Why Comics? From Underground to Everywhere

Author(s): Hillary L. Chute

Art

The massive impact that comics have had on our culture becomes more and more clear every day, from the critically acclaimed musical Fun Home, based on Alison Bechdel's groundbreaking comic, to the dozens of superhero films hitting cinemas every year. What is it that makes comics so special? What can this unique art form do that others can't? In Why Comics?, comics scholar Hillary Chute reveals the history of comics, underground comics (or comix), and graphic novels, through deep thematic analysis, and fascinating portraits of the fearless men and women behind them. As Scott McCloud revealed the methods behind comics and the way they worked in his classic Understanding Comics, Chute will reveal the themes that Comics handle best, and how the form is uniquely equipped to explore them. The topics Why Comics? include: * Why Disaster: with such major works focusing on disasters, from Art Spiegelman's work, which covers the Holocaust and 9/11 to Keiji Nakazawa's work covering Heroshima, comics find themselves uniquely suited to convey the scale and disorientation of disaster. * Why Suburbs: through the work of Chris Ware and Charles Burns, Chute reveals the fascinating ways that Comics illustrate the quiet joys and struggles of suburban existence. * Why Punk: With an emphasis on DIY aesthetics and rebelling against what came before, the Punk movement would prove to be a fertile ground for some of the most significant modern cartoonists, creating a truly democratic art form. Chute has created an indispensable guide to comics for those new to the genre, or those who want to understand more about what lies behind their favorite works.

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"In her wonderful book, Hillary L. Chute suggests that we're in a blooming, expanding era of the art... Chute's often lovely, sensitive discussions of individual expression in independent comics seem so right and true." -- New York Times Book Review "Chute clearly has a deep understanding of, experience with, and affinity for comics culture. Best of all, though she analyzes with an academic's rigor and supports her themes with extensive research, she doesn't write like a professor... For anyone who wants a crash course in contemporary comics, or wants to teach one, this is your book." -- Kirkus Reviews, starred review "Chute elevates comics to literature when dissecting panels, text, and drawing techniques in the more than 100 reprints within the book." -- Library Journal (starred review) "Now that Art Spiegelman's Maus and Alison Bechdel's Fun Home have found both commercial and critical success, at last there is a brilliant investigation into the unique powers of the medium." -- National Book Review "As charmingly illustrated and approachable as the works it considers." -- Chicago Tribune "9.5 out of 10" -- Comic Book Bin "When it comes to comics, Hillary Chute asks all the right questions." -- Scott McCloud, Author of Understanding Comics and The Sculptor "Why Comics? is a riveting compendium of history, humor, politics, punk, sex, violence, and the occasional superhero. Hillary Chute has given us the stories behind some of the most subversive literature of our time. You want to read this book." -- Lauren Redniss, MacArthur Fellow and Author of Radioactive and Thunder & Lightning "Hillary Chute is the scholar comics has been waiting for-passionate, eloquent, encyclopedically knowledgeable, and profoundly in sync with the medium." -- Lev Grossman, New York Times bestselling author of The Magicians "Why Comics? is as entertaining as it is revelatory, and Hillary Chute is one of the most engaging thinkers afoot in criticism today. Ideas tumble from these pages." -- Michael Tisserand, author of Krazy: George Herriman, A Life in Black and White "Hillary Chute, who may be to comics studies what Art Spiegelman is to comics, brings her academic rigor to an examination of this oft-underappreciated art form. Her supple, nuanced understanding of how to read comics-not only why-begins with an emphasis on the difference between simply reading comics and knowing how to read comics, and continues with a deep dive into genres and themes." -- Karen Green, Curator for Comics and Cartoons, Columbia University

General Fields

  • : 9780062476807
  • : HarperCollins Publishers Inc
  • : Harper
  • : 0.646
  • : January 2018
  • : 229mm X 152mm X 31mm
  • : January 2018
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : 400
  • : Oct-17
  • : Hardback
  • : Hillary L. Chute