Art of Comics

Aaron Meskin is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Leeds. He is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters on aesthetics and other philosophical subjects. His work on comics has been published in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism and the British Journal of Aesthetics.  He was the first aesthetics editor for the online journal Philosophy Compass, and he co-edited Aesthetics: A Comprehensive Anthology (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007). He is a former Trustee of the American Society for Aesthetics and is Treasurer of the British Society of Aesthetics. Roy T. Cook is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, a Resident Fellow at the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science, and an Associate Fellow of the Northern Institute of Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen. He has published numerous articles and book chapters on philosophical logic, mathematical logic, philosophy of mathematics, and more recently on the aesthetics of comics. He previously edited The Arché Papers on the Mathematics of Abstraction (2007), and is the author of A Dictionary of Philosophical Logic (2009).

“Regardless, though, considered as a whole, The Art of Comicsis an excellent collection and one which is likely to provoke spirited debate and serve as a spur to further research within Anglo-American philosophy (and philosophy more generally) into this sadly neglected art form. I, for one, look forward to these future developments immensely. To quote one of the greats in the history of comics—excelsior!.”  (British Journal of Aesthetics, 1 October 2013)“The Art of Comics would make a fine addition to any undergraduate reading list, introducing as it does several important notions in contemporary aesthetics.”  (The Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism, 1 November 2013)

• Editors’ Acknowledgments viiList of Figures viiiNotes on Contributors ixForeword xiiWarren EllisThe Art and Philosophy of Comics: An Introduction xivAaron Meskin and Roy T. CookPart One: The Nature and Kinds of Comics 11 Redefining Comics 3John Holbo2 The Ontology of Comics 31Aaron Meskin3 Comics and Collective Authorship 47Christy Mag Uidhir4 Comics and Genre 68Catharine AbellPart Two: Comics and Representation 855 Wordy Pictures: Theorizing the Relationship between Image and Text in Comics 87Thomas E. Wartenberg6 What’s So Funny? Comic Content in Depiction 105Patrick Maynard7 The Language of Comics 125Darren Hudson HickPart Three: Comics and the Other Arts 1458 Making Comics into Film 147Henry John Pratt9 Why Comics Are Not Films: Metacomics and Medium‐Specific Conventions 165Roy T. Cook10 Proust’s In Search of Lost Time : The Comics Version 188David CarrierIndex 203