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Hatfield, Charles and Jeet Heer, eds. The Superhero Reader. Jackson: Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2013. 
Added by: joachim (6/10/13, 10:01 PM)   
Resource type: Book
Language: en: English
ID no. (ISBN etc.): 978-1-61703-802-0
BibTeX citation key: Hatfield2013
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Categories: General
Keywords: Collection of essays, Superhero, USA
Creators: Hatfield, Heer
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi (Jackson)
Views: 5/746
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Abstract
Despite their commercial appeal and cross-media reach, superheroes are only recently starting to attract sustained scholarly attention. This groundbreaking collection brings together essays and book excerpts by major writers on comics and popular culture.
While superhero comics are a distinct and sometimes disdained branch of comics creation, they are integral to the development of the North American comic book and the history of the medium. For the past half-century they have also been the one overwhelmingly dominant market genre. The sheer volume of superhero comics that have been published over the years is staggering. Major superhero universes constitute one of the most expansive storytelling canvases ever fashioned. Moreover, characters inhabiting these fictional universes are immensely influential, having achieved iconic recognition around the globe. Their images and adventures have shaped many other media, such as film, videogames, and even prose fiction.
The primary aim of this reader is twofold: first, to collect in a single volume a sampling of the most sophisticated commentary on superheroes, and second, to bring into sharper focus the ways in which superheroes connect with larger social, cultural, literary, aesthetic, and historical themes that are of interest to a great many readers both in the academy and beyond.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments (ix)

Introduction (xi)

I. Historical Considerations (3)
Peter Coogan: Comics Predecessors (7)
Gerard Jones: Men of Tomorrow (16)
Philip Wylie: Gladiator (23)
Jules Feiffer: The Great Comic Book Heroes (30)
Walter Ong: The Comics and the Super State (34)
Fredric Wertham: The Superman Conceit (46)
Trina Robbins: The Great Women Superheroes  (53)
Will Brooker: Fandom and Authorship (61)

II. Theory and Genre (73)
John G. Cawelti: Literary Formulas (78)
Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence: Crowds of Superheroes (80)
Roger B. Rollin: The Epic Hero and Pop Culture (84)
Richard Reynolds: Masked Heroes (99)
Geoff Klock: The Revisionary Superhero Narrative (116)
Charles Hatfield: Jack Kirby and the Marvel Aesthetic (136)
Karin Kukkonen: Navigating Infinite Earths  (155)
Scott Bukatman: A Song of the Urban Superhero (170)

III. Culture and Identity (199)
Gloria Steinem: Wonder Woman (203)
Lillian Robinson: Invisible Girl (211)
Jennifer Stuller: Love Will Bring You to Your Gift (216)
Andy Medhurst: Batman, Deviance and Camp (237)
Adilifu Nama: Color Them Black (252)
Jeffrey Brown: Comic Book Masculinity (269)
Lorrie Palmer: The Punisher as Revisionist Superhero Western (279)
Henry Jenkins: Death-Defying Heroes (295)

List of Contributors (305)
Index (309)


Added by: joachim  Last edited by: joachim
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