Teaching the Graphic Novel
- Editor: Stephen E. Tabachnick
- Pages: viii & 353 pp.
- Published: 2009
- ISBN: 9781603290616 (Paperback)
“[This book] is an immensely practical guide for anyone faced with teaching graphic narratives, whether in classes dedicated to the graphic novel or as additions to other literature courses.”
—Pedagogy
Graphic novels are now appearing in a great variety of courses: composition, literature, drama, popular culture, travel, art, translation. The thirty-four essays in this volume explore issues that the new art form has posed for teachers at the university level. Among the subjects addressed are
- terminology (graphic narrative vs. sequential art, comics vs. comix)
- the three outstanding comics-producing cultures today: the American, the Japanese (manga), and the Franco-Belgian (the bande dessinée)
- the differences between the techniques of graphic narrative and prose narrative,and between the reading patterns for each
- the connections between the graphic novel and film
- the lives of the new genre’s practitioners (e.g., Robert Crumb, Harvey Pekar)
- women’s contributions to the field (e.g., Lynda Barry)
- how the graphic novel has been used to probe difficult moments in history (the Holocaust, 9/11), deal with social and racial injustice, and voice political satire
- postmodernism in the graphic novel (e.g., in the work of Chris Ware)
- how the American superhero developed in the Depression and World War II
- comix and the 1960s counterculture
- the challenges of teaching graphic novels that contain violence and sexual content
The volume concludes with a selected bibliography of the graphic novel and sequential art.
M. G. Aune
J. P. Avila
Jan Baetens
Anthony D. Baker
Terry Barr
Edward Brunner
James Bucky Carter
Michael A. Chaney
Frank L. Cioffi
Jesse Cohn
Mark Feldman
Christine Ferguson
J. Caitlin Finlayson
Claudia Goldstein
Pamela Gossin
Darren Harris-Fain
Charles Hatfield
Dana A. Heller
Tammy Horn
Rachael Hutchinson
Martha Kuhlman
Alison Mandaville
Chris Matz
Ana Merino
John G. Nichols
Nathalie op de Beeck
Michael D. Picone
Eric S. Rabkin
Elizabeth Rosen
Paul D. Streufert
Laurie N. Taylor
Anne N. Thalheimer
Brian Tucker
Bryan E. Vizzini
Joseph Witek
Introduction (1)
Part I: Theoretical and Aesthetic Issues
Defining Comics in the Classroom; or, The Pros and Cons of Unfixability (19)
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Laocoön and the Lessons of Comics (28)
Reading Time in Graphic Narrative (36)
Mise-en-Page: A Vocabulary for Page Layouts (44)
The Narrative Intersection of Image and Text: Teaching Panel Frames in Comics (58)
Part II: Social Issues
Is There an African American Graphic Novel? (69)
Teaching Maus to a Holocaust Class (76)
Too Weenie to Deal with All of This “Girl Stuff”: Women, Comics, and the Classroom (84)
The Graphic Novel as a Choice of Weapons (91)
Teaching Watchmen in the Wake of 9/11 (99)
Part III: Individual Creators
Chris Ware’s Postmodern Pictographic Experiments (111)
Teaching Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli’s Graphic Novel Adaptation of Paul Auster’s City of Glass (120)
The Urban Studies of Ben Katchor (129)
The Comics as Outsider’s Text: Teaching R. Crumb and Underground Comix (137)
Revisionist Superhero Graphic Novels: Teaching Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Books (147)
Memory’s Architecture: American Studies and the Graphic Novels of Art Spiegelman (155)
Autobifictionalography: Making Do in Lynda Barry’s One Hundred Demons (163)
Snow White in the City: Teaching Fables, Nursery Rhymes, and Revisions in Graphic Novels (172)
Graphic Fictions on Graphic Subjects: Teaching the Illustrated Medical Narrative (179)
The Boundaries of Genre: Translating Shakespeare in Antony Johnston and Brett Weldele’s Julius (188)
Steam Punk and the Visualization of the Victorian: Teaching Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and From Hell (200)
Visualizing the Classics: Frank Miller’s 300 in a World Literature Course (208)
Part IV: Courses and Contexts
Seven Ways I Don’t Teach Comics (217)
Teaching the Graphic Travel Narrative (223)
Violent Encounters: Graphic Novels and Film in the Classroom (230)
Hero and Holocaust: Graphic Novels in the Undergraduate History Classroom (238)
It’s a Word! It’s a Picture! It’s Comics! Interdisciplinary Approaches to Teaching Comics (245)
Comics and the Canon: Graphic Novels, Visual Narrative, and Art History (254)
Teaching Manga: Considerations and Class Exercises (262)
The Cultural Dimensions of the Hispanic World Seen through Its Graphic Novels (271)
A Cultural Approach to Nonnarrative Graphic Novels: A Case Study from Flanders (281)
Interdisciplinary Meets Cross-Cultural: Teaching Anime and Manga on a Science and Technology Campus (288)
Teaching Franco-Belgian Bande Dessinée (299)
Part V: Resources
Supporting the Teaching of the Graphic Novel: The Role of the Academic Library (327)
A Selected Bibliography of the Graphic Novel and Sequential Art (333)
Notes on Contributors (341)
Index (345)
“In short, Teaching the Graphic Novel is the kind of work that one consults again and again. . . . [This] volume will instruct and inspire a new generation of comic enthusiasts and critics alike.”
—Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association
“This book is a large step forward, and the MLA as well as Stephen Tabachnick must be congratulated for the effort.”
—ELT Journal
“[T]his collection shows that extended graphic narratives can be as replete with signification, literary and visual allusions, and social and cultural significance as more conventional works of canonical literature.”
—College Literature
“Professors and teachers thinking of introducing graphic narratives in their courses, or of creating a dedicated class for this popular genre, will do well to consult it and profit from the generous advice of its contributors.”
—Vittorio Frigerio, Belphegor
“This excellent collection lays out an impressive series of methods and techniques for teaching graphic novels. It comes at just the right moment, as the graphic novel has matured into an influential art form that has made a place for itself on the contemporary cultural scene.”
—M. Thomas Inge, Randolph-Macon College
