741.5 AND THEN SOME

This enormous series from Salem Press is vital for any academic library that wants its patrons and staff to take a serious approach to comics.

(Note: This review covers the first edition, but a second edition has been published or is underway for each volume in the series.)

Editors Bart Beaty and Stephen Weiner split Critical Survey of Graphic Novels into "Manga" (one volume), "Heroes and Superheroes" (two volumes), and "Independents & Underground Classics" (three volumes). A fourth entry, "History, Theme, and Technique" (one volume), expertly covers an impressive range of topics, from the significance of specific historical periods; to the roles of gender, distribution modes, and public perception in understanding the form; to genre and thematic conventions, and much more. An additional section on the publication process provides a helpful view perspective on works that can often feel like they were born fully formed, and appendices provid…

The Virtual Memories Show is "a podcast about books and life, not necessarily in that order", and we benefit immensely from the fact that host Gil Roth includes comics in his definition of books.

My first exposure to Roth's podcast was in preparing to host R. Sikoryak and Kriota Willberg at the 2017 Durham Comics Fest: I'd hoped finding interviews would help prepare me for working with them at the event. I found other podcast appearances, but Virtual Memories stood above the rest for what it offered. Roth often mentions that he seeks to practice "the art of fine conversation" when talking with his guests, and what results from this approach is deeper and broader than what you get from many other sources. After listening to their episodes, I felt like I'd already met Sikoryak and Willberg, and the event was better for it.

Fans of other podcasts may find themselves a little disoriented on their first time with Virtual Memories because it doesn't have …

With Why Comics?, author Hillary Chute secures her place as one of, if not the most important contemporary voice in American comics scholarship.

Through eleven chapters, Chute chooses various topics and themes that cartoonists have explored since around the 1960s. Like the book itself, chapters are framed as questions -- "Why Punk?", "Why War?", "Why Girls?" -- and each is answered by a look at social and creative factors that have made these topics ideal for the comics medium. She then examines one or two cartoonists who have been particularly deft at creating work that relates to the themes at hand. The selected cartoonists aren't surprising: Art Spiegelman "Why Disaster?", Alison Bechdel for "Why Queer?", etc. While these choices would be a weakness in another writer's hands, Chute uses their familiarity to deepen her inquiries and our resulting enlightenment when it comes to the medium as a whole.

There isn't anything …

She Changed Comics is a stirring rebuttal to the notion that comics is historically a man's business, as well as a call to action to support women creators and uncover their contributions.

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is best known for its First Amendment-related work legal advocacy and education, so She Changed Comics is a bit of of a departure: an overview of contributions made by an under-recognized group of creators. Although censorship is addressed, this book is primarily and introduction to 79 women who have worked in the comics industry since their earliest days. It includes artists, writers, publishers and editors, many performing multiple duties, and with a wide range of artistic styles, stories to tell, and other approaches to the medium.

Most of its subjects are given a two-page bio that covers topics like the basic details of their lives, their often difficult relationships to the industry, their approach to their work, and their influence on contemporaries and suc…