Rebuilding Story Worlds The Obscure Cities by Schuiten and Peeters
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
JAN BAETENS is a professor of cultural studies at the University of Leuven in Flanders, Belgium. His recent books on comics and visual studies include The Graphic Novel, coauthored with Hugo Frey, The Cambridge History of the Graphic Novel, coedited with Frey and Steve Tabachnick, Novelization: From Film to Novel and The Film Photonovel: A Cultural History of Forgotten Adaptations.
"In this compelling study of world making and storytelling in <i>The Obscure Cities</i> by François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters, Jan Baetens offers a subtle and intelligent reading of how structures of authorship, character, image, and world draw readers into a truly fictional universe in which interpretation and rereading are key. With this book, Baetens has certainly brought <i>The Obscure Cities</i> into its rightful place in the history of American and European comics."
- Nancy Pedri, Memorial University of Newfoundland
"With clarity, insight, and depth, Jan Baetens’ <i>Rebuilding Story Worlds</i> gives the reader all the essential keys to navigate François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters’ sprawling graphic novel series <i>The Obscure Cities—</i>Belgium’s most sophisticated, contemporary <i>bande dessinée</i> opus."
- Jean-Paul Gabilliet, author of Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of Comic Books in America
"Baetens ‘monograph is devoted to the overall concept of a series that was not originally conceived as such. The heterogeneity of the individual, complementary and contradicting volumes that stand for themselves and can be read in the context of the other volumes."
Comic.de
Rebuilding Story Worlds offers the first full-length study of this seminal series, exploring both the artistic traditions from which it emerges and the innovative ways it plays with genre, gender, and urban space. Comics scholar Jan Baetens examines how Schuiten’s work as an architectural designer informs the series’ concerns with the preservation of historic buildings. He also includes an original interview with Peeters, which reveals how poststructuralist critical theory influenced their construction of a rhizomatic fictional world, one which has made space for fan contributions through the Alta Plana website.
Synthesizing cutting-edge approaches from both literary and visual studies, Rebuilding Story Worlds will give readers a new appreciation for both the aesthetic ingenuity of The Obscure Cities and its nuanced conception of politics.
Set in a parallel world, full of architecturally distinctive city-states, the comics series The Obscure Cities represents one of literature’s most impressive pieces of world-building. Rebuilding Story Worlds explores both the artistic traditions from which the series emerges and the innovative ways it plays with genre, gender, and urban space.
List of Illustrations
1 A New Series, A New Type of Author
2 A World of Its Own
3 More than a Possible World
4 Between Chapter and Series
5 A New Fantastic
6 In and Out the Medium
7 Doing Politics in Comics
8 Close-reading The Leaning Girl
9 A Conversation with Benoît Peeters
10 Image Gallery
Acknowledgments
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
Index
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
JAN BAETENS is a professor of cultural studies at the University of Leuven in Flanders, Belgium. His recent books on comics and visual studies include The Graphic Novel, coauthored with Hugo Frey, The Cambridge History of the Graphic Novel, coedited with Frey and Steve Tabachnick, Novelization: From Film to Novel and The Film Photonovel: A Cultural History of Forgotten Adaptations.