Critical Directions in Comics Studies

319 Pages·2020·14.81 MB·English

by  Thomas Giddens

Critical Directions in Comics Studies

CRITICAL

DIRECTIONS
IN
COMICS
STUDIES
Edited by
Thomas Giddens
University Press of Mississippi • Jackson
The University Press of Mississippi is the scholarly publishing agency of
the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning: Alcorn State University,
Delta State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi State University,
Mississippi University for Women, Mississippi Valley State University,
University of Mississippi, and University of Southern Mississippi.
www.upress.state.ms.us
The University Press of Mississippi is a member
of the Association of University Presses.
Copyright © 2020 by University Press of Mississippi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing 2020
∞
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020939615
Hardback: 978-1-4968-2899-6
Trade Paperback: 978-1-4968-2900-9
Epub Single: 978-1-4968-2901-6
Epub Institutional: 978-1-4968-2902-3
PDF Single: 978-1-4968-2903-0
PDF Institutional: 978-1-4968-2904-7
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
CONTENTS
Preface: Welcome and Orientation vii
Comics Interlude #1
—Critical Comics Studies: An Origin Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
THOM GIDDENS
1 On Violation: Comic Books, Delinquency, Phenomenology 13
CHRISTOPHER PIZZINO
2 Articulating Health Humanities in Graphic Narratives by
Medical Illustrators 35
LISA DETORA
3 “There Is a Man with a Typewriter”: Deadpool as Existential
Antihero, Breaking the Fourth Wall of Meaningful Existence 54
YASEMIN J ERDEN
4 Theological “Seeing” of Law: Daredevil, Christian Iconography,
and Legal Aesthetics 77
TIMOTHY D PETERS
Comics Interlude #2
—Let’s Get Critical! 103
LYDIA WYSOCKI
5 The Freedom of the Press: Comics, Labor, and Value in the
Birmingham Arts Lab 107
MAGGIE GRAY
6 Hate, Marginalization, and Tramp-Bashing: A Raceclass
and Critical Realist Approach to Researching British
National Identity through Comics 134
LYDIA WYSOCKI
vi Contents
7 Comics and Heteroglossia 158
PAUL FISHER DAVIES
8 Women’s Cartoons and Comics in the Twenty-First Century:
How the Humor in Simone Lia’s Fluffy Challenges Gendered
Assumptions around Parenting 179
NICOLA STREETEN
9 Politicization of Life and Auto-Thanatopolitics in V for Vendetta 195
VLADISLAV MAKSIMOV
Comics Interlude #3
—The Nested Text 215
PAUL FISHER DAVIES
10 “Destructive Interim Formation” 221
THOMAS GIDDENS
11 The Mask as Anti-Apparatus: On the Counter-Dispositif of
V for Vendetta 238
PETER GOODRICH
12 “So You Still Believe in the Future?” Socialist Utopianism and
Marxist Critique in The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia 263
MATTHEW J A GREEN
13 The Parable of Bill Ayers: Comics, Allegory, and
Critical Legal Thinking 288
ADAM GEAREY
Contributors 310
Index 312
Critical Directions in Comics Studies

Comics Interlude #1
Critical Comics Studies
An Origin Story
BY THOM GIDDENS