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Peaslee, Robert Moses and Robert G. Weiner, eds. The Joker: A Serious Study of the Clown Prince of Crime. Jackson: Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2015. 
Added by: joachim (04/03/2015, 16:01)   Last edited by: joachim (04/03/2015, 18:16)
Resource type: Book
Language: en: English
ID no. (ISBN etc.): 9781628462388
BibTeX citation key: Peaslee2015
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Categories: General
Keywords: "Batman", Collection of essays, Superhero, USA
Creators: Peaslee, Weiner
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi (Jackson)
Views: 9/478
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Abstract
Along with Batman, Spider-Man, and Superman, the Joker stands out as one of the most recognizable comics characters in popular culture. While there has been a great deal of scholarly attention on superheroes, very little has been done to understand supervillains. This is the first academic work to provide a comprehensive study of this villain, illustrating why the Joker appears so relevant to audiences today.
Batman’s foe has cropped up in thousands of comics, numerous animated series, and three major blockbuster feature films since 1966. Actually, the Joker debuted in DC comics Batman1 (1940) as the typical gangster, but the character evolved steadily into one of the most ominous in the history of sequential art. Batman and the Joker almost seemed to define each other as opposites, hero and nemesis, in a kind of psychological duality. Scholars from a wide array of disciplines look at the Joker through the lens of feature films, video games, comics, politics, magic and mysticism, psychology, animation, television, performance studies, and philosophy. As the first volume that examines the Joker as complex cultural and cross-media phenomenon, this collection adds to our understanding of the role comic book and cinematic villains play in the world and the ways various media affect their interpretation. Connecting the Clown Prince of Crime to bodies of thought as divergent as Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche, contributors demonstrate the frightening ways in which we get the monsters we need.

Table of Contents

Steve Englehart: Foreword (xi)
Robert G. Weiner and Robert Moses Peaslee: Introduction (xiv)

I. The Changeable Trickster
Dan Hassoun: Shifting Makeups. The Joker as Performance Style from Romero to Ledger (3)
Roy T. Cook: Does the Joker Have Six-Inch Teeth? (19)
Eric Garneau: Lady Haha. Notoriety, Super-sanity, and the Mutability of Identity (33)
David Ray Carter: Episodes of Madness. Representations of the Joker in Television and Animation (49)

II. The Joker and the Political
Emmanuelle Wessels and Mark Martinez: The Obama-Joker. Assembling a Populist Monster (65)
Tosha Taylor: Kiss with a Fist. The Gendered Power Struggle of the Joker and Harley Quinn (82)
Richard D. Heldenfels: More Than the Hood Was Red. The Joker as Marxist (94)

III. The Digital Joker
Vyshali Manivannan: Never Give ’Em What They Expect. The Joker Ethos as the Zeitgeist of Contemporary Digital Subcultural Transgression (109)
Kristen M. S. Bezio: Playing (with) the Villain. Critical Play and the Joker-as-Guide in Batman: Arkham Asylum (129)
Kim Owczarski: “Why So Serious?” Warner Bros. Use of the Joker in Marketing The Dark Knight (146)

IV. Joker Theory
Johan Nilsson: Rictus Grins and Glasgow Smiles. The Joker as Satirical Discourse (165)
Ryan Litsey: The Joker, Clown Prince of Nobility. The “Master” Criminal, Nietzsche, and the Rise of the Superman (179)
Hannah Means-Shannon: The Joker Plays the King. Archetypes of the Underworld in Grant Morrison and Dave McKean’s Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth (194)
Mark P. Williams: Making Sense Squared. Iteration and Synthesis in Grant Morrison’s Joker (209)
Michael Goodrum: “You Complete Me”. The Joker as Symptom (229)

Will Brooker: Afterword (243)

Contributors (246)


  
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