Bibliography: the Power of Comics. History, Form & Culture
The Power of Comics is a text-book that introduces you to comic books and graphic novels. It gives you the basis you need to understand them and analyse them from an objective point of view.
I have the old and revised second edition. I highly recommend you to get the second one, though. The book has been re-arranged, and parts of it have been enlarged and/or edited.
The contents include:
Preface & Introduction
UNIT I HISTORY
The History of Comic Books, Part I: Developing a Medium. How sequential art found its medium
The History of Comic Books, Part II: The Maturation of a Medium. The evolution of comics, underground comics and proliferation of independent comics.
The History of Comic Books, Part III: The Diversification of a Medium. How changes in technology are changing the comics and its audiences. Also, changes in distribution chanels.
UNIT II FORM
Creating the Story. Relationships with pictorial and linguistic elements, types and techniques of encapsulation, etc.
Experiencing the Story. About the type of images and the art style and how readers react to them.
Comic Book Genres: Classifying Comics.
Comic Book Genres: The Superhero.
Comic Book Genres: The Memoir
UNIT III CULTURE
The Business of Comic Books. About how the traditional comic book publishing companies, producers, distribution, etc.
The Comic Book Readers. About fans, their activities and fandom sub-cultures.
Exploring Meanings in Comic Book Texts. About interpretative methods and critical methods, etc.
Comics Culture around the World
Glossary & Bibliography
Chapters include discussions and proposed readings. This is an awesome text-book to study in a class-room or also alone at home.
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