Tag Archives: History

The prevalent academic approach to the study of comics and graphic novels might be understood as one that defines itself by negation; scholars have focused on those formal qualities that differentiate sequential art from poetry or prose in order to create a theoretical vocabulary that might serve the discipline. However, for a scholar such as myself coming to comics studies from a different disciplinary background – that of book history and publishing studies – such a valorisation seems intriguing in the face of the form’s insistent materiality, especially in the commitment of this approach to structuralist readings of image and text. Examining this tension becomes particularly crucial at a time when new technologies and digital transformations are challenging the very notion of the book, for two specific reasons. Firstly, the attachment to the codex form, which I call “container nostalgia,” has interesting ramifications for comic book culture, given that part of the enthusiasm of the comic book reader has been, historically, embedded in the collectability and rarity of the comic as artifact as well as for its content. Secondly, the rapid pace of digital developments means that the “basic elements” of the form are thrown into exaggerated relief – as Jenkins and Thorburn put it: “What is felt to be endangered and precarious becomes more visible and more highly valued” (4) – presenting a unique opportunity for comic book scholars to reflect on how to define their objects of study. In this article, I’d like to suggest that this self-reflection might be enriched by using methodologies from the fields of book history and publishing studies to study comics, graphic novels and their contexts. In order to do so, it might be instructive to present a brief history of book history itself, and the circumstances out of which it emerged [1].

Read the rest of this entry »