The Art of Comics and Graphic Novels: Graphic Novels

Librarian Stephen Weiner (Rise of the Graphic Novel, The Hellboy Companion, The Will Eisner Companion), with the crowdsourcing help of professionals in the field, from artists to critics to leading comic store owners, has sifted through the bewildering thousands of graphic novels now available to come up with a list of 101 outstanding titles.

A yearly anthology of comics and graphic novels published in the United States

The history of the graphic novel from its origins in the nineteenth century to its rise and startling success in the twentieth and twenty-first century. It includes original discussion on the current state of the graphic novel and analyzes how American, European, Middle Eastern, and Japanese renditions have shaped the field.

Latin American comics and graphic novels have a unique history of addressing controversial political, cultural, and social issues. This volume presents new perspectives on how comics on and from Latin America both view and express collective memory of major historical events and processes. The contributors, from a variety of disciplines including literary theory, cultural studies, and history, explore topics including national identity construction, narratives of resistance to colonialism and imperialism, the construction of revolutionary traditions, and the legacies of authoritarianism and political violence. The chapters offer a background history of comics and graphic novels in the region, and survey a range of countries and artists such as Joaquín Salvador Lavado (a.k.a Quino), Héctor G. Oesterheld, and Juan Acevedo. They also highlight the unique ability of this art and literary form to succinctly render memory, documenting the essential role of comics during the transition from dictatorship to democracy.

Collection of essays by international group of scholars on the theory and history of graphic narrative as one of the most interesting and versatile forms of storytelling in contemporary media culture. Essays analyze a wide range of texts, genres, and narrative strategies from both theoretical and historical perspectives.