A collection of essays examining comic books and graphic novels. The essays place the work in a cultural context, addressing theory and terminology, adaptations of comic books, the superhero genre, and comic books and graphic novels that deal with history and nonfiction. This offers a nuanced and comprehensive picture of current scholarship in the subject area.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Joyce Goggin and Dan Hassler-Forest     

Part One. Origin Stories: History and Development of the Genre
1. Of Gutters and Guttersnipes: Hogarth’s Legacy
Joyce Goggin     
2. Ridiculous Rebellion: George L. Carlson and the Recovery of Jingle Jangle Comics
Daniel F. Yezbick     
3. Suspended in Mid-Month: Serialized Storytelling in Comics
Daniel Wüllner     

Part Two. What We Talk About When We Talk About Comics: Theory and Terminology
4 Balloonics: The Visuals of Balloons in Comics
Charles Forceville, Tony Veale, and Kurt Feyaerts     
5. Remediation and the Sense of Time in Graphic Narratives
Kai Mikkonen     
6. Brick by Brick: Chris Ware’s Architecture of the Page
Angela Szczepaniak     

Part Three. Out of the Gutter: Comics and Adaptations
7. It Was the Best of Two Worlds, It Was the Worst of Two Worlds: The Adaptation of Novels in Comics and Graphic Novels
Dirk Vanderbeke     
8. The 300 Controversy: A Case Study in the Politics of Adaptation
Dan Hassler-Forest     

Part Four. Men in Tights: The Superhero Paradigm
9. The Last Action Hero’s Swan Song: Graphic Novelty or Never-Ending Story?
Andreas Rauscher     
10. Extraordinary People: The Superhero Genre and Celebrity Culture in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Jonathan E. Goldman     
11. Warren Ellis’s Planetary: The Archaeology of Superheroes
Karin Kukkonen     

Part Five. Drawing History: Nonfiction in Comics
12. Reconsidering Comics Journalism: Information and Experience in Joe Sacco’s Palestine
Benjamin Woo     
13. Comics, Trauma and Cultural Memory(ies) of 9/11
Christophe Dony and Caroline van Linthout     
14. “Be vewy, vewy quiet. We’re hunting wippers”: A Barthesian Analysis of the Construction of Fact and Fiction in Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell
Julia Round     
15. Graphic Black Nationalism: Visualizing Political Narratives in the Graphic Novel
James Braxton Peterson     

About the Contributors     
Works Cited     
Index