Contributions by Bart Beaty, T. Keith Edmunds, Eike Exner, Christopher J. Galdieri, Ivan Lima Gomes, Charles Hatfield, Franny Howes, John A. Lent, Amy Louise Maynard, Shari Sabeti, Rob Salkowitz, Kalervo A. Sinervo, Jeremy Stoll, Valerie Wieskamp, Adriana Estrada Wilson, and Benjamin Woo The Comics World: Comic Books, Graphic Novels, and Their Publics is the first collection to explicitly examine the production, circulation, and reception of comics from a social-scientific point of view. Designed to promote interdisciplinary dialogue about theory and methods in comics studies, this volume draws on approaches from fields as diverse as sociology, political science, history, folklore, communication studies, and business, among others, to study the social life of comics and graphic novels. Taking the concept of a “comics world”—that is, the collection of people, roles, and institutions that “produce” comics as they are—as its organizing principle, the book asks readers to attend to the contexts that shape how comics move through societies and cultures. Each chapter explores a specific comics world or particular site where comics meet one of their publics, such as artists and creators; adaptors; critics and journalists; convention-goers; scanners; fans; and comics scholars themselves. Through their research, contributors demonstrate some of the ways that people participate in comics worlds and how the relationships created in these spaces can provide different perspectives on comics and comics studies. Moving beyond the page, The Comics World explores the complexity of the lived reality of the comics world: how comics and graphic novels matter to different people at different times, within a social space shared with others.

In America, comics and comic books have often been associated with adolescent male fantasy--muscle-bound superheroes and scantily clad women. Nonetheless, comics have also been read and enjoyed by girls. While there have been many strong representations of women throughout their history, the comics of today have evolved and matured, becoming a potent medium in which to explore the female experience, particularly that of girlhood and adolescence. In Girls and Their Comics: Finding a Female Voice in Comic Book Narrative, Jacqueline Danziger-Russell contends that comics have a unique place in the representation of female characters. She discusses the overall history of the comic book, paying special attention to girls' comics, showing how such works relate to a female point of view. While examining the concept of visual literacy, Danziger-Russell asserts that comics are an excellent space in which the marginalized voices of girls may be expressed. This volume also includes a chapter on manga (Japanese comics), which explains the genesis of girls' comics in Japan and their popularity with girls in the United States. Including interviews with librarians, comic creators, and girls who read comics and manga, Girls and Their Comics is an important examination of the growing interest in comic books among young females and will appeal to a wide audience, including literary theorists, teachers, librarians, popular culture and women's studies scholars, and comic book historians.

For the first time ever, the inspiring, infuriating, and utterly insane story of comics, graphic novels, and manga is presented in comic book form! The award-winning Action Philosophers team of Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey turn their irreverent-but-accurate eye to the stories of Jack Kirby, R. Crumb, Harvey Kurtzman, Alan Moore, Stan Lee, Will Eisner, Fredric Wertham, Roy Lichtenstein, Art Spiegelman, Herge, Osamu Tezuka - and more! Collects Comic Book Comics #1-6.

From a simple, brilliant premise—to create comics from the weirdest and funniest tweets around—artist Mike Rosenthal (@VectorBelly) has crafted a hilariously surreal world that has attracted over a million followers to his blog Twitter: The Comic. Each carefully curated tweet delivers concentrated humor in the language of the Internet, reproduced in the comics with typos and all. As envisioned by Rosenthal, each comes to life through a bizarrely recognizable cast of bassoon-playing cops, sarcastic teens, bear MDs, clueless dads, potential insect overlords, and more. Featuring more than 120 of these comics, including dozens unique to this book, Twitter: The Comic (The Book) is a dementedly funny vision of our strange online age.

Presents a guide to stylized figure anatomy for artists wishing to emulate one of today's popular streamlined comic book styles, with step-by-step demonstrations and studies of major muscle groups, heads, hands, and feet.

Combined edition of The comics before 1945, first published in 2004, and The comics since 1945, first published in 2002.