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Lopes, Paul. Growing Up: The Popular Genre Strategy in Transforming Mainstream Comic Books. Public Sociologies: San Francisco, 14–17 Aug, 2004. Added by: joachim (6/21/13, 9:37 PM) Last edited by: joachim (6/21/13, 9:44 PM) |
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| Resource type: Conference Paper Language: en: English BibTeX citation key: Lopes2004 Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: "Watchmen", Bourdieu. Pierre, Gibbons. Dave, Moore. Alan, Popular culture, United Kingdom Creators: Lopes Publisher: American Sociological Association (San Francisco) Collection: Public Sociologies |
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| Attachments | URLs http://www.allacad ... p108678_index.html |
| Abstract |
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This paper discusses the use of popular genre fiction in transforming American comic books. Since the early nineteen eighties, both mainstream and independent publishers have published comic books designed to reach a broader and supposedly more mature and sophisticated audience than readers of the dominant superhero genre. From the very beginning, however, this interpretive community has confronted the low status accorded comic books, by what John Fiske calls official culture, as a juvenile and superficial adolescent-male fantasy world. The general attempt to legitimize comic books generates a tension between a commitment to popular culture and the quest for full legitimacy as an art form. I explore Alan Moore’s Watchmen as an ideal type in legitimating comic books through a popular-genre strategy. The paper also looks at how the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of strategic positioning and artistic trajectory might help in understanding the social context of this narrative strategy in the interpretive community of adult and alternative comic books.
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