scott McCloud’s book – the relationship between words and images and his model of artistic creation, which he calls “The Six Steps.” Note: For copyright reasons, images are not embedded in the text. Instead, links to external sources are provided.

From comic book to graphic novel : writing, reading, semiotics

2006

This dissertation discusses how changes within the authorship, reading practices and criticism of contemporary American comics can alert us to more general questions raised by the inclusion of popular culture in literature. It employs a cultural materialist methodology, researching the first decade of the DC Vertigo imprint (launched in 1993) and considering these texts both as the culmination of trends that can be traced throughout the industry's history, and as modern literature that sustains elements of certain literary genres. I would also like to gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Bristol University Alumni Foundation. And finally, my love to all the friends and fanboys who offered so much help, advice and encouragement ... especially Mark, who got me started on comics and Matt, who fed the habit. iii Declaration I declare that the work in this dissertation was carried out in accordance with the Regulations of the University of Bristol. The work is original, except where indicated by special reference in the text, and no part of the dissertation has been submitted for any other academic award. Any views expressed in the dissertation are those of the author.