The US Graphic Novel

Abstract

Provides a history of US graphic novels from the 1910s to the present Emphasises the relationship between comics and other media Explains the role that fans, reviewers and critics have played in constructing the concept of a comic that is also a novel Substantively covers the pre-1980s history of the graphic novel Suitable as secondary reading on taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses Written in an accessible manner with key terms explained when first used Provides analyses of Lynd Ward’s Gods’ Man, Samuel R. Delany and Howard Chaykin’s Empire, Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Jeremy Love’s Bayou This book analyses the way that changes in the comics industry, book trade and webcomics distribution have shaped the publication of long-form comics. The US Graphic Novel pays particular attention to how the concept of the graphic novel developed through the twentieth century. Art historians, journalists, and reviewers debated whether it was possible for a comic to be a novel – debates that accelerated after the term ’graphic novel’ was coined by the comics fan Richard Kyle in 1964. This study underlines the proximity of the graphic novel to other media, showing that this cultural form is not only the meeting place between periodical comics and books, but that graphic novels are in dialogue with films, posters and computer screens.