A review of Handbook of Comics and Graphic Narrative

A volume edited by Sebastian Domsch, Dan Hassler-Forest, Dirk Vanderbeke. DeGruyter 2021

 The editor’s preface begins with quite an ambitious statement: “This handbook combines a systematic investigation of the subject with an overview of the field’s central contexts and themes and a broad selection of close readings of seminal exemplary works and authors.” (p.1) and a short survey of the field of comic studies, which it admits will not be covered systematically.

Like the preface, every chapter, all submitted by different contributors, ends with a bibliography of works cited and a list of further reading suggestions, providing a wealth of information, mostly in English but with some in other languages.

Part 1, titled “Systematic aspects,” is further subdivided into 6 chapters that all have an abstract and a list of keywords, as do all the other chapters in this volume, making the handbook easily accessible.

“Terminology and Definitions” provides a solid methodical approach to the most basic question of all: “What is a comic?”, presenting and analyzing various attempts of defining the medium from different angles: narrative, spatial, and temporal aspects, sequentiality, word-image combinations of the texts themselves, and a wider angle of comics as a cultural practice and its intended readership. A clear definition of the term, however, seems to be elusive; after all, how can you define something that is called a “comic book” but is neither necessarily comic nor a book?

The history and various formats and genres of comics, beginning with sequential images on a 5.200-year-old clay bowl, then focusing on Anglophone examples, is analyzed next. Pioneers of what would become the comic strip and later the comic book are introduced: Swiss Rodolphe Töpffer, German Wilhelm Busch, and American Richard F. Outcault.

The third chapter “offers an overview of the different approaches to the analysis of image-text relations in comics” (p.81), of one of the most important fields of study of comic specific textuality. It focuses on the writings of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Laokoön (1766), Roland Barthes: The Rhetoric of the Image (1964), and W.J.T. Mitchell: The Pictorial Turn (1994). Comics themselves were, of course, most prominently analyzed by Scott McCloud: Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (1993) and Will Eisner: Comics and Sequential Art (1985).

“Comics Narratology” analyzes the storyworlds of comics and their narratorial strategies, both of writers and fictional characters. The quite substantial list of works cited also includes our founding member Kai Mikkonen’s The Narratology of Comic Art (2017).

 “Seriality” examines this key feature of visual narratives, especially comic strips and superhero comics, in all its manifestations.

“Adaptations” in multiple comic and media forms is next, providing a general definition and an overview of adaptations in comics and the different academic approaches in the field of intermediality. This rounds out the first part of the handbook that provides a thorough analysis of the “Systematic Aspects” of comics and provides readers with extensive bibliographies and further readings lists.

Part II: Contexts and Themes is further divided into no less than 13 chapters.

-         “Politics” discusses politics in comics and comics in politics, exemplified by Fredric Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent and the ensuing self-censorship of comics.

-         “World Building” in comics analyzes E.C. Segars’ Thimble Theater and later Popeye, and The Adventures of Tintin and how this series changed over time, especially away from Herge’s early orientalist and often racist depiction of other ethnicities. It also includes Alan Moore’s graphic narrative Watchmen and the creative freedom it enjoyed despite being a considered to be superhero comic given its limited series nature with newly created characters.

-         “Life Writing” discusses graphic memoirs, with Art Spiegelman’s Maus as prime example. Graphic life writing here is interpreted as a new form of life writing: “…combining different media traditions into an innovative format that makes it possible to tell familiar stories in entirely new ways” (p. 216).

-         “Gender” illustrates the influence of the concept of gender on comics and how it changed over time. To further illustrate this, the following chapter is on “Queerness” and how today queer comics are an important part of the discourse on and the cultural visibility of LGBTQA+.

-         “Science Comics” covers the large field of educational comics, non-fiction and biographies of scientists to science fiction and superhero comics featuring mad scientists. Not to be nitpicking, like a reader of Marvel comics who points out a continuity mistake to win the famous no-prize, but the mad scientist and prominent Batman-foe mentioned on p.258 is called Mr. Freeze and not Dr. Freeze.

-         “Postcolonial Perspectives” thematizes the growing field of study of comics originating in postcolonial societies and their publishing circumstances, e.g., Indian or African comics, or comics on postcolonial discourses and topics.

-         “DocuComics in the Classroom” promotes graphic documentaries in classrooms to further critical and visual literacy by using Josh Neufeld’s A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge as an example. This chapter provides probably lesser-known information on the educational relevance of graphic non-fiction which could be useful for graphic fiction as well.

-         Superhero Comics provides a wealth of information but contains a few inconsistencies. For example, it states “The history of superheroes in American comics is commonly divided into three distinct eras” (p. 311) but continues to mention four ages: Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Dark or Iron, which are the commonly used denominations. Likewise, there are “only” three subchapters: Golden Age Batman, which does not really focus on the Golden Age, but provides more of a character study of Batman across time and how the foundations of the Batman mythos were laid; Silver Age, which focuses on Marvel Comics’ Nick Fury as a lynch pin between superhero/science fiction comics and the Cold War spy reality, and his interconnections with the Marvel universe. It provides an interesting case study but it relatively short and almost completely ignores DC Comics. The Bronze Age itself is not specifically mentioned, but the chapter on the Dark Age briefly mentions the Silver Age and Bronze Age, together with the self-censoring CCA.

The handbook’s third section provides close readings of specific texts that have largely already been mentioned in the various contexts shown above. These close readings also provide information about the respective authors and information on the critical reception and legacy of these texts.

-         The first text is appropriately The Yellow Kid, one of the first newspaper strip characters in the late 19^th century. An in-depth analysis of early comic strips and the concept of seriality they established is also provided.

-         Krazy Kat, another pioneering newspaper strip, is portrayed with a bit less detail and with a likewise shorter bibliography, but it is especially interesting in modern contexts, including those of racial identity and queer reading.

-         Little Nemo in Slumberland, another essential early newspaper strip, provides another in-depth analysis but what so far has been a chronological order of texts now jumps into the 1970s, omitting close reading of texts from the Golden, Silver and Bronze Age.

-         Cerebus: David Sim’s self-published 300 issue (1977-2004) independent comic is well documented here as are the problematic views of its creator.

-         A Contract with God, Will Eisner’s canonical graphic novel, is assessed against the background of the establishment of the graphic novel together with a critical look at Eisner’s legacy and his role in the creation of the graphic novel.

-         Raymond Briggs’s graphic novel When the Wind Blows from 1982 offers interesting insights on its historical Cold War context, on comics as a means of social criticism, and is, obviously, still very relevant in the face of the current Russian aggression.

-         Art Spiegelman’s Maus, needs, I dare say, no further introduction as one of the most canonical graphic novels ever. Already often mentioned throughout the handbook, it here receives an in-depth analysis.

-         Robert Crumb, the most prolific creator of underground comics is analyzed next, highlighting this genre of comics.

-         From Hell, Alan Moore’s historiographic graphic novel about Jack the Ripper and the Victorian Age, is an interesting choice for inclusion, but as Watchmen and other texts by Moore are referred to throughout the handbook, it further broadens the study of Moore’s oeuvre.

-         Neil Gaiman’s 75 issue series The Sandman, likewise, really needs no introduction. Apart from its obvious intertextuality galore, postcolonial and gender aspects are also discussed here.

-         Alison Bechdel’s 25 year run of her bi-weekly comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For both expands the scope of the texts analyzed but also returns to the original publication form of the medium. It argues for a critical evaluation of this strip, together with Bechdel’s other lesser-known text Are You My Mother?

-         Chris Ware’s critically acclaimed graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid On Earth is another well-chosen example for how far this particular medium has evolved: into a “serious” metafictional narrative about loneliness, depression and superhero fantasies, drawn in a cartoonish style, that leaves it up to the reader to decide whether its ending is a happy one or not.

-         Daniel Clowes’ Ghost World, a fascinating character study of teenage alienation, takes the graphic novel into another direction that even led to the author being nominated for an Academy Award for his screen adaptation.

-         While Ghost World was adapted to the screen, Martin Rowson’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman goes the other way as it adapts Lawrence Sterne’s 18^th century novel.

-         Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis a graphic Bildungsroman is another example of life writing and a strong political statement against the misogynistic regime in Iran, told in a stripped-down drawing style that amplifies the meaning and message of its pictures.

-         The final text analysed in the handbook is Grant Morrison’s mini-series Flex Mentallo, which offers an interesting view into Morrison’s unique imaginative way of creating comics, including his semi-autobiographical history of comic books Supergods. Morrison’s equation of his own life with the history of comics reflects once more on what has been said so far, but some of his more conventional texts, like New X-Men or Batman could have been included too.

These exclusions, of course, could start a discussion about why certain texts and authors—for example Mike Mignola, Scott Snyder, Jonathan Hickman, Eric Powell, or Garth Ennis—have been omitted and why texts from the Silver Age or Bronze Age play no real role in the close reading section. Likewise, European graphic fiction like the Franco-Belgian bande dessinée, besides Tintin, could also have been included more, yet the texts analyzed nevertheless present a well-chosen overview of Anglophone graphic fiction together with a thorough overview of the different theoretical approaches. In a way, the impossibility of including every important text or sub-genre only proves how wide the field of comics and graphic narratives has become. Bearing this in mind, this handbook of no less than 600+ pages is a valiant effort. There is, however, one misgiving in that there are very few illustrations throughout the book, which often makes it difficult to follow the argument if you have not read the text being analyzed.



Ultimately, one must concur with its back cover quote:

“It will prove to be an indispensable handbook for a large readership, ranging from researchers and instructors to students and anyone else with a general interest in this fascinating medium.”