The Rise of the American Comics Artist: Creators and Contexts

Contents

Contents ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction: In the Year 3794 —PAUL WILLIAMS AND JAMES LYONS I: Marketing Creators 3 1. How the Graphic Novel Changed American Comics —STEPHEN WEINER 14 2. “Is this a book?” DC Vertigo and the Redefinition of Comics in the 1990s —JULIA ROUND 31 3. Signals from Airstrip One: The British Invasion of Mainstream American Comics —CHRIS MURRAY 46 Interview: Jeff Smith II: Demo-Graphics: Comics and Politics 57 4. State of the Nation and the Freedom Fighters Arc —GRAHAM J. MURPHY 68 5. Critique, Caricature, and Compulsion in Joe Sacco’s Comics Journalism —ADAM ROSENBLATT AND ANDREA A. LUNSFORD vi CONTENTS III: Artists or Employees? 90 6. Too Much Commerce Man? Shannon Wheeler and the Ironies of the “Rebel Cell” —JAMES LYONS 103 7. Comics Against Themselves: Chris Ware’s Graphic Narratives as Literature —DAVID M. BALL 124 Interview: Jim Woodring IV: Creative Difference: Comics Creators and Identity Politics 135 8. Questions of “Contemporary Women’s Comics” —PAUL WILLIAMS 150 9. Theorizing Sexuality in Comics —JOE SUTLIFF SANDERS 164 10. Feminine Latin/o American Identities on the American Alternative Landscape: From the Women of Love and Rockets to La Perdida —ANA MERINO V: Authorizing Comics: How Creators Frame the Reception of Comic Texts 179 11. Making Comics Respectable: How Maus Helped Redefine a Medium —IAN GORDON 194 12. “A Purely American Tale”: The Tragedy of Racism and Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth as Great American Novel —PAUL WILLIAMS vii CONTENTS 210 13. “That Mouse’s Shadow”: The Canonization of Spiegelman’s Maus —ANDREW LOMAN 235 Interview: Scott McCloud 243 Contributors 247 Index This page intentionally left blank ...