Download or read book Openness of Comics written by Maaheen Ahmed and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2016-04-13 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Never before have comics seemed so popular or diversified, proliferating across a broad spectrum of genres, experimenting with a variety of techniques, and gaining recognition as a legitimate, rich form of art. Maaheen Ahmed examines this trend by taking up philosopher Umberto Eco's notion of the open work of art, whereby the reader--or listener or viewer, as the case may be--is offered several possibilities of interpretation in a cohesive narrative and aesthetic structure. Ahmed delineates the visual, literary, and other medium-specific features used by comics to form open rather than closed works, methods by which comics generate or limit meaning as well as increase and structure the scope of reading into a work. Ahmed analyzes a diverse group of British, American, and European (Franco-Belgian, German, Finnish) comics. She treats examples from the key genre categories of fictionalized memoirs and biographies, adventure and superhero, noir, black comedy and crime, science fiction and fantasy. Her analyses demonstrate the ways in which comics generate openness by concentrating on the gaps essential to the very medium of comics, the range of meaning ensconced within words and images as well as their interaction with each other. The analyzed comics, extending from famous to lesser known works, include Will Eisner's The Contract with God Trilogy, Jacques Tardi's It Was the War of the Trenches, Hugo Pratt's The Ballad of the Salty Sea, Edmond Baudoin's The Voyage, Grant Morrison and Dave McKean's Arkham Asylum, Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's From Hell, Moebius's Arzach, Yslaire's Cloud 99 series, and Jarmo Mäkilä's Taxi Ride to Van Gogh's Ear.

Download or read book Comics Memory written by Maaheen Ahmed and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-08-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the boom in scholarship in both Comics Studies and Memory Studies, the two fields rarely interact—especially with issues beyond the representation of traumatic and autobiographical memories in comics. With a focus on the roles played by styles and archives—in their physical and metaphorical manifestations—this edited volume offers an original intervention, highlighting several novel ways of thinking about comics and memory as comics memory. Bringing together scholars as well as cultural actors, the contributions combine studies on European and North American comics and offer a representative overview of the main comics genres and forms, including superheroes, Westerns, newspaper comics, diary comics, comics reportage and alternative comics. In considering the many manifestations of memory in comics as well as the functioning and influence of institutions, public and private practices, the book exemplifies new possibilities for understanding the complex entanglements of memory and comics.

Download or read book Key Terms in Comics Studies written by Erin La Cour and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-01-03 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Key Terms in Comics Studies is a glossary of over 300 terms and critical concepts currently used in the Anglophone academic study of comics, including those from other languages that are currently adopted and used in English. Written by nearly 100 international and contemporary experts from the field, the entries are succinctly defined, exemplified, and referenced. The entries are 250 words or fewer, placed in alphabetical order, and explicitly cross-referenced to others in the book. Key Terms in Comics Studies is an invaluable tool for both students and established researchers alike.

Download or read book Part of It written by Ariel Schrag and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ariel Schrag, a critically-acclaimed memoirist and screenwriter, takes us on a painfully funny tour of her formative years, from her childhood in Berkeley to her mid-twenties in Brooklyn, exploring what it means to connect to others when you don’t yet know who you are—when you want to be “part of it” but the “it” changes daily. We meet hippie babysitters, mean girls, best friends, former friends, prom dates, girlfriends, sex ed students, and far too many LensCrafters sales associates. These frank, irreverent, and honest comics revel in the uncomfortable—occasionally cringe-inducing—moments from our early years that end up wiring us as people. Part of It further cements Ariel Schrag as “one of the best pure storytellers...in any medium” (Comics Journal).

Download or read book League of Super Feminists written by Miron Malle and published by Drawn & Quarterly. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This primer on feminism and media literacy teaches young readers why it matters The League of Super Feminists is an energetic and fierce comic for tweens and younger teens. Cartoonist Mirion Malle guides readers through some of the central tenets of feminism and media literacy including consent, intersectionality, privilege, body image, inclusivity and more; all demystified in the form of a witty, down-to-earth dialogue that encourages questioning the stories we're told about identity. Malle’s insightful and humorous comics transport lofty concepts from the ivory tower to the eternally safer space of open discussion. Making reference to the Bechdel test in film and Peggy McIntosh’s dissection of white privilege through the metaphor of the “invisible knapsack,” The League of Super Feminists is an asset to the classroom, library, and household alike. Knights and princesses present problems associated with consent; superheroes reveal problematic stereotypes associated with gender; and grumpy onlookers show just how insidious cat-calling culture can be. No matter how women dress, Malle explains, there seems to always be someone ready to call it out. The League of Super Feminists articulates with both poise and clarity how unconscious biases and problematic thought processes can have tragic results. Why does feminism matter? Are feminists man-haters? How do race and feminism intersect? Malle answers these questions for young readers, in a comic that is as playful and hilarious as it is necessary."

Download or read book Monstrous Imaginaries written by Maaheen Ahmed and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2019-12-16 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Monsters seem inevitably linked to humans and not always as mere opposites. Maaheen Ahmed examines good monsters in comics to show how Romantic themes from the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries persist in today’s popular culture. Comics monsters, questioning the distinction between human and monster, self and other, are valuable conduits of Romantic inclinations. Engaging with Romanticism and the many monsters created by Romantic writers and artists such as Mary Shelley, Victor Hugo, and Goya, Ahmed maps the heritage, functions, and effects of monsters in contemporary comics and graphic novels. She highlights the persistence of recurrent Romantic features through monstrous protagonists in English- and French-language comics and draws out their implications. Aspects covered include the dark Romantic predilection for ruins and the sordid, the solitary protagonist and his quest, nostalgia, the prominence of the spectacle as well as excessive emotions, and above all, the monster’s ambiguity and rebelliousness. Ahmed highlights each Romantic theme through close readings of well-known but often overlooked comics, including Enki Bilal's Monstre tetralogy, Jim O'Barr's The Crow, and Emil Ferris’s My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, as well as the iconic comics series Alan Moore's Swamp Thing and Mike Mignola's Hellboy. In blurring the otherness of the monster, these protagonists retain the exaggeration and uncontrollability of all monsters while incorporating Romantic characteristics.

Download or read book The American Comic Book Industry and Hollywood written by Alisa Perren and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-05-20 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American Comic Book Industry and Hollywood traces the evolving relationship between the American comic book industry and Hollywood from the launch of X-Men, Spider-Man, and Smallville in the early 2000s through the ascent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Arrowverse, and the Walking Dead Universe in the 2010s. Perren and Steirer illustrate how the American comic book industry simultaneously has functioned throughout the first two decades of the twenty-first century as a relatively self-contained business characterized by its own organizational structures, business models, managerial discourses, production cultures, and professional identities even as it has remained dependent on Hollywood for revenue from IP licensing. The authors' expansive view of the industry includes not only a discussion of the “Big Two,” Marvel/Disney and DC Comics/Time Warner, but also a survey of the larger comics ecosystem. Other key industry players, including independent publishers BOOM! Studios, IDW, and Image, digital distributor ComiXology, and management-production company Circle of Confusion, all receive attention. Drawing from interviews, fieldwork, archival research, and trade analysis, The American Comic Book Industry and Hollywood provides a road map to understanding the operations of the comic book industry while also offering new models for undertaking trans- and inter-industrial analysis.

Download or read book Graphic History written by Richard Iadonisi and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2012-11-30 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When it comes to recounting history, issues arise as to whose stories are told and how reliable is the telling. This collection of fourteen essays explores the unique ways in which graphic novels can aid us in addressing those issues while shedding new light on a variety of texts, including those by canonical North American and European writers Art Spiegelman (Maus, In the Shadow of No Towers), Alan Moore (From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), Frank Miller (The Dark Knight Returns), Chris Ware (Jimmy Corrigan), Chester Brown (Louis Riel), and Harvey Pekar. Recognizing the global appeal of graphic novels, this collection also provides a fresh look at history seen through the eyes of canonical non-Western writers Marjane Starapi (Persepolis) and Yoshihiro Tatsumi (A Drifting Life) and the highly vexed relationship of the West and the Middle East. The array of contributors (from the fields of art, literature, history, and cultural studies) is matched by the array of theoretical perspectives and by the depth and breadth of subjects, ranging from the sixteenth century voyages of Sebastian Cabot to Jack the Ripper, from the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 to lynching in the early twentieth-century American South, and from post-war Japan to the fall of the Shah in Iran.

Download or read book The Art of Living written by Grant Snider and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2022-04-05 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A humorous, uplifting look at mindfulness, from beloved illustrator Grant Snider “Find a quiet spot away from all distraction / Listen to your breath / Watch your thoughts float past you / Forget the obligations of today / Try not to consider your eventual decay / Let yourself drift away / Arise, connected with the Earth / Awakened to the Universe.” In The Art of Living, cartoonist Grant Snider, author of The Shape of Ideas and I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf, has created an all-new collection of one- and two-page comics that map his inner thoughts, poetic observations, and frequent failures at living mindfully. With both humor and a touch of reality, The Art of Living centers on mindfulness, but also empathy, relaxation, gratitude, and awareness—evergreen subjects that are more important and relevant now than ever. With a striking package, The Art of Living is an extension of the themes of Snider’s first two books—which explored the creative process and the love of reading—and is the perfect gift for those in a need of reflection, commiseration, hope, and a little extra self-care. Above all, Snider's cartoons will inspire and encourage a more thoughtful way of experiencing the world.

Download or read book Comics and Graphic Novels written by Julia Round and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-09-22 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing an overview of the dynamic field of comics and graphic novels for students and researchers, this Essential Guide contextualises the major research trends, debates and ideas that have emerged in Comics Studies over the past decades. Interdisciplinary and international in its scope, the critical approaches on offer spread across a wide range of strands, from the formal and the ideological to the historical, literary and cultural. Its concise chapters provide accessible introductions to comics methodologies, comics histories and cultures across the world, high-profile creators and titles, insights from audience and fan studies, and important themes and genres, such as autobiography and superheroes. It also surveys the alternative and small press alongside general reference works and textbooks on comics. Each chapter is complemented by list of key reference works.

Download or read book Latin American Comics in the Twenty First Century written by James Scorer and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2024-06-11 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How twenty-first-century Latin American comics transgress social, political, and cultural frontiers.

Download or read book On Comics and Legal Aesthetics written by Thomas Giddens and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the implications of comics for law? Tackling this question, On Comics and Legal Aesthetics explores the epistemological dimensions of comics and the way this once-maligned medium can help think about – and reshape – the form of law. Traversing comics, critical, and cultural legal studies, it seeks to enrich the theorisation of comics with a critical aesthetics that expands its value and significance for law, as well as knowledge more generally. It argues that comics’ multimodality – its hybrid structure, which represents a meeting point of text, image, reason, and aesthetics – opens understanding of the limits of law’s rational texts by shifting between multiple frames and modes of presentation. Comics thereby exposes the way all forms of knowledge are shaped out of an unstructured universe, becoming a mask over this chaotic ‘beyond’. This mask of knowing remains haunted – by that which it can never fully capture or represent. Comics thus models knowledge as an infinity of nested frames haunted by the chaos without structure. In such a model, the multiple aspects of law become one region of a vast and bottomless cascade of perspectives – an infinite multiframe that extends far beyond the traditional confines of the comics page, rendering law boundless.

Download or read book Silver Scorpion Graphic Novel Volume 1 written by Ron Marz and published by Liquid Comics. This book was released on 2014-12-19 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SILVER SCORPION #1 As seen in hundreds of major media outlets around the world, such as Time, Wired, The New York Post, USA Today, Fox News, NPR, Gulf News, Asharq Al-Awsat and more, experience the origin story of the new superhero, "Silver Scorpion." "The comic book will help to establish trust and understanding between cultures, to empower young people with disabilities." ¨C President Bill Clinton, at the 2010 Clinton Global Initiative The Silver Scorpion tells the story of a teenager, Bashir Bari, who loses his legs in a tragic accident. Consumed with anger and grief, Bashir retreats into a world of isolation, resentful of the pitiful looks and whispers of strangers. When he accidentally witnesses the murder of Tarek, a mysterious local metal smith, Bashir is unwittingly chosen as the new guardian of an ancient power that has remained hidden for centuries. With new abilities allowing him to manipulate the metal around him, Bashir must now decide how to use this gift and balance the line between justice and vengeance.

Download or read book Open Education and Second Language Learning and Teaching written by Carl S. Blyth and published by Multilingual Matters. This book was released on 2021-02-03 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compared with STEM fields, foreign language (FL) education and second language acquisition have only slowly embraced open education and the new knowledge ecologies it produces. FL educators may have been hesitant to participate in the open education movement due to a lack of research which investigates the benefits and challenges of FL learning and teaching in open environments. This book contextualizes open education in FL learning and teaching via an historical overview of the movement, along with an in-depth exploration of how the open movement affects FL education beyond the classroom context; fills the research void by exploring aspects of open second language learning and teaching across a range of educational contexts; and illustrates new ways of creating, adapting and curating FL materials that are freely shared among FL educators and students. This book is open access under a CC BY ND licence.

Download or read book The Comics of Herg written by Joe Sutliff Sanders and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2016-07-28 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the creator of Tintin, Hergé (1907-1983) remains one of the most important and influential figures in the history of comics. When Hergé, born Georges Prosper Remi in Belgium, emerged from the controversy surrounding his actions after World War II, his most famous work leapt to international fame and set the standard for European comics. While his style popularized what became known as the "clear line" in cartooning, this edited volume shows how his life and art turned out much more complicated than his method. The book opens with Hergé's aesthetic techniques, including analyses of his efforts to comprehend and represent absence and the rhythm of mundaneness between panels of action. Broad views of his career describe how Hergé navigated changing ideas of air travel, while precise accounts of his life during Nazi occupation explain how the demands of the occupied press transformed his understanding of what a comics page could do. The next section considers a subject with which Hergé was himself consumed: the fraught lines between high and low art. By reading the late masterpieces of the Tintin series, these chapters situate his artistic legacy. A final section considers how the clear line style has been reinterpreted around the world, from contemporary Francophone writers to a Chinese American cartoonist and on to Turkey, where Tintin has been reinvented into something meaningful to an audience Hergé probably never anticipated. Despite the attention already devoted to Hergé, no multi-author critical treatment of his work exists in English, the majority of the scholarship being in French. With contributors from five continents drawing on a variety of critical methods, this volume's range will shape the study of Hergé for many years to come.

Download or read book The Meaning of Superhero Comic Books written by Terrence R. Wandtke and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades, scholars have been making the connection between the design of the superhero story and the mythology of the ancient folktale. Moving beyond simple comparisons and common explanations, this volume details how the workings of the superhero comics industry and the conventions of the medium have developed a culture like that of traditional epic storytelling. It chronicles the continuation of the oral/traditional culture of the early 20th century superhero industry in the endless variations on Superman and shows how Frederic Wertham's anti-comic crusade in the mid-1950s helped make comics the most countercultural new medium of the 20th century. By revealing how contemporary superhero comics, like Geoff Johns' Green Lantern and Warren Ellis's The Authority, connect traditional aesthetics and postmodern theories, this work explains why the superhero comic book flourishes in the "new traditional" shape of our acutely self-conscious digital age.

Download or read book Visualising Small Traumas written by Pedro Moura and published by Leuven University Press. This book was released on 2022-02-28 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cultural history of contemporary Portuguese comics and their creative responses to trauma Portugal's vibrant comics scene originated as early as the 19th century, bringing forth brilliant individual artists, but has remained mostly unknown beyond Portugal’s borders to this day. Now a new generation employs this medium to put into question hegemonic views on the economy, politics, and society. Following the experience of the financial crisis of the past decades and its impact on social policies, access to and rules of public discourse, and civil strife, comics have questioned what constitutes a traumatogenic situation and what can act as a creative response. By looking at established graphic novels by Marco Mendes and Miguel Rocha, fanzine-level, and even experimental productions, Visualising Small Traumas is the first English-language book that addresses Portuguese contemporary comics and investigates how trauma studies can both shed a light on comics making and be informed by that very same practice. This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).