Comics Studies Monograph Series – serie

An examination of how Superman and Batman dealt with cultural and social changes in the 1960s and 1970s and how this mirrored American societal changes in general.As the founding fathers of the superhero comic books, Superman and Batman have defined a genre of American mythology from the mid-twentieth century to the present. The author describes how the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight dealt with their midlife crises brought on by the cultural and social changes of the 1960s and 1970s. Johnson describes how the superheroes' problems and adaptations mirror much of American societal changes during that time.Superheroes in Crisis is the second book published in the RIT Press Comics Studies Monograph Series. The series editor is Dr. Gary Hoppenstand, Professor of English at Michigan State University.JEFFREY K> JOHNSON is a World War II Historian at the Joint POW/Accounting Command in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is the author of several books and articles on the influence of comics in popular culture.

This book traces the history of crime comics from their beginnings to the current resurgence and analyzes the cultural forces that give rise to influential works like Frank Miller's Sin City.Crime comic books in the 1950s caused controversy leading to their suppression and near extinction. Twenty-five years later, the dark hero, femme fatale, and bleak outlook of crime story comic books are even more striking and subversive. Terrence Wandtke traces the history of crime comics from their beginnings to the current resurgence and analyzes the cultural forces that give rise to influential works like Frank Miller's Sin City, Brian Azzarello's 100 Bullets, and Ed Brubaker's Criminal.The Dark Night Returns is the third book published in the RIT Press' Comics Studies Monograph Series. The series editor is Dr. Gary Hoppenstand, Professor of English at Michigan State University.TERRENCE WANDTKE is a professor at Judson University. His books include The Meaning of Superhero Comics (McFarland) and Ed Brubaker: Conversations (forthcoming from the University Press of Mississippi). He is the founder of the Imago Film Festival.

An examination of the narrative and pictorial qualities of comics and how these help comics to communicate and create meaning.In Narrative Structure in Comics: Making Sense of Fragments, Barbara Postema seeks to explain how comics communicate and create meaning, with an emphasis on two aspects of comics. She first examines the pictorial quality ofcomics, which receives more emphasis than verbal/textual elements. Her second focus is upon the storytelling and narrative qualities of comics, as well as the literary explorations they provide. The "narrative structure" refersto the potential of images, the story telling capacities of panels, and the sequence of panels, in addition to the more traditional narratological concepts. Overall, the author presents a credible rationale for the way in which comics structure their narratives. At every level of communication, comics rely on gaps or absences to create meaning and guide the reader to a meaningful experience.RIT Press is pleased to announce Narrative Structure in Comics as the first book published in its Comics Monograph Series.BARBARA POSTEMA is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Ryerson University in Toronto, where she is working on a project about wordless comics. She has published several articles in the International Journal of Comic Art.

An examination of the popular horror comics of the 1950s and their re-emergence thirty years later.The popular horror comics of the 1950s not only frightened their readers, they also alarmed Cold War politicians who enacted the prohibitive Comics Code, sacrificing horror on the altar of good taste. Wandtke examines and explainsthe story of the resurgence of horror comics and introduces readers to the new shape of horror comics within the American culture in the 1980s. Terrence Wandtke is a professor at Judson University and the author of The Dark Night Returns (RIT, 2015).