"Superman's role in romanticizing commercialism; sexual violence in Japanese manga comics; Wonder Woman as Americanized immigrant; reader's reactions to the gay superhero Northstar; Dilbert as a workplace revolutionary; the Punisher's invasion of Vietnam--these are a few of the issues that Comics & Ideology addresses. Focusing on the intersection of social power and comic art, essays in this book explore how images and narratives in comic books and comic strips may portray social groups and social issues. As a scholarly examination of a form known as 'the funnies' or 'funny books, ' this book argues that the themes and characterizations in comic art are often quite serious. Essays take diverse theoretical perspectives such as cultural studies, political economy, feminist criticism, queer studies, and mythic analysis, all focusing on the relationship of comics to issues of social division."--Publisher description.

Offers undergraduate students with an understanding of the comics medium and its communication potential. This book deals with comic books and graphic novels. It focuses on comic books because in their longer form they have the potential for complexity of expression.

The classic, critical and humorous study of cultural imperialism and children's literature; how the Disney fantasy world reproduces the "American Dream" fantasy world, and the disastrous effect of Disney comics and other "mass" cultural merchandise on the development of the so-called "Third" World. In 1973 this work was banned and burned in Chile, and later the English edition was banned for more than a year by the US government. In comic book format with cartoon examples, introduction by David KUNZLE on the Disney world, a bibliography of left writings on cultural imperialism and the comics, and an appendix by John Shelton LAWRENCE on the book's US censorship and the legal-political issues involved in the right to criticize Disney

Comics have become important elements in the culture of the 20th century, not only has the genre been recognized as a medium and an art form in its own right; it has also inspired other means of communication from text books to interactive media. In 13 articles, Comics and Culture offers an introduction to the field of comics research written by scholars from Europe and the USA. The articles span a great variety of approaches including general discussions of the aesthetics and definition of comics, comparisons of comics with other media, analyses of specific comics and genres, and discussions of the cultural status of comics in society. One way to characterize this book is to focus on the contributors. Recognized and established research with important publications to their credit form one group: Donald Ault, Thierry Groensteen, M. Thomas Inge, Pascal Lefvre and Roger Sabin. Another group is from the new generation of researches represented by PhD students: Hans-Christian Christiansen

The definition of ideology continues to occupy scholars across a wide range of disciplines. In this book, Teun A van Dijk sketches a challenging new multidisciplinary framework for theorizing ideology. He defines ideology as the basis of the social representations of a group, its functions in terms of social relations between groups, and its reproduction as enacted by discourse. Contemporary racist discourse is examined to illustrate these ideological relations between cognition, society and discourse.

"Contextualizes the history of race within comic books and the fundamental whiteness observed in American superhero narratives from the late 1930s to the present"--