Studying Comics and Graphic Novels

Karin Kukkonen is Balzan Postdoctoral Research Fellow at St John’s College, University of Oxford, UK. Her research focuses on the emergence and development of comics as a narrative form during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Dr Kukkonen has published work on metaphors, metafiction, and multi-perspective storytelling in comics. Her recent monograph, Contemporary Comics Storytelling (2013) examines how the comics of recent years engage with the legacy of postmodernism.

• Acknowledgments viiIntroduction: How to Use This Book 1What This Book Holds 2Working Definitions 41 What's in a Page: Close-Reading Comics 7Cognitive Processes and Critical Terms 7Navigating the Comics Page 16Entering the Storyworld and Meeting its Participants 19Comics Analysis – A Basic Checklist 262 The Way Comics Tell it: Narration and Narrators 31Showing and Telling 31Story, Discourse, and Plot 34The Narrator 39Narration, Focalization, and Point of View 44Narrative as Meaning-Making 48Graphic Narrative – A Basic Checklist 493 Narrating Minds and Bodies: Autobiographical Comics 55Style and Subjectivity 55Autographic Agents 57Embodiment 60Self-Reflexivity 61Time, Story, and History 65Alternative Agendas and Authenticity 684 Novels and Graphic Novels: Adaptations 73Transporting Stories 74Media Affordances and Adaptation Strategies 75Fidelity in Adaptation 80Literary Complexity 85The Page Revisited 905 Comics and Their History 99The Beginnings of Comics History 99Precursors in Emergent Mass Culture 102Newspaper Comics (1900s–1930s) 103The Comic Book (1930–54) 106Comics Censorship (1954) 110Comics as Popular Culture 113Breaking the Code 1: Pop Art and Underground Comix 117Breaking the Code 2: The British Invasion 1186 The Study and Criticism of Comics 123Resources for Studying Comics 123Access to Comics Texts 123Critical Work on Comics 124Critical Approaches to Comics 125Comics Semiotics 126Comics Narratology 128Cognitive Approaches to Comics 129Historical and Auteurist Approaches 131Cultural Studies and Gender Studies 133Psychoanalysis 134How to Write Your Essay on Comics 139The Crime Scene 142The Witnesses 142Making Your Case 144End Credits 146Conclusion: Comics as Literature 149Appendix: More Comics and Graphic Novels to Read 155Glossary 167Index 179