This edited collection offers the first extended study of the manifold interconnections between comics and playfulness. While providing an open and adaptable point of departure for identifying and attributing playfulness across the production, aesthetics, and reception of comics and comics-like works, the book also acknowledges the diverse ways in which both playfulness and comics have been conceptualized and seeks to make productive the tensions within and between these different approaches. To this end, the volume includes contributions from a group of renowned international comics scholars and combines theoretical reflection on both comics and playfulness with detailed analyses of a wide range of case studies across various (analog and digital) comics and related formats, genres, practices, and cultural and historical contexts. Consequently, it marks an innovative contribution to an underexplored area within comics studies. Comics and Playfulness should therefore appeal to researchers and students of both comics studies and game studies, as well as anyone interested in the ever-increasing focus on ludic phenomena in media studies and the humanities more broadly.
