BOBC

• terminology (graphic narrative vs. sequential art, comics vs. comix)
• the three outstanding comics-producing cultures today: the American, the Japanese (manga), and the Franco-Belgian (the bande dessinée)
• the differences between the techniques of graphic narrative and prose narrative,and between the reading patterns for each
• the connections between the graphic novel and film
• the lives of the new genre’s practitioners (e.g., Robert Crumb, Harvey Pekar)
• women’s contributions to the field (e.g., Lynda Barry)
• how the graphic novel has been used to probe difficult moments in history (the Holocaust, 9/11), deal with social and racial injustice, and voice political satire
• postmodernism in the graphic novel (e.g., in the work of Chris Ware)
• how the American superhero developed in the Depression and World War II
• comix and the 1960s counterculture
• the challenges of teaching graphic novels that contain violence and sexual content

The volume concludes with a selected bibliography of the graphic novel and sequential art.

Table of Contents

Stephen E. Tabachnick: Introduction (1)

Part I: Theoretical and Aesthetic Issues
Charles Hatfield: Defining Comics in the Classroom; or, The Pros and Cons of Unfixability (19)
Brian Tucker: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Laocoön and the Lessons of Comics (28)
Eric S. Rabkin: Reading Time in Graphic Narrative (36)
Jesse Cohn: Mise-en-Page: A Vocabulary for Page Layouts (44)
Elizabeth Rosen: The Narrative Intersection of Image and Text: Teaching Panel Frames in Comics (58)

Part II: Social Issues
Michael A. Chaney: Is There an African American Graphic Novel? (69)
Terry Barr: Teaching Maus to a Holocaust Class (76)
Anne N. Thalheimer: Too Weenie to Deal with All of This “Girl Stuff”: Women, Comics, and the Classroom (84)
Tammy Horn: The Graphic Novel as a Choice of Weapons (91)
James Bucky Carter: Teaching Watchmen in the Wake of 9/11 (99)

Part III: Individual Creators
Anthony D. Baker: Chris Ware’s Postmodern Pictographic Experiments (111)
Martha Kuhlman: Teaching Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli’s Graphic Novel Adaptation of Paul Auster’s City of Glass (120)
Mark Feldman: The Urban Studies of Ben Katchor (129)
Edward Brunner: The Comics as Outsider’s Text: Teaching R. Crumb and Underground Comix (137)
Darren Harris-Fain: Revisionist Superhero Graphic Novels: Teaching Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Books (147)
Dana A. Heller: Memory’s Architecture: American Studies and the Graphic Novels of Art Spiegelman (155)
Nathalie op de Beeck: Autobifictionalography: Making Do in Lynda Barry’s One Hundred Demons (163)
Laurie N. Taylor: Snow White in the City: Teaching Fables, Nursery Rhymes, and Revisions in Graphic Novels (172)
Frank L. Cioffi: Graphic Fictions on Graphic Subjects: Teaching the Illustrated Medical Narrative (179)
J. Caitlin Finlayson: The Boundaries of Genre: Translating Shakespeare in Antony Johnston and Brett Weldele’s Julius (188)
Christine Ferguson: Steam Punk and the Visualization of the Victorian: Teaching Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and From Hell (200)
Paul D. Streufert: Visualizing the Classics: Frank Miller’s 300 in a World Literature Course (208)

Part IV: Courses and Contexts
Joseph Witek: Seven Ways I Don’t Teach Comics (217)
M. G. Aune: Teaching the Graphic Travel Narrative (223)
John G. Nichols: Violent Encounters: Graphic Novels and Film in the Classroom (230)
Bryan E. Vizzini: Hero and Holocaust: Graphic Novels in the Undergraduate History Classroom (238)
Alison Mandaville and J. P. Avila: It’s a Word! It’s a Picture! It’s Comics! Interdisciplinary Approaches to Teaching Comics (245)
Claudia Goldstein: Comics and the Canon: Graphic Novels, Visual Narrative, and Art History (254)
Rachael Hutchinson: Teaching Manga: Considerations and Class Exercises (262)
Ana Merino: The Cultural Dimensions of the Hispanic World Seen through Its Graphic Novels (271)
Jan Baetens: A Cultural Approach to Nonnarrative Graphic Novels: A Case Study from Flanders (281)
Pamela Gossin: Interdisciplinary Meets Cross-Cultural: Teaching Anime and Manga on a Science and Technology Campus (288)
Michael D. Picone: Teaching Franco-Belgian Bande Dessinée (299)

Part V: Resources
Chris Matz: Supporting the Teaching of the Graphic Novel: The Role of the Academic Library (327)
A Selected Bibliography of the Graphic Novel and Sequential Art (333)

Notes on Contributors (341)
Index (345)