BOBC |
Resource type: Book Chapter Language: en: English DOI: 10.1515/9783110446968-006 BibTeX citation key: Stein2021a Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details |
Categories: General Keywords: Archive, Seriality Creators: Domsch, Etter, Hassler-Forest, Stein, Vanderbeke Publisher: de Gruyter (Berlin u. Boston) Collection: Handbook of Comics and Graphic Narratives |
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Abstract |
At first sight, digital serial comics seem to challenge our understanding of serial comics based on analog materials. Yet upon closer inspection, many elements – such as the dialectics of order and chaos, or predetermination and arbitrariness, which accompanies the classic distinction between the series and the serial – have remained surprisingly consistent. This article develops the metaphor of the archive as a means of unraveling the serial specificities of comics (mainly superhero comic books and newspaper strips). Revisiting the series-vs.-serial distinction and differentiating among (dis)organized archives, excessive archives, and archival impulses allows for a conception of serial comics as crucial agents of cultural (re)production. These comics may tend toward the subversive and anarchic just as easily as they may favor a more pessimistic outlook: forms of escapism that cement the political status quo.
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