Comics studies

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Comics studies (also comic art studies, sequential art studies[1] or graphic narrative studies)[2] is an academic field that focuses on comics and sequential art. Although comics and graphic novels have been generally dismissed as less relevant pop culture texts, scholars in fields such as semiotics, aesthetics, sociology, composition studies and cultural studies are now re-considering comics and graphic novels as complex texts deserving of serious scholarly study.

Not to be confused with the technical aspects of comics creation, comics studies exists only with the creation of comics theory—which approaches comics critically as an art—and the writing of comics historiography (the study of the history of comics).[3] Comics theory has significant overlap with the philosophy of comics, i.e., the study of the ontology,[4][5] epistemology[6] and aesthetics[7] of comics, the relationship between comics and other art forms, and the relationship between text and image in comics.[4]

Comics studies is also interrelated with comics criticism, the analysis and evaluation of comics and the comics medium.[8]

Matthew Smith and Randy Duncan's 2017 book The Secret Origins of Comics Studies contains a useful overview of early scholarship on comics with standout chapters by Ian Horton, Barbara Postema, Ann Miller, and Ian Gordon.[9] Frederick Luis Aldama's 2019 book Oxford Handbook of Comic Book Studies also contains a wealth of articles on approaches to comics studies and a useful history of the field by Ian Gordon.[10]

Theorizing comics

Although there has been the occasional investigation of comics as a valid art form, specifically in

semioticians such as Roland Barthes (particularly his 1964 essay "Rhétorique de l'image", published in English as "Rhetoric of the Image" in the anthology Image—Music—Text)[11] and Umberto Eco (particularly his 1964 book Apocalittici e integrati [Apocalypse Postponed]).[12] These works were the first attempts at a general system of comics semiotics.[13]

More recently, analysis of comics have begun to be undertaken by

cognitive scientists, the most prominent being Neil Cohn, who has used tools from linguistics to detail the theoretical structure of comics' underlying "visual language", and has also used psychological experimentation from cognitive neuroscience to test these theories in actual comprehension. This work has suggested similarities between the way that the brain processes language and the way it processes sequential images.[14] Cohn's theories are not universally accepted, with other scholars like Thierry Groensteen
, Hannah Miodrag, and Barbara Postema offering alternative understandings.

Defining comics

"Comics ... are sometimes four-legged and sometimes two-legged and sometimes fly and sometimes don't ... to employ a metaphor as mixed as the medium itself, defining comics entails cutting a Gordian-knotted enigma wrapped in a mystery ..."

— R. C. Harvey, 2001[15]

Photo of a middle-aged man in glasses
Cartoonist and comics theorist Scott McCloud

Similar to the problems of defining literature and film,

pantomime comics throughout its history.[18] Other critics, such as Thierry Groensteen[22] and Scott McCloud, have emphasized the primacy of sequences of images.[23] Towards the close of the 20th century, different cultures' discoveries of each other's comics traditions, the rediscovery of forgotten early comics forms, and the rise of new forms made defining comics a more complicated task.[24]

Composition studies

In the field of composition studies, an interest in comics and graphic novels is growing, partially due to the work of comics theorists but also due to composition studies' growing focus on multimodality and visual rhetoric. Composition studies theorists are looking at comics as sophisticated texts, and sites of complex literacy.

Gunther Kress defines multimodality as "the use of several semiotic modes in the design of a semiotic product or event, together with the particular way in which these mode are combined"[25] or, more simply as "any text whose meanings are realized through more than one semiotic code".[26]

Kristie S. Fleckenstein sees the relationship between image and text as "mutually constitutive, mutually infused"—a relationship she names "imageword". Fleckenstein sees "imageword" as offering "a double vision of writing-reading based on [the] fusion of image and word, a double vision of literacy".[27]

Dale Jacobs sees the reading of comics as a form of "multimodal literacy or multiliteracy, rather than as a debased form of print literacy".[28] According to Jacobs, comics can help educators to move "toward attending to multimodal literacies" that "shift our focus from print only to multiple modalities".[29] He encourages educators to embrace a pedagogy that will give students skills to effectively negotiate these multiple modalities.

Comics historiography

Comics historiography (the study of the

Egyptian paintings and pre-Columbian American picture manuscripts to be the very first form of comics and sequential art.[32] Another area of study is the 20th-century emergence of the subculture of comics reading, comic book collecting and comicphilia,[33] the passionate interest in comic books. (A person with a passionate interest in comics is informally called a comicphile[34] or comics buff.)[35]

The first attempts at comics historiography began in the United States in the 1940s with the work of Thomas Craven, Martin Sheridan, and Coulton Waugh. It was not until the mid-1960s, with the publication of Jules Feiffer's The Great Comic Book Heroes, that the field began to take root. Historiography became an accepted practice in the 1970s with the work of Maurice Horn, Jim Steranko, Ron Goulart, Bill Blackbeard, and Martin Williams. The late 1990s saw a wave of books celebrating American comics' centennial. Other notable writers on these topics include Will Jacobs, Gerard Jones, Rick Marschall, and R. C. Harvey. The 1990s also saw a growth of scholarly work on comics with new books from academics such as Martin Barker, David Kunzle, Thomas Inge, Joseph "Rusty" Witek, and Ian Gordon.

Educational institutions

Comics studies is becoming increasingly more common at academic institutions across the world. Some notable examples include:

University of California Santa Cruz,[39] among others. In Britain, growing interest in comics has led to the establishment of a center for comics studies, the Scottish Centre for Comics Studies (SCCS) at the University of Dundee in Scotland.[40] Beside formal programs and degrees, it is common to see individual courses dedicated to comics and graphic novels in many educational institutions.[41]

Sol M. Davidson's

Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne after defending his thesis The Comics and its Double: Language and Frontiers of Comics: Practical, Theoretical and Editorial Prospects.[44][45]

In 2012, the

Benjamin Saunders
.

Teesside University began offering a BA in Comics and Graphic Novels in 2014,[48] as well as an MA in Comics from 2018.[49] They have since appointed a team of renowned comics practitioners including Fionnuala Doran,[50] Julian Lawrence, Con Chrisoulis, Nigel Kitching and Tara McInerney.[51]

The

University of Lancaster started offering a PhD degree in comics studies in 2015.[52] The same year French comics studies scholar Benoît Peeters (a student of Roland Barthes) was appointed as the UK's first ever comics professor at Lancaster University.[53]

Learned societies

In addition to its presence in academic institutions, comics have also been studied in interdisciplinary

Comics Studies Society (CSS), launched in 2014 at ICAF.[54] Other anglophone societies that can be mentioned are British Consortium of Comics Scholars (BCCS, created in 2012 by Paul Davies), Scottish Centre for Comics Studies (SCCS) and Canadian Society for the Study of Comics (CSSC, created in October 2010 by Sylvain Rheault).[55][56]

Learned societies in Americas

Canadian Society for the Study of Comics

Main article: Canadian Society for the Study of Comics

The first learned society about comics in American continent was the Canadian Society for the Study of Comics (CSSC), also known as Société Canadienne pour l'Étude de la Bande Dessinée (SCEBD). It is a bilingual community of academics focused in discuss all aspects of comics as an art form and cultural phenomenon founded in October 2010 by University of Regina professor Sylvain Rheault.[57][58][59]

Associação de Pesquisadores em Arte Sequencial

On March 31, 2012, the Associação de Pesquisadores em Arte Sequencial (ASPAS, Association of Researchers in Sequential Art in Portuguese) was founded in Brazil on March 31, 2012 during the 1st National Forum of Researchers in Sequential Art (FNPAS), an event promoted in the city of Leopoldina, Minas Gerais.[60][61]

In addition to regular events, ASPAS also promotes various academic activities, such as the Meeting of Comic Artists with Trina Robbins, held in 2015 at Gibiteca Henfil, in São Paulo, and in 2017 at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.[62][63]

Comics Studies Society

In November 2014, during the International Comic Arts Forum (ICAF), the California State University, Northridge professor Charles Hatfield made a motion to create the Comics Studies Society as an interdisciplinary association open to academics, non-academics or independent scholars, teachers, and students who had the goal of promoting the critical study of comics.[64][65][66]

At a meeting inside the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, the CSS's first Executive Committee was officially voted and the CSS main focuses were defined as "promoting the critical study of comics, improving comics teaching, and engaging in open and ongoing conversations about the comics world". CSS also organizes the Annual Conference of the Comics Studies Society since 2018.[67][54][66][68]

Scholarly publications

Some notable academic journals specifically dedicated to comics studies are listed below in alphabetical order:

Conferences

Although presentations dedicated to comics are commonplace at conferences in many fields, entire conferences dedicated to this subject are becoming more common. There have been conferences at

Humor Studies.[71]

The

San Diego Comic-Con International and WonderCon.[75] Another important conference is the annual International Graphic Novels and Comics Conference held since 2010 organized by British academics. This conference has been held in conjunction with the longer running International Bande Dessinée Society conference. Comics Forum, a UK-based community of international comics scholars, also holds an annual conference at Leeds Central Library; the first was held in 2009.[76]

Comics studies awards

Eisner Award for Best Academic/Scholarly Work

Main article: Eisner Award for Best Academic/Scholarly Work

Comics Studies Society Prizes

Since 2018,

Comics Studies Society awards comics studies, books and articles with five annual prizes: the CSS Article Prize, the Hillary Chute Award for Best Graduate Student Paper, the Gilbert Seldes Prize for Public Scholarship, the Charles Hatfield Book Prize, and the CSS Prize for Edited Book Collections. The nominated scholars do not need to be CSS members, but only members can send the nomination letters. All first-time publications during the previous calendar year are eligible (in case of translated books, is considered the year of English publication).[77][69][78]

Winners

Charles Hatfield Book Prize
CSS Article Prize
CSS Prize for Edited Book Collections
Hillary Chute Award for Best Graduate Student Paper
  • 2018 - Alex Smith, by "Breaking Panels: Gay Cartoonists' Radical Revolt"[79]
  • 2019 - Isabelle Martin, by "'The Weight of Their Past': Reconstructing Memory and History through Reproduced Photographs in Thi Bui's Graphic Novel The Best We Could Do"[79]
  • 2020 - Haniyeh Barahouie, by "Mapping the War in Zeina Abirached's A Game for Swallows: To Die, To Leave, To Return"[79]
  • 2021 - Maite Urcaregui, by "Political Geographies of Race in James Baldwin and Yoran Cazac's Little Man, Little Man"[80]
    • Honorable Mention: Clémence Sfadj, by "Windows on Everyday Harlem: 'The Cartoons of Ollie Harrington'"[80]
  • 2022 - Kay Sohini, by "The Peculiarity of Time"[81]
    • Honorable Mention: Bryan Bove, by "It Can't All Be Sorrow: Confronting Trauma Through Television in Marvel's WandaVision"[81]
    • Honorable Mention: Adrienne Resha, by "Good Is Not a Thing You Are, It's a Thing Superheroes Do: Kamala Khan and the Identity Pause in Ms. Marvel, Superhero Bildungsroman"[81]
Gilbert Seldes Prize for Public Scholarship
  • 2019 - Osvaldo Oyola, by "Guess Who's Coming Home for the Holidays: Intergenerational Conflict in Bitch Planet", The Middle Spaces, "'I AM (not) FROM BEYOND!': Situating Scholarship & the Writing 'I'", The Middle Spaces, and "YA = Young Avengers: Asserting Maturity on the Threshold of Adulthood", The Middle Spaces[79]
  • 2020 - Zoe D. Smith, by "4 Colorism, or, the Ashiness of it All" and "4 Colorism, or, White Paper/Brown Pixels", Women Wrote About Comics[79]
  • 2021 - Zachary J.A. Rondinelli, by "#WelcomeToSlumberland Social Media Research Project"[80]
    • Honorable Mention: Anna F. Peppard, by "(Behold?) The Vision's Penis: The Presence of Absence in Mutant Romance Tales"[80]
  • 2022 - Ritesh Badu, by "Civilized Monsters: These Savage Shores and the Colonialist Cage"[81]
    • Honorable Mention: Vincent Haddad, by "'That Wingnut is Insane': Reality vs. Fictionality in Conspiracy Comics"[81]
    • Honorable Mention: The Oh Gosh, Oh Golly, Oh Wow! Podcast with Anna Peppard, Christopher Maverick, J. Andrew Deman, and Shawn Gilmore, episode 5, "Excalibur #5: 'Send in the Clowns'"[81]

See also

People

References

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Works cited

Further reading

Historiography

External links

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