Comics Studies

CHARLES HATFIELD is the author of Alternative Comics and Hand of Fire: The Comics Art of Jack Kirby, and curator of the exhibition Comic Book Apocalypse: The Graphic World of Jack Kirby. He has chaired the International Comic Arts Forum and the MLA Forum on Comics and Graphic Narratives, and cofounded the Comics Studies Society.BART BEATY is the author, editor, and translator of more than twenty books in the field of comics studies, including Twelve-Cent Archie  and Comics versus Art.  He is the general editor of the Critical Survey of Graphic Novels and is the lead researcher on the What Were Comics? project.

"The margins of Hatfield and Beaty's comics studies are where some of the most interesting and innovative research on and around comics has been or is being conducted by scholars who will not find themselves or their work represented in this edited collection."— Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society"With Comic Studies: A Guidebook, Charles Hatfield and Bart Beaty (both top of their game) bring together a dream team of top researchers to produce a foundational collection that is going to be a cornerstone for all future research in this field. Each essay is not only encyclopedic in its synthesis of existing research but expands our knowledge of comics history and our conceptual understanding of how comics operates as an industry, as a set of social practices, as a confluence of genres, as a readership, and as an array of formal practices."— Henry Jenkins, author of Comics and Stuff"Very up-to-date and worth a closer look. Using 17 bite-sized articles, each ten to twenty pages long, the authors of the volume introduce the subject of comic studies."— Comicgate.de

• Timeline of Selected EventsJonathan Chau, Bart Beaty, and Charles HatfieldIntroductionBart Beaty and Charles HatfieldPart I    HistoriesChapter 1  Comic StripsIan GordonChapter 2  Comic BooksCharles HatfieldChapter 3  Underground and Alternative ComicsRoger SabinChapter 4  European TraditionsBart BeatyChapter 5  MangaFrenchy LunningChapter 6  The Graphic NovelIsaac CatesPart II    CulturesChapter 7  Comics IndustriesMatthew P. McAllister and Brian MacAuleyChapter 8   Readers, Audiences, and FansBenjamin WooChapter 9    Children and ComicsPhilip NelChapter 10  DifferencesTheresa TensuanPart III    FormsChapter 11   CartooningAndrei MoltiuChapter 12   Design in Comics: Panels and PagesMartha KuhlmanChapter 13   Words and ImagesJan BaetensPart IV    GenresChapter 14  SuperheroesMarc SingerChapter 15   AutographicsGillian WhitlockChapter 16   Girls, Women, and ComicsMel GibsonChapter 17   Digiral ComicsDarren Wershler, Kalervo Sinervo, and Shannon TienBibliographyNotes on the Contributors