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Resource type: Book Chapter Language: en: English BibTeX citation key: Connors2017a Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details |
Categories: General Keywords: "Batman", "The Dark Knight Returns", Didactics, Intermediality, Miller. Frank, Reception, Superhero, USA Creators: Connors, Hill Publisher: Routledge (London, New York) Collection: Teaching Comics Through Multiple Lenses. Critical Perspectives |
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Abstract |
This chapter is premised on a number of assumptions, an important one being that readers participate in a series of complex interpretive practices when they interact with the multimodal design of comic books and graphic novels. Additionally, like Allen and Ingulsrud (2003), I assume that the relative ease with which readers are able to do so inhibits their ability to appreciate the multiple points of focus they attend to when they read these texts. In the sections to follow, I examine comics reading through the related concepts of multiliteracies (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000) and multimodality (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2001). To begin, I address stigmas that have traditionally been associated with comic books and the people who read them. Next, I introduce the concept of design (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000; New London Group, 1996) and examine it as both a framework for understanding how readers make meaning when they interact with texts that incorporate multiple semiotic resources, and as a lens that I argue readers can apply to conduct close readings of comics. Having done so, I offer a close reading of a scene from Frank Miller’s (2002) graphic novel Batman: The Dark Knight Returns to demonstrate how attending to the multimodal design of comics can deepen one’s appreciation for the interpretive moves that readers make as they transact with the semiotic design of these texts. To conclude, I reflect on the implications of reading comics through the lens of design for teachers and students.
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